Are the Alexandrian manuscripts corrupt?

[postroad]

All I know is that I can read and understand the NIV a lot better.

What makes it a corrupt translation based on the Alexandrian manuscript?

[historia]

All I know is that I can read and understand the NIV a lot better.

What makes it a corrupt translation based on the Alexandrian manuscript?

The claim that the NIV is based on "corrupt Alexandrian manuscripts" is something you might hear from a King James Only advocate. But I think that argument is both misleading and wrong.

First, it's misleading in that this claim is directed solely at the New Testament.

The NIV also translates the Old Testament, of course, but for some reason KJV Only advocates don't have a lot to say about that. Modern translations of the Old Testament are not based on the LXX, but rather a modern, critical version of the Masoretic text. The NIV and other translations use the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, and occasionally, where warranted, other versions of the Old Testament, including the LXX and Dead Sea Scrolls.

Second, it's misleading in that the NIV is not based solely on Alexandrian manuscripts.

The NIV, like virtually all modern translations, is based on the Nestle-Aland and United Bible Societies' critical Greek text of the New Testament. This is a modern, scholarly reconstruction of the 'original' Greek text.

It's important to note that this text follows a methodology called 'reasoned eclecticism'; that is, it does not rely upon a single manuscript or family of manuscripts, but rather is based on a critical examination of all extant Greek manuscripts, as well as early translations of the New Testament into Latin, Syriac, Coptic, and other languages.

Now, it is true that the NA/UBS text draws heavily from a set of early Greek manuscripts called the Alexandrian text type, since these are generally considered to be the most reliable. But there are a number of occasions where the editors preferred readings from other manuscript families, including those of the "Western" (or D-text) and Byzantine text types. So it's something of a misnomer to say any modern translation is based on an "Alexandrian" text.

Finally, the Alexandrian manuscripts are not "corrupt."

In fact, just the opposite is true. They are the earliest Greek manuscripts we possess, and show clear signs of being more carefully copied than the "Western" manuscripts, which also date back to the earliest time period, but often contain scribal errors, expansions, harmonizations, and interpolations. The Alexandrian manuscripts, by contrast, are relatively free from these tendencies, and often contain shorter and terser readings which can only have occurred if they are, in fact, the older, if not original, reading.

So, if you are reading the NIV, you are not reading a "corrupt" Bible.

[postroad]

[Replying to post 21 by historia]

Thank you for that information. I always thought it was better to read a Bible I could understand.

The writing style of the KJV and our distance from understanding that style and terminology keep many people in a state of uncertainty to what the text states anyway.

[historia]

Hello, Wolfbitn. I have to take issue with several things you've written here. This may come across harsher than I actually intend, but please don't take it that way.

There are 3 types of early manuscript... the youngest are the Byzantine and they come up through the middle ages.

The middle group is the Alexandrian. This is of course because most all of the fragments and such come from Alexandria Egypt and the immediate surrounding area. This group is EXTREMELY flawed and differs greatly from the Byzantine AND the earliest group, called the "Western manuscripts".

The WESTERN manuscripts are in fact the oldest.

I share your understanding that there are, generally speaking, three different families of texts among the early Greek New Testament manuscripts, and that the Byzantine text-type developed later than the other two.

But I think your assertion that the 'Western' (or D-type) manuscripts are the oldest is unfounded. Or, more precisely, that your claim that the Alexandrian text-type developed later than the Western text-type is unfounded. Both the Western and Alexandrian text-types date back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries, and are therefore roughly contemporary.

In fact, if we look at the extant New Testament papyri, we see that a great majority of the earliest papyri are of the Alexandrian text-type, including: P90 (c.150), P75 and P4 (c.175-225), P32, P46, P64, P66, P77, and P103 (c. 200), and many others. The Western text-type, by comparison, is represented in far fewer early manuscripts, although it is witnessed by translations into Old Latin and Syriac, as well as some citations in patristic sources.

What we find too is that the western and the byzantine are extremely close to identical.

