Documents of the Bible Some helpful definitions The Tanakh (also Tenakh or Tenak) is the Bible used in The Old Testament of the Peshitta was translated from Judaism. The name "Tanakh" is a Hebrew the Hebrew, probably in the second century. The New acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Testament of the Peshitta, which originally excluded Tanakh's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah certain disputed books, had become the standard by the ("Teaching," also known as the Five Books of Moses), early 5th century, replacing two early Syriac versions of Nevi'im("Prophets") and Ketuvim ("Writings") - the gospels. hence TaNaKh. The elements of the Tanakh are incorporated in various forms in Christian Bibles, in A Codex (Latin for block of wood, book; plural codices) which, with some variations, it is called the "Old is a book in the format used for modern books, with Testament." According to the Talmud, much of the separate pages bound together and given a cover. It contents of the Tanakh were compiled by the "Men of was a Roman invention that replaced the scroll. The the Great Assembly" by 450 BCE, and have since term is now used only for manuscripts (hand-written), remained unchanged. produced from Late Antiquity through the Middle Ages. Novum Testamentum Graece is the Latin name of A New Testament papyrus is a copy of a portion of the Greek language version of the New Testament. The the New Testament made on papyrus. To date, over one first printed edition was produced by Erasmus. Today hundred and twenty such papyri are known. In general, the designation Novum Testamentum Graece normally they are considered the earliest and best witnesses to refers to the Nestle-Aland editions, named after the the original text of the New Testament. scholars who led the critical editing work. The text, edited by the Institut für neutestamentliche A New Testament uncial is a copy of a portion of the Textforschung (Institute for New Testament Textual New Testament in Greek or Latin capital (or majuscule) Research) is currently in its 27th edition, abbreviated letters, written on parchment or vellum. The style of NA27. NA27 is used as the basis of most contemporary writing called Biblical Uncial orBiblical Majuscule. New Testament translations, as well as being the A New Testament minuscule is a copy of a portion of standard for academic work in New Testament studies. the New Testament written in a small, cursive Greek Textus Receptus (Latin: "received text") is the name script (developed from Uncial). Most of the minuscules subsequently given to the succession of printed Greek are still written on parchment. Paper was used since the texts of the New Testament which constituted the 12th century. translation base for the original German Luther Bible, for A Lectionary is a book or listing that contains a the translation of the New Testament into English by collection of scripture readings appointed for Christian or William Tyndale, the King James Version, and for most Judaic worship on a given day or occasion. other Reformation-era New Testament translations throughout Western and Central Europe. Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pithof the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus,[1] a The Septuagint or simply "LXX", is the Koine Greek wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta. version of the Hebrew Bible, translated in stages between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC in Alexandria. It Parchment is a thin material made from calfskin, is the oldest of several ancient translations of the sheepskin or goatskin. Its most common use is as the Hebrew Bible into Greek, lingua franca of the eastern pages of a book, codex or manuscript. It is distinct from Mediterranean from the time of Alexander the Great leather in that parchment is not tanned, but stretched, (356-323 BC). The word septuaginta means "seventy" in scraped, and dried under tension, creating a stiff white, Latin and derives from a tradition that seventy (or yellowish or translucent animal skin. The finer qualities seventy-two) Jewish scholars translated the Pentateuch of parchment are called vellum. It is very reactive with (Torah) from Hebrew into Greek for Ptolemy II changes in relative humidity and is not waterproof. Philadelphus, 285–246 BC. The Peshitta (Syriac: simple, common) is the standard version of the Christian Bible in theSyriac language. A basic timeline ~443 Completion of all the books of the original Hebrew manuscripts which make up the 39 books of the Old B.C. Testament ~285 The Septuagint Pentateuch was written. It is the oldest written Greek version of the Pentateuch. B.C. ~70 Completion of the Greek manuscripts which make up the 27 books of the New Testament A.D. 400 Jerome converts the Greek and Hebrew texts into the Latin Vulgate, which is used by Roman Catholic A.D. church. It became the definitive and officially promulgated Latin version of the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church. In the 13th century it came to be called versio vulgata, which means "common translation". There are 76 books in the Clementine edition of the Vulgate Bible: 46 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New Testament, and three in the Apocrypha. 