Variant texts
Submitted by Dirk Gently on March 10 2000 19:58:30
In reply to Re: How's your German? submitted by Rex Infinity on March 10 2000 15:44:50
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I see the problem now. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, biblical archeaology began in earnest, and all sorts of variant biblical texts were discovered. The Dead Sea Scrolls are examples of document finds which have shed new light on the transmission of the biblical text through the ages. Although many of the documents are basically heretical, there were also copies of many Old Testament books. These were sealed away sometime in the 1st century A.D. The interesting thing is that there are some textual differences between these (and other ancient texts) and the standard Masoretic text of the Old Testament, which was actually only compiled by Jewish scribes in the 10th century A.D. And often, where the DSS differ from the Masoretic text, they agree with the Septuagint, which was the Greek translation of the OT used almost exclusively by the writers of the NT and the early Church. The King James Version is an English translation that uses a collection of NT documents known as the "Textus Receptus" -- basically, the version of the Greek New Testament that had been preserved and handed down. In the "received text," it only mentions the Father's name in Revelation 14:1. However, even in Luther's time, versions of the Revelation had been found which were earlier (in other words, older) than the Textus Receptus. Luther must have used these versions in his German translation. Most modern English translations do, too. I checked three English Catholic versions, and they also mention "his name and his Father's name," along with the ASV and RSV and the Louis Segond French version. The Russian Orthodox version agrees with the KJV. I can't hope to explain the arcane process of textual criticism, since I don't really understand it myself, but that's likely why the difference. In other words, it's not just a matter of "insofar as it is translated correctly" -- it's also a question of which variant do we give the most weight to? Don't forget that every single copy of the scriptures was hand-written, and there are over 2000 surviving documents to compare. Dirk |
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