This is also true when you compare the Alexandrian text-type to the Western and Byzantine texts. The differences between any of the text-types is actually quite small -- which makes the claim that the Alexandrian text is somehow "EXTREMELY flawed" or "corrupt" rather strained.

The alexandrian, being sandwiched in time in the middle, suddenly sprung up right around the time of the death of Origen, the great pagan teacher at the school of alexandria.

Here you are simply mistaken. As we've already seen in the papyri above, there are several examples of the Alexandrian text-type nearly a century before Origen.

Origen was a pagan teacher who taught regarding ancient myth, roman and greek mythology, developing his own belief system. When Christianity sprung up, he added it to his theology. He is the father of "universalist" theology, which postulates we arent responsible for our sin and that everyone including satan himself will one day be saved. Monstrous salvation.

No offense, but in my opinion this is a bad mis-characterization. Origen is one of the most important and influential Christian theologians of the Early Church. I can't imagine why you would call him a 'pagan'.

It is true that Origen taught some ideas that were later deemed heretical. Of course, virtually every author of the early Church taught things that would be at odds with modern-day fundamentalist Protestantism, so I'm not sure why we're singling out Origen here.

His beliefs show through in his version of the manuscripts to a large degree by the MANY omissions such as the johnanine comma and the last half of the last chapter of Mark, several entire books etc. To a large degree also the differences in translation of key words. The teaching that Jesus was not the Son of God springs from the alexandrain.

Several comments here. First, the Alexandrian text-type is not "Origen's version," per my comments above about the earlier papyri.

Second, to say that there are "omissions" from the Alexandrian manuscripts is simply begging the question. I would argue that the Comma Johanneum, the Pericope Adulterae, the longer ending of Mark, and so on, are interpolations (= additions) to the text, not "omissions." By your standard, the Western text has several "omissions" as well.

The Comma Johanneum is a particularly egregious example here. It does not appear in any Greek manuscript until the 16th Century, and then only among a handful of copies, often as a marginal note. It appears to have originated with an interpolation into the Latin Vulgate, probably no earlier than the 5th or 6th Century. It is extremely unlikely to be original. Why, then, is it in the King James?

Third, I'm curious which "several entire books" you think are missing from the Alexandrian text-type.

Finally, the Alexandrian manuscripts regularly refer to Jesus as the Son of God. John 1:34, to pick a verse more or less at random, says specifically "This is the Son of God" in P75 and Vaticanus, two very important Alexandrian manuscripts. Of course, John 1:1-3 reads the same in all Greek manuscripts. How then can the idea that Jesus was not the Son of God "spring" from these texts?

The king James truly is a superior translation.

In my humble (but accurate) opinion, it is not. Not only is it written in an archaic English that many today find difficult to understand, but it's New Testament translation is based on only a half-dozen late Greek manuscripts plus some conjectural emendations unsupported by any manuscripts.

Modern versions, by comparison, are not only more readable and understandable, but they are based on a modern critical edition of the Greek text that has taken into account literally thousands of Greek manuscripts, most of which are far older than the ones the King James translators had access to.

I'm not a big fan of the NIV personally. But the RSV, NRSV, and ESV are far superior to the KJV.

[nothead]

[Replying to post 21 by historia]

I believe the Alexandrian tradition sprouted the 'monogenes God' version of Jn 1:18.

This was a wayward influence which was not at first pronounced in the west.

[Student]

[Replying to post 21 by historia]

I believe the Alexandrian tradition sprouted the 'monogenes God' version of Jn 1:18.

This was a wayward influence which was not at first pronounced in the west.

[font=Times New Roman] What is your evidence that [monogen"s theos] is an interpolation in the Alexandrian text?

As far as I can ascertain, the only extant witness to John 1:18 in the Western Text is Codex Sinaiticus [John 1:1"8:38 is considered to be of the Western Text type].

According to the critical text [Nestl Aland 27 / UBS GNT 4] the original scribe of Sinaiticus included [monogen"s theos] in the verse which would tend to undermine your argument. [/font]