The Apostle Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2-2 and says, And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. May God bless once again the reading and the hearing of his word. So we are continuing now our survey of The emergence, the triumph, the challenges to, and the reaffirmation of the confessional text. And we're still in that first part, right? The emergence part. In the last lecture, I noted that we wanted to address at least four historical questions related to the emergence of the traditional text. First, how did we get the Christian scriptures, and should they be treated like any other writings of the ancient or classical era? We answered that one. They are unique. They are inspired, and so cannot be treated as other writings, as uninspired writings. Second, we began to look at the question, how were the scriptures transmitted or copied? And we're going to follow up just a little bit more on that. And then we're going to move on to the third and fourth questions. The third question, how many early Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, including the vaunted papyri, do we actually have? And do these manuscripts necessarily undermine the confessional text? And then the fourth question, why do we have so relatively few early manuscripts of the New Testament? And what are the implications of this for textual study and evaluation? Namely, do we have enough extant manuscripts of the New Testament to justify the entire reconstructionist modern text critical approach? In the previous lecture, again, we looked at the first question and we began to look at the second, but I'm going to continue now looking at that second question. As we continue to address the second question, we will need to face squarely the reality that despite the careful transmission of the scriptures in the early years of Christianity, that there were corruptions that did enter into the transmission of these early manuscripts. Our doctrine of preservation does not ignore that reality. Despite the diligence of the scribes and the possible existence of places where the charters might have been consulted, there were scribal mistakes in copying that were made. Again, the confessional text position or the traditional text position does not deny the existence of scribal mistakes. As the Roman philosopher Seneca said, errare est humanum, to err is human. And we can divide scribal errors into two large categories. First, there were unintentional alterations that were made to the text. And secondly, there were also intentional alterations that were made to the text. Let's talk first about the unintentional alterations. Scholars have identified and classified a number of these. There's a phenomenon where someone is copying something that's called parablepsis, or looking aside. Maybe you've done that if you've ever tried to copy something by hand. You're looking, and you look back, and your pen moves, and you miscopy something. So that happens sometimes when the New Testament manuscripts were hand copied. Sometimes, a scribe would skip a line. There's also a phenomenon called homotilioton, when there might be two lines that had similar endings, and the eye would skip from one to another, and they would leave out a section of the text. There were also errors of omission called haplography. And there was also duplication sometimes called dittography. Codex Sinaiticus. That darling manuscript of Westcott and Hort provides numerous notorious examples of scribal blunders. Several of these are surveyed by D.C. Parker in his book Codex Sinaiticus, The World's Oldest Bible, published by the British Library in 2010. Again, it's good for us to plunder the Egyptians. And if we always quote people who hold our position, that won't gain the respect of people outside. So quote the best that the scholars have. And D.C. Parker explains some of the many scribal blunders in Codex Sinaiticus. Again. First example he offers is that in Codex Sinaiticus, there are seven folios or 14 pages of which five are extant, taken from First Chronicles, which inexplicably appear in the midst of the copying of the non-canonical book of Second Esdras. The scribe just started copying something from First Chronicles and went through 14 pages And he never noticed that he made the mistake, apparently. And this mistake was also overlooked by what Parker calls the in-house corrector. Also in the book of Sinaiticus, in the book of Job, 16 verses, or 187 words, were omitted. Third, the original scribe of Sinaiticus ended John's gospel at John 21, 24, omitting the final verse. And this mistake was corrected by a later scribe. These are just three examples of many from Codex Sinaiticus. So there were unintentional errors of copying. As an aside, one should note, of course, that we should take all this into consideration when evaluating Sinaiticus's various omissions found in the New Testament text. Second, however, there were also intentional alterations. These are much more troubling. These would be places where a