HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE.

Matamata Record, Volume XVI, Issue 1443, 20 July 1933, Page 1

HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE.

THREE GREAT TREASURES.

Upon Which Experts Work.

The second article on “ How We Got Our Bible,” being an address given by the Rev. J. W. Burley to the Matamata Church of England Men’s Society, is as follows: —

There were about 1500 manuscripts in the original Greek tongue in existence. These were of different ages and condition. The question of determining the age of manuscripts is very difficult, and the chief guide was the form of the letters. The oldest and therefore the most valuable were written in capital letters, and without division between the words. It was as we should write: “ NowwhenJesusChrist wasborn.” These were called uncial manuscripts. The more modern were written in a running hand like our writing, and were called “ cursive. In later manuscripts the initial letters often had ornamentation, while the very early ones were plain. Uncial Manuscripts.

The most valuable were the plain, old, faded uncial manuscripts, and amongst these were the three greatest treasures of the Christian church —the three oldest copies of the Bible in the world. These were named the Vatican, the Sinaitic and the Alexandrian manuscripts, and were used largely in modern Bible version, but were not available to those who prepared the Authorised Version in 1611. Curiously these three oldest manuscripts were in possession of the three great branches of the Christian church. The Alexandrian belonged to Protestant England, and was in the British Museum. The Vatican manuscript was in the Vatican Library, Rome, and the Sinaitic, discovered less than 100 years ago in the ancient library of St. Catherine’s Convent at the foot of Mt. Sinai, by a German, Dr. Tischendorf, was in possession of the Greek Church at St. Petersburg (Leningrad).

The Vatican manuscript had been in the Vatican Library for 500 years. Jealously guarded, it had only become accessible of recent years through excellent facsimilies made by order of Pope Pius IX. It consisted of about 700 leaves of the finest vellum, about a foot square, and bound in book form. Unfortun-j ately some parts were missing. j These parts were Genesis 1-46, j Psalms 105-137; and all after j Hebrews 9-14 of the New Testament. Each page had three columns and the writing was in capitals j without spacings. The original j writing on the parchment had been traced over by some person who j thought it might fade away/ This j was presumed to have been done 1 about the 10th century.

Alexandrian Manuscript. The Alexandrian manuscript, in the British Museum, was the youngest of the three, and was presented by Cyril Lucar, Patriach of Constantinople, in A.D. 1628, to Charles 1., and therefore 'l7 years too late for use in the publication of the ; Authorised Version. An Arabic inscription on the first sheet states that it was written “ by the hand of Thekla, the Martyr.” The Old Testament is almost complete, only 10 leaves being missing. The New Testament was more defective, 25 leaves from the beginning of St. Matthew, two from St. John and three from the Corinthians being missing. The manuscript: was written in two columns, and facsimiles are in all the chief libraries. Codex of Ephraem.

The Codex of Ephraem was a curious document, stained, soiled, seemingly valueless and written in a quite modern hand. Close examination, however, revealed that under the modem writing were the faint faded lines of old uncial letters. It was a very old document and because of the cost of parchment had been scrubbed and cleaned to allow of its use again. This was often done in early times by people who did not realise the value of eail> documents. In this case a \ aluable copy of the old Scriptures was coolly scrubbed out to make room

for some theological discourse dur- , ing the 12th century. The old writings, however, had not been completely erased, and were noticed about 200 years ago and preserved. About 1834 a chemical preparation was used and the manuscript to a certain extent revived. \lt was then seen to contain a considerable portion of both the Old and New Testaments. The manuscript was now in the Royal Library at Paris. TWe Codex Bezae. The Codex Bezae, in the University Library at Cambridge, was presented by Theodore Beza, a friend of Calvin, with a statement in his own handwriting that he got it in 1562 from the' monastery of St. Irenocus at Lyons. This document showed a part of a very old Greek and very old Latin Bible, which did not always correspond. The work of early correctors was visible, showing their scraping, scrubbings and interpolations, many of which were unsupported by other manuscripts. One such was interpolated between the 4th and sth verses of St. Luke, chapter 6. It reads: “The same day seeing a certain man working on the Sabbath He said unto him, ‘ Man if indeed thou i knowest what thou art doing happy art thou. But if thou knowest not, thou art accursed and a transgressor of the law.’ ”