This basically is the background for the King James Version. Now, by the way, did the King James translators, know about Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, or Alexandrianus and the answer is no. They had no clue, Sinaiticus was only found in around 1865. So it was like 2-300 years later that these uncial manuscripts came and that people knew about them. So I fault the King James translators, they did the best with what they had. They had a don’t lot of minuscules. So they used the minuscules. We know today that the minuscules are the latest, they came you know 1000 AD, so much later. got much earlier they’re We’ve and much better documents now today, and able to coordinate 1000s of them. The we’re King translators did not have computers and other things that they can coordinate James’ manuscripts. AF. Evaluating Manuscripts [84:02-86:58] Here are some rules for evaluating manuscripts. These are rules that a person like Bruce Metzger at Princeton will use to evaluate. got two manuscripts and they You’ve have different readings, one says one thing, and another says another. How do you evaluate it? Well, one way you do is you say the earlier the manuscript is the better. not necessarily always the case but most of the time rather have the document That’s I’d written in 200 AD rather than one written in 1200AD because if written that’s that’s it’s in 1200AD been copied and copied over, every time it gets copied over going it’s you’re to have more likelihood of someone making some mistakes. Where earlier something’s 200 it even been copied once or twice and have that much propensity to hasn’t doesn’t error. So the earlier is the better. Not always necessarily the truth, but a general that’s rule. The wider geographical spread is better. Let me give an example of this. Let’s suppose got a thousand manuscripts in Boston, and let me say, they read the text you’ve one way: God so loved the Okay? And there are a thousand manuscripts that “For world.” had it God so loved the What happens if you have five manuscripts that are “For world.” from New York, five manuscripts that are from, say Philadelphia, five manuscripts let’s
This basically is the background for the King James Version. Now, by the way, did the King James translators, know about Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, or Alexandrianus and the answer is no. They had no clue, Sinaiticus was only found in around 1865. So it was like 2-300 years later that these uncial manuscripts came and that people knew about them. So I don’t fault the King James translators, they did the best with what they had. They had a lot of minuscules. So they used the minuscules. We know today that the minuscules are the latest, they came you know 1000 AD, so they’re much later. We’ve got much earlier and much better documents now today, and we’re able to coordinate 1000s of them. The King James’ translators did not have computers and other things that they can coordinate manuscripts. AF. Evaluating Manuscripts [84:02-86:58] Here are some rules for evaluating manuscripts. These are rules that a person like Bruce Metzger at Princeton will use to evaluate. You’ve got two manuscripts and they have different readings, one says one thing, and another says another. How do you evaluate it? Well, one way you do is you say the earlier the manuscript is the better. That’s not necessarily always the case but most of the time I’d rather have the document that’s written in 200 AD rather than one that’s written in 1200AD because if it’s written in 1200AD it’s been copied and copied over, every time it gets copied over you’re going to have more likelihood of someone making some mistakes. Where something’s earlier 200 it hasn’t even been copied once or twice and doesn’t have that much propensity to error. So the earlier is the better. Not always necessarily the truth, but that’s a general rule. The wider geographical spread is better. Let me give an example of this. Let’s suppose you’ve got a thousand manuscripts in Boston, and let me say, they read the text one way: “For God so loved the world.” Okay? And there are a thousand manuscripts that had it “For God so loved the world.” What happens if you have five manuscripts that are from New York, five manuscripts that are from, let’s say Philadelphia, five manuscripts
Hildebrandt_NTLit_Lecture04.docx