scribe or copyist would attempt to alter the text to fit either his sense of how the text should read or what its theology should say. This could include additions, omissions, and alterations. The most notorious corrupter of the text of scripture in the early church was the Gnostic arch heretic, Marcion of Pontus. He died around the year 160. Knust and Wasserman observe in their 2019 book on the Prick of Adulteri, from the standpoint of his detractors, the most notorious theological redactor is surely Marcion. who was repeatedly charged with corrupting the Christian sacred scriptures. Not only did Marcion reject the entire Old Testament, but he was said to have reduced the New Testament to an edited version of Paul's epistles that included only 10 letters. Oddly enough, like many modern New Testament scholars who've studied in the academy, he wanted to jettison the pastoral epistles and say that they were sub-Pauline, non-Pauline. And he also had a mutilated copy of the Gospel of Luke. There's a description of Irenaeus, of Marcion rather, in the writings of Irenaeus of Lyon, who lived from about 130 to about the year 200 in his work against heresies. This is what Irenaeus says about Marcion. He says, besides this, he mutilates the gospel, which is according to Luke. removing all that is written respecting the generation of the Lord, and setting aside a great deal of the teaching of the Lord, in which the Lord is recorded as most clearly confessing that the maker of this universe is his Father. He likewise persuaded his disciples that he himself was more worthy of credit than are those apostles who have handed down the Gospels to us, furnishing them not with the Gospel, but merely a fragment of it. In like manner, too, he dismembered the epistles of Paul, removing all that is said by the apostle respecting that God who made the world to the effect that he is the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And also those passages from the prophetical writings, which the apostle quotes in order to teach us that they announced beforehand the coming of the Lord. So Marcion had Luke, but he took out all the citations from the Old Testament. Because he liked the Old Testament. He was a Gnostic. He thought that the God of the Old Testament was a different God than the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. Irenaeus later accused Marcion of openly mutilating, and he uses a word that's close to the word for circumcising. He accused Marcion of mutilating, cutting away the scriptures. warning his readers that although Marcion seemed to offer them sweetness and beauty, he was in fact extending to his hearers the bitter and malignant poison of the serpent. As an aside, we might note that it has been frequently asserted by historians that Marcion's teaching influenced the early church to define the canonical books. Is it not right also to assert that Marcion may have encouraged early Christians to define and carefully guard not only the canonical books, what Robert called the meta-canon, but also the canonical text, the micro-canon. Think about it. Marcion had a mutilated copy of Luke, but this text was rejected by Irenaeus as inadequate. Marcion's Luke was not the gospel. As Irenaeus puts it, it was only a fragment of it. Canonical Luke must also have had a canonical text. What would Irenaeus say about additions of Mark that exclude Mark 16, 9 through 20? By the way, he writes about Mark in Against Heresies, and he quotes the beginning of the gospel, Mark 1.1, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And then he quotes from the very end of it. It's the earliest record we have of any citation of the gospel of Mark. He knew the traditional ending of the gospel of Mark, and I dare to think that he would have thought that anything that did not include Mark 16, 9 through 20 would not have been properly the Gospel of Mark, but only a fragment of it. In both Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, Again, the two heavyweights that were appealed to by those in the 19th century who created the modern critical text. As well as in several other Greek manuscripts, there occurs a notorious example of tampering with the text at Matthew chapter 27, verse 49, where the following passage is inserted in Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. and another, taking a spear, pierced his side, and water and blood came out." Not only is it clear that these words were taken from John 19.34, but oddly enough, they were also inserted into the text, in the description of the crucifixion of our Lord, before he had actually breathed his last. And so he has him being pierced in the side before he actually gives up his spirit. And so there were examples. Here are examples of intentional alterations of the text, not just parablepsis, not just some error in transcription, but intentionally trying to alter the text. The gravest theological controversies in the first few centuries of the Christian movement concerned Christology. Orthodox views of Christ were