Scriptural Translation And Interpretation

I have heard people say they are suspicious about the accuracy of traditions that are passed down by word-of-mouth. Anyone familiar with the “telephone” game knows that in any given crowd if one person passes a sentence to another person and so forth, that the resulting sentence by the 10th or 20th person sometimes bears […]

Would it surprise you to know that the bible read in the fourth century was not the same as the modern bible?  Most of it is the same, but there are some surprising differences. Codex Sinaiticus is called the world’s oldest bible (earlier manuscripts were probably burned by persecuting Romans, or simply didn’t survive the

In More Manuscript Basics; Using a Textual Commentary, I discussed how the bible was transmitted up to the point where Greek New Testament editions were created, starting with Erasmus up until recent editions by the United Bible Society.  We finished by looking at an example of a textual variant in a textual commentary. Next we

In There are Numerous Variations in the Texts From Which We Get The Bible; Using an Interlinear Text To See Them, I give a very simple overview of the problems of transmission of Bible text over the ages.  The process of biblical textual study is actually more complex.  The Introduction to Bruce M. Metzger’s A

Critics of Christianity point to the variations, discrepancies, and even forgeries in the bible as one of their points to disprove Christianity.  Unfortunately, some of their criticisms are true. There are verses in the bible that are deliberately inserted, omitted,  and/or changed. But, the point of the critic that finding errors in biblical texts absolutely

Most of us are aware that we don’t have any original texts of the books of the bible.  There are a number of reasons for this.  One reason is that there were book destructions, i.e., book burnings done by governments who wanted to remove what they considered offensive religions from their society.  One such destruction

There are not as many tools for working with the Septuagint as with the KJV or the NIV.  There is a concordance listed on Amazon, but it is expensive and written in Greek.  If you want to search for a word in the LXX you can use the excellent free resource, the E-Sword program.  The

The concept of witness was important in OT times. Witnesses served to verify facts, agreements, deals, and guilt or innocence. This verification can be seen in Genesis 31: And now come, let us make a covenant, I and thou; and let it be for a witness between me and thee. And Jacob took a stone,