1008 Best known (Codex Leningradensis) Masoretic text of complete Old Testament is copied by the Ben Asher family. This test will be used by all future versions of the Bible. Despite how old these texts were, they were still written from one to two thousand years after the original autographs of the Old Testament. 1611 King James Version (known in England as The Authorized Version) is published. King James I (formerly King James VI of Scotland) authorized a new Bible to be created from the Bishop's Bible, The Great Bible, Tyndale's Bible, Coverdale's Bible and Geneva Bible. 50 scholars began in 1607 using the Hebrew Masoretic Text (900 AD) and the Greek Textus Receptus by Erasmus. 1630 Codex Alexandrinus, a 5th century completed Greek New Testament manuscript was brought to England. 1830s Constanin von Tischendorf finds Codex Sinaiticus Greek text in monastery. Codex Sinaiticus is one of the most important hand-written ancient copies of the Greek Bible. It was written in the 4th century, in uncial letters. It came to the attention of scholars in the 19th century at the Greek Monastery of Mount Sinai, with further material discovered in the 20th century, and most of it is today in the British Library. Originally it contained the whole of both Testaments. The Greek Old Testament survived almost complete, along with a complete New Testament, plus the Epistle of Barnabas, and portions of The Shepherd of Hermas. 1850s Codex Vaticanus of Greek text dated 325 AD was found in The Vatican's library, where it had been since 1481, but not made available until now. It is written in Greek, on vellum, with uncial letters. It is one of the best manuscripts of Greek Bible. Codex Sinaiticus is its only one competitor. Until the discovery by Tischendorf of the Codex Sinaiticus, it was without a rival in the world. Early Discovery of thousands of papyri in Egypt showed that most documents written between 200-300 AD were 1900s written in Koine (common) Greek vs. the poetic form of Greek used by poets. This was the language of the people. This prompted scholars to translate from the Elizabethan English to the current language of the people. 1947 Discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls gives 1000 yr older translations of major part of Old Testament. These were written between 250 BC and 70 AD. The scrolls are very similar to the Masoretic text, which confirms that the Masoretes took great care in its development. Other discoveries throughout the 20th century improve knowledge about the New Testament. They are written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, mostly on parchment, but with some written on papyrus. These manuscripts generally date between 150 BC to 70 AD. The scrolls are most commonly identified with the ancient Jewish sect called the Essenes. The Dead Sea Scrolls are traditionally divided into three groups: "Biblical" manuscripts (copies of texts from the Hebrew Bible), which comprise roughly 40% of the identified scrolls; "Apocryphal" or "Pseudepigraphical" manuscripts (known documents from the Second Temple Period like Enoch, Jubilees, Tobit, Sirach, non-canonical psalms, etc., that were not ultimately canonized in the Hebrew Bible), which comprise roughly 30% of the identified scrolls; and "Sectarian" manuscripts (previously unknown documents that speak to the rules and beliefs of a particular group or groups within greater Judaism) like the Community Rule, War Scroll, Pesher ("Commentary") on Habakkuk, and the Rule of the Blessing, which comprise roughly 30% of the identified scrolls. Accuracy of the New Testament Influence In "The Text Of The New Testament", Kurt Aland and Earlier translations of the Bible, including Barbara Aland compare the total number of variant- the Authorized King James Version, tended to rely on free verses, and the number of variants per page the Byzantine text-type, also known as the Majority among the seven major editions of the Greek NT Text. A number of translations began to use critical (Tischendorf, Westcott-Hort, von Soden, Vogels, Merk, Greek editions, beginning with the translation of Bover and Nestle-Aland) concluding 62.9%, or the Revised Version in England in 1881-1885 (using 4999/7947, agreement.[9] They concluded, "Thus in Westcott and Hort's Greek Text). A comparison of nearly two-thirds of the New Testament text, the twenty translations with 15,000 variant readings shows seven editions of the Greek New Testament which we the following percentages of agreement with the have reviewed are in complete accord, with no Nestle-Aland 27th edition (NA27): differences other than in orthographical details (e.g., the spelling of names, etc.).