threatened by the rise of Arianism, named for Arius, who lived from around 250 to around 336, a heterodox preacher who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, and who denied the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, positing a subordinationist Christology. Arius' great Orthodox opponent was Athanasius, who lived from 296 to 373. Now, Athanasius' views triumphed over Arius' at the Council of Nicaea in 325. But Arius and his followers soon struck back, and Athanasius was exiled in 336. The battle went back and forth throughout the fourth century, with Athanasius being restored and exiled multiple times. Further exiles occurred in 339, 356, 362, 365. So there was a battle that was going on. over Christology, the doctrine of Christ. The lingering evidence of these Christological skirmishes might well be present in the scribal variants found in the New Testament manuscript tradition at passages like John 118, where the traditional text speaks about the only begotten son, whereas the modern critical text replaces that with the only begotten God. And you might think, well, the only begotten God, that, that must be a more high orthodox view. But actually it was probably an Arian view saying that Jesus was a God, and it also denied the doctrine of the eternal generation of the son. The odd thing is, many of the modern translations of the Bible jumped on that bandwagon. Many of the modern translations changed, and there's a bit of a blowback on that. Even the Tyndale House Greek New Testament that came out in 2017, it's otherwise an example of a modern critical text, has returned to the traditional reading at John 118. Or, you might consider 1 Timothy 3.16. where the traditional text reads, God was manifest in the flesh, pheos, whereas the modern critical text reads, he was manifest in the flesh. There's also something there that could have been a scribal error, because you may know that the name God, pheos, sometimes was abbreviated into a noumena sacra, and it was a theta and a closing sigma. And the difference between a theta and an omicron is one little dot in the middle. And so theos, the abbreviation, the nomena sacra, theta, sigma, is very similar to omicron sigma, God or he. But definitely, the traditional text says God. The Lord Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh. That is the traditional reading. Well, again, some of the struggles over that text may have their backdrop in Christological controversies of the fourth century. Again, other efforts to alter the text, I talked about adding to it. Augustine writes, who lived from 354 to 430, he says that in his day, some had taken out the pericope adulteri, John 7.53 through 8.11, because they thought that Christ's teaching in forgiving the adulterous was too lenient. And so he offers an explanation for why some have taken that out of the text. Here's our conclusion now in this second question. Early Christians were careful and meticulous in safeguarding the integrity and authenticity of the books and the texts of the New Testament. This likely involved the laying up of autographa or prototypa in various church centers where these documents could be accurately copied and used as a standard for comparison. We must not assume that the early transmission of the New Testament was done in a careless and haphazard manner just because we can find some examples of this in the limited number of extant early Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. The careful transmission of the traditional New Testament text at this early stage of the faith's expansion was crucial for promoting orthodox belief and practice on a wide-scale basis throughout the Roman world. Third question now we're going to turn to. How many early Greek manuscripts of the New Testament including the vaunted papyri, do we have? And do they, in fact, undermine or contradict the confessional text or the traditional text? The position of the academy might be summarized as follows. We have a wealth of early evidence of the New Testament that is the envy of classical scholars. The earliest Greek manuscripts, the papyri, do not support the traditional text. and neither do the earliest unseals. Though we have witnesses to the traditional text in great abundance found in the so-called majority text, they must be discounted in the end because they are so late and they are too smooth. That is, they are consistently orthodox in outlook to be considered authentic. Well, Let's unpack this a little bit and see if we can approach this from a confessional text position. Let's begin with the notion that we have a wealth of early evidence of the New Testament manuscripts. This has long been an apologetic mantra taken up by evangelical and conservative scholars who have embraced the modern critical text. In the revised edition of his Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism, published by Hendrickson in 1995, J. Harold Greenlee, a professor, missionary, and consultant to the Wycliffe Bible translators, and popularizer of