Do We Have the Original New Testament?

Since the death of his mentor, Professor Emeritus Bruce Metzger of Princeton University, the author of our textbook, Bart Ehrman of UNC-CH, is recognized as a leading expert in the discipline of "Textual Criticism." This matter is so important to our understanding of the NT that I have moved it to the beginning of our study and associated it with the equally important problem of the Canon. These two basic issues are critical to the historical approach to the NT.

Contrary to the opinion of some, the New Testament did not descend from heaven already translated infallibly into perfectly correct King James English. All the books of the NT were originally written in Greek, and underwent (and are still undergoing) a tortured and extremely convoluted millenia-long journey, copied by hand by generations of scribes, most of whom were very theologically biased Christian monks, and few of whom were very accomplished in the Greek language.

About 6000 manuscripts containing various parts of the Greek NT have survived these arduous circumstances, and no two of them are exactly the same. Ehrman estimates that there are between 200,000 and 300,000 differences among these manuscripts. It is noteworthy that the oldest Greek manuscripts containing substantial portions of the NT date to about 200 CE and the oldest complete copy of the NT that exists is Codex Sinaiticus, which dates to about 350 CE. And Codex Sinaiticus has 29 books; the two extra books are the Epistle of Barnabus and the Shepherd of Hermas.

In your Textbook, Read Carefully and Consider these Major Themes:

What to Expect, p. 487

The Manuscripts of the New Testament, pp. 487-492, Box 30.1,
See the pictures after p. 468

Note Box 30.2, p. 493:

Today's NT chapter divisions date to the 13th century;

the verse divisions were added in the 16th century

The two major types of changes among the manuscripts, pp. 492-494

Note especially the theologically and dogmatically driven changes

The criteria used to establish the original text, pp. 495-498

Most textual critics consider it to be an impossible task

Study the significant examples of variant readings, pp. 490-492, Box 30.4

The popular Gospel story of Jesus and the Adulteress

was not original to the Gospel of John but

was added to it centuries after it was written.

even more surprising:
the story of the Adulteress may be more original
than most of the Gospel of John itself!
See pp. 1-16 of my article,
Caught in the Act: Mary and the Adulteress,
published in the Belgian Academic Journal Apocrypha (Brepols, 15, 2004).

The last 12 verses of the Gospel of Mark
- because the original ending was inappropriate for the purposes of Christian catechism.
  (See the web page that I have prepared on Mark 16:9-20)

The explicit reference to the Holy Trinity in the NT in 1 John 5:7-8
was inserted into the text of the letter 15 centuries after it was written.

Learn the Key Terms on p. 499 with special reference to their original context in the chapter