modern text criticism among evangelicals, puts forward this argument as he gives three reasons as to why text criticism is important for the study of the New Testament. He says, in the first place, the New Testament is the most important piece of ancient literature. I agree with him there. In the second place, he says, the number of available manuscripts of the New Testament is overwhelmingly greater than those of any other work of ancient literature. In the third place, he says, the earliest extant manuscripts of the New Testament were written much closer to the date of the original writing than is the case for almost any other piece of ancient literature. Now, if you're a conservative Christian, that might appear comforting, but we'll come back to it in a moment as to why it might not be so comforting for our position. He then notes that in comparison to, for example, the plays of Aeschylus, those are known in only 50 manuscripts. The works of Sophocles are known in only 100 manuscripts. The annals of Tacitus in only one manuscript. The poems of Catullus in three. The works of Euripides, Cicero, Ovid, and Virgil in only a few hundred manuscripts each. In sharp contrast, Greenlee says, there are some 5,000 manuscripts of the New Testament in Greek, 8,000 in Latin, and 1,000 in other languages. My guess is that if you've paid attention, many of you have heard apologetic presentations that have said things like this. In a footnote, however, Greenlee is much more circumspect. when he reports the following regarding the Greek manuscript evidence of the New Testament. He says, these manuscripts vary greatly in the extent of their content. About 200 contain all or most of the New Testament. About 50 contain all except the Gospels. By the way, he never gives the dates for any of those. Then he says approximately 1,500 contain part or all of the Gospels alone. Then he adds, a great number contain only part of a book or a few verses. That gets closer to the truth. With regard to time intervals, Greenlee says that the best copies of many ancient works are dated 1,000 years after their author's death, while the best, as in the case of Virgil, are 300 years after the original was written. These then are the sorts of figures which are usually used by evangelicals and apologetics, especially by those who embrace the modern critical method. It seems impressive if there are more and older copies of the New Testament than other works of antiquity, especially if you're relying on a method based on reconstruction. since the esteem of that method is enhanced if you seemingly have an exhaustive mound of evidence through which you might put on the white lab coat and scientifically sift and come up with, put the right puzzle pieces together and assemble your reconstructed text. But questions can be raised about these figures and their significance. Are these numbers accurate? Have these numbers been fudged? Have they been exaggerated or inflated, especially by those who wish to prop up the modern reconstructionist method of New Testament textual criticism? In the book, The Story of the New Testament Text, Robert F. Hulls, Jr. And that book, by the way, is published by the Society for Biblical Literature, 2010, which is the mainstream academic scholarly society for people who teach academic study of the New Testament, Old Testament, et cetera. Anyways, in his book, written in 2010, he gives a rather divergent account from that of Greenlee. Regarding the Greek New Testament manuscripts, he notes, quote, just over 5,500 Greek New Testament manuscripts have been cataloged. Many of these manuscripts are highly fragmentary, some containing only a few verses or even portions of verses. In fact, he says, only 53 manuscripts contain the complete New Testament, and only one of these is dated as early as the fourth century. That one fourth century complete Greek New Testament manuscript is the Uncial Codex Sinaiticus. Of it, Holes later writes, it is the only majuscule manuscript that contains the entire New Testament. By wholes count, in comparison to Greenlee's numbers regarding ancient works, the number of early New Testament manuscripts in Greek actually seems a little different than the number of manuscripts of Virgil in Latin, a couple of hundred, with the earliest being 300 years after the death of the author. Stanley E. Porter, Another mainstream academic scholar from McMaster Divinity College in Canada, in his book, How We Got the New Testament from Eerdmans in 2013, notes that the numbers with regard to complete New Testament manuscripts are a little better for the minuscules. He writes the following, the number of complete biblical manuscripts written in the minuscule hand is surprisingly small. Out of nearly 3,000 minuscule manuscripts, 2,911 or so, only about seven have a complete Bible. And all of them date to after the 10th century. Let that settle in for a moment. Let's turn our attention especially to the papyri. since some popular apologists have made the claim that with the discovery of the papyri, everything has changed in New Testament criticism. Well, how many papyri do we have? Do the papyri give unqualified support to the modern critical text and thereby completely undermine the confessional text? Again, let's look at what Robert Hull, A credential mainstream academic scholar has to say about these things. He notes that the first New Testament papyrus was discovered and published by Constantine Tischendorf in 1868. So there were no known New Testament papyri until the year 1868. Four more were published in 1898. So in the 19th century, only five papyri of the New Testament were published, were discovered and published. We need to pause here to observe the fact that the rise of the modern critical text in the 19th century did not come about because of papyri discoveries. That is a myth. It wasn't because we had discovered the papyri that the modern critical text was foisted upon us. Lockman in 1831 and Westcott and Hort in 1881 did not base their modern critical Greek New Testaments on papyri fines. The modern critical text was based on the unseals, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus in particular, not the papyri. The notion that the modern critical text came about as a result of papyri fines is a misconception that some popular apologists never seem to tire of perpetuating. Again, the major papyri finds came in the 20th century, not the 19th century. In whole survey of text criticism, he draws on Eldon J. Epp, another very respected mainstream academic New Testament text scholar, who describes the 19th century as the age of the majuscule and the 20th century as the age of the papyri. Again, discussions of papyri are nowhere to be found in the opinions of Westcott and Hort, whose views on texts were dwarfed by their fascination with Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. Hull notes that the big bang for New Testament papyri discoveries occurred in 1897 with the finds that were made at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. By 1930, 42 papyri manuscripts had been published. Eldon J. Epp has called the period from 1930 to 1980 the period of the papyri. The two most notable finds in this period were the Chester Beatty papyri in the early 1930s, which included P46, Papyrus 46, which is the oldest copy of the Pauline writings dating to about the year 200. and the Bodmer papyri in the early 1950s, which included P66, dated to about 200, the oldest witness to John and the oldest not to contain the pericope adulteri, P72, dated to the third century, the oldest witness to first Peter and Jude, and P75, dated to the year 200, the oldest witness to Luke and one of the oldest to John. It was purchased by the Vatican in 2006. There is a key thing to remember. We know absolutely nothing about where these manuscripts came from. We know nothing about the orthodoxy of the churches that used them, circulated them. We know absolutely nothing about them. The numbering of the papyri went up. They would find new papyrus. It would be cataloged. And there was a whole system for cataloging them that developed in the 20th century. It was introduced by a scholar named Caspar Gregory. And then the cataloging of the papyri is kept by the Institute for New Testament Textual Research in Münster, Germany. So how many papyri do we have? Modern Critical Text, the Nestle Elan 28th edition, lists 127 papyri. They're listed P1 through P127. They also include, the NA28, whatever you say about it, it's an incredible scholarly resource. Incredible. It's a master for abbreviation. They give you so much information in a compact space. But they tell you the library location. They tell you the content of the papyri, what passages it covers. And it gives you an estimated date. All those papyri, 1 through 127, the dates range from the 2nd to the 8th centuries, with most dating to the 3rd and 4th centuries. Some contain only a single verse or fragment of a verse. For example, P12 contains Hebrews 1.1. More commonly, they consist of several verses. P98 has Revelation 1, 13 through 20. Others, however, more rarely preserve the texts of entire books. So P72, for example, has most of 1st and 2nd Peter and Jude. For comparison, the Nesolon 26 edition that came out in 1993 had 98 papyri. The 27th edition in 1979 had upped the ante. Oh, sorry. The 26th had 92 papyri. The 27th in 1993 had 98. And now the 2012 NA28 has 127. And I think they've discovered three more. In Yonkin's book written this year, he talks about 130 papyri. So now there are a hundred, you know, we are up to date. There are 130 papyri. But what is the significance of the papyri? I already noted that we must be clear that the modern critical Greek New Testament was based on the unseals, not the papyri. In fact, Eldon J. Upp, in a 1974 Journal of Biblical Literature article, once famously called the 20th century a mere interlude in New Testament textual criticism, since so little had been changed or developed in the consensus regarding the modern critical text since Westcott and Hort in the 19th century. More importantly, it is often falsely assumed that the papyri only reinforce Westcott and Hort and the modern critical text. In fact, the opposite is true. Westcott and Hort said, we've got the original text and the Byzantine text, the late tech, the traditional text did not exist till after the fourth century. Well, When you go back and you look at the papyri, scholars say it reflects what they call a mixed text. Back when they used text types, they said there are Alexandrian readings, there are Western readings, there are Caesarean readings, and there are Byzantine readings in the papyri. The book to read is one by Harry A. Sturtz. The title of the book is The Byzantine Text Type and New Testament Textual Criticism published by Thomas Nelson in 1984. This book includes an appendix which lists 150 papyri citations that reflect Byzantine readings. Sturtz notes that Westcott and Hortz claim that the Byzantine text could not be found any earlier than the third century vanished into thin air in the presence of the papyri. Many contemporary modern text critics, unlike some popular apologists, seem to be increasingly acknowledging the limited value and impact of the papyri in shaping the modern critical text. Stanley Porter, for example, has noted in his book, How We Got the New Testament, quote, the minimal role that the papyri have played in the development of the modern critical Greek New Testament, adding that the major codexes are the basis for our eclectic critical text. And the critical text of New Testament day is only as old as 19th century scholarship. Dirk Jonken offers a similarly lukewarm assessment of the papyri evidence. He writes, even though we know of more than 130 papyrus manuscripts, the total amount of text is not particularly large. Consequently, we do not yet have any papyri attestations for some whole chapters in the New Testament. By the way, there's no papyri evidence for the traditional ending of Mark. None standing against it. None for the Koma Yohanaim. For it or against it. There's simply no papyri evidence for it. He adds, for example, this is back to Yonkin, that we have no papyri at all for Second Timothy. I've read two passages from it today. We have no papyri evidence for it. And we have only the first papyri for First Timothy that was published in 2016, three years ago, P133. It's interesting to look at Yomkin's introduction at a chart that he has there on page 44, where he lists all the manuscripts of any size by century. It lists none for the first century, only three from the second century, then 51 for the third century, and 48 for the fourth century. It strikingly and visibly shows how little extant early evidence we actually have for the New Testament. Now, again, you might say, well, whoa. But this doesn't undermine our position. This undermines those who think that they can use scientific methodology to reconstruct the text as it existed in those early centuries. If this is true for the most widely copies of New Testament books, the Gospels and Paul's letters, think for a second about how even more true this is for the other New Testament books, the Praxapostolos and Revelation. Hull points out, for example, that there are only 306 known Greek manuscripts that contain any portion of the book of Revelation. And only 14 of them are earlier than the ninth century. The oldest papyri of Revelation P98, which I referred to earlier, dates to the second century, but it includes only seven verses. Let's see if we can now offer an assessment of the significance of this evidence. We do not have very many early manuscripts of the New Testament. The Lord did not see fit to preserve these manuscripts. Furthermore, the evidence that does exist does not by any means unilaterally contradict the traditional text. We simply do not have enough early evidence to support a reconstructionist method. This method is wholly inadequate in light of the paucity of the evidence. Fourth historical question. Why do we have so relatively few early manuscripts of the New Testament? And what are the implications of this for textual study and evaluation? So if the scriptures were given by inspiration, they're God-breathed, and if they began to be recognized very early on, especially the Gospels and Paul's letters as scripture, even before the New Testament was completed, And if they were carefully copied and carefully meticulously compared with authentic autographa and prototypes, why do we have so few early manuscripts? And especially, why are we sometimes lacking in early manuscripts that support traditional readings? We can see at least three historical reasons. First, the early pre-Constantinian persecutions of Christians destroyed many early manuscripts. There were, of course, very early persecutions endured by Christians as recorded even within the New Testament itself, including the death of Stephen in Acts 7, the death of the Apostle James in Acts 12, and the record of the death of Antipas of Pergamos, the fateful martyr in Revelation 2.13. In Hebrews, the inspired author can speak of those who were made a gazing stock, one of my favorite KJV words, both by reproaches and afflictions, and who took joyfully the spoiling of their goods. Although the author of Hebrews, I think Paul, adds in Hebrews 12, 4, you have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin. We know that Christians endured persecutions after the time of the apostles as well. During the time of Nero, who ruled from 54 to 68, as recorded by Tacitus in his annals. During the time of the emperor Domitian, who ruled from 81 to 96, According to Eusebius in the Ecclesiastical History, Book 3, Chapter 18, this is when John was exiled to Patmos because of the word of God. During the time of the Emperor Trajan, who ruled from 98 to 117, when Pliny the Younger wrote his famous letter about the persecution of Christians in Bithynia. Around the time of the rule of Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher emperor, who ruled from 161 to 180, when Eusebius says Polycarp was martyred. During the time of the Emperor Decian, who ruled from 249 to 251, the so-called Decian persecution, especially of the year 250, when the emperor ordered everyone in the empire except Jews to offer sacrifices to the Roman gods for the well-being of the emperor. But by far, the most important period of persecution affecting the transmission of the Christian scriptures was likely the persecution under the emperor Diocletian, who ruled from 284 to 305, sometimes known as the Great Persecution, which began with a series of edicts against Christians issued in the year 303 which specifically, according to Harry Gamble, ordered Christians books to be confiscated and burned by imperial agents. The ancient historian, the father of church history, Eusebius, gives an account of this in his Ecclesiastical History, Book Eight, Chapter Two. He says that the persecution began in the 19th year of Diocletian's rule, noting, quote, an imperial letter was everywhere promulgated, ordering the raising of churches to the ground and the destruction by fire of the scriptures. Further letters ordered, quote, that the presidents of all the churches, probably the elders, should all in every place be first committed to prison and then afterwards compelled by every kind of device to sacrifice. Historian Harry Gamble provides a very detailed account drawn from local records of events that took place in a Roman town called Kirta, the capital of Namibia in North Africa, to illustrate what took place all over the Roman Empire during the Diocletian persecution. The account begins. Having arrived at the house where the Christians used to meet, the mayor said to Paul, the bishop, bring out the writings of the law and anything else you have here according to the order so that you may obey the command. The bishop responded that the readers, the lectores, had the scriptures. The mayor then demanded that the bishop identify the readers and that the church library be searched. A subdeacon named Catalinas finally produced a very large volume, probably the Gospels. Finally, they forced this subdeacon to give over the names of one reader, a man named Eugenius. The officials went to his home and seized four books in his possession. Eventually, they forced out the names of six other readers and visited each of their homes in turn. Four of them produced their books. Five books were taken from the first reader, eight from the second, seven from the third, and six from the fourth. The fourth one, by the way, is described as a grammaticus, one who was a scribe. The fifth said he had no books. The sixth was not home, but his wife, no doubt with great fear, handed over six books. Gamble observes, it is striking in the first place that the congregation in Kirta possessed so many books with at least 37 being mentioned in this one congregation. He adds, on any reckoning, this is a big collection of books for a Christian congregation in a provincial area. This is a report from just one provincial town. This persecution commenced in the year 303 and did not completely end till the edict of Milan in 313. Can you imagine how many precious volumes of God's word were surrendered to the flames during this time? Oh, but do you think they could hold back God's word? Of course not. This was all permitted by an all-wise God. It is no doubt this period of persecution that is largely responsible, along with the natural decay of manuscripts due to aging and use, this is responsible for the very small numbers of extant manuscripts that we have of the New Testament. So that's the first reason. The second is that in the West, The ascendancy of the Latin Vulgate, begun by Jerome in 382, both hindered the continuation of the copying of the Greek New Testament text in the West, while at the same time, providentially preserving some ancient Greek readings by means of its Latin editions. The third major reason why we have so few early Greek manuscripts in the New Testament is that in the East, there was the eventual ascendancy of Islam. And this meant the destruction of many of the great early centers of Christianity, their churches, schools, and libraries. This culminated in the year 1453 with the fall of Constantinople. Despite the vicissitudes of the various circumstances, There were faithful manuscripts that were not consigned to the flames. Think of that fifth reader at Ketra. You think he didn't have any copies? He just didn't hand them over. Or you think they gave over all that they had? No. As persecution ended, these existing copies that by the providence of God were allowed to endure these persecutions, These became the copies of the New Testament that were most widely copied and used within the church. This copy, this text became a consensus traditional text. It did not arise through church councils. It was not dictated by universal decree from the emperor. It did not come through scholarly reconstruction. It simply emerged organically and naturally in the usage of God's people. Scholars sometimes refer to the evidence of this text as the Byzantine or the majority text. It generally preserves most of the readings that we know as the traditional text, the textus receptus, including the doxology of the Lord's Prayer, Matthew 6.13, the traditional ending of Mark, Mark 16, 9 through 20, the Pericope Adulteri, John 7, 53 through 8, 11, and many others. Though it often overlooked or omitted other significant readings that existed only in a minority of traditions, including passages like the Confession of the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8.37 and the Coma Ioaneum, 1 John 5.7b-8a. Excluded from copying and usage in this wider received traditional text stream that particularly predominated after the time of persecution ended, excluded from this were other manuscripts which later scholars would come to associate with Alexandria, Egypt. That Achaenus Sinaiticus simply did not continue to be copied. It did not continue to be used. early Christians shared a basic unity of belief and practice, including a general consensus on the proper text of the Bible reflected in Eusebius' statement that the true church ever held to the same points in the same way. And by the dictum expressed by Vincent of Lorenz in 434, when he wrote, we must hold what has been believed everywhere always and by all. As a summary, the Christian scriptures were inspired by God. And so they cannot be treated. as we treat uninspired works. The scriptures were faithfully copied from the autographa and prototypa in the early centuries of the Christian movement. The word was kept pure in those crucial early years, despite the unintentional transmission mistakes of copious and even the intentional efforts of heretics. to tamper with the text. In the early fourth century, the Diocletian persecution resulted in the destruction of a priceless treasury of most of the earliest and best manuscripts of the New Testament. This was all permitted in the providence of an all-wise God. As Luther said, even the devil is God's devil. Nothing happens except at his permission. Nevertheless, also in the providence of God, faithful believers in churches guided by the Holy Spirit were able to reach a general consensus on the content of the New Testament, which was contained in the vast majority of extant Greek New Testament manuscripts, while also preserving some other important traditional readings in a minority of Greek and virginal witnesses. This traditional text was read, studied, preached, and taught among believers based on a common faith, that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all. The general destruction of the vast majority of the earliest and best manuscripts meant that it would be impossible ever for men to be able to reconstruct the autograph of scripture using bare reason alone. Instead, the Lord Himself would preserve His Word in the existing copies until such time as He would bring about the providential means for that Word to be preserved by a more standard and stable mean, which we'll talk about in the next lecture. Printing. Now a question. Is it completely unreasonable Is it irrational to believe that the traditional text, the confessional text, is authentic? Do you have to check your brains at the door to hold this position? I don't think so. Is the affirmation of the confessional text based purely on theological considerations? The theological considerations are very important. Or can this view also be supported, at least in part, based on historical arguments? Though we are unapologetic in affirming the doctrinal reasons for holding to the confessional text, we do not believe that this excludes historical considerations. We can approach such questions without fear and trepidation. much as traditional Christians face those who think that the findings of modern evolutionary science supposedly contradict the biblical worldview of creation. No, borrowing the words of Francis Schaeffer, we believe that in the end there is no final conflict. between whatever historical evidence might be presented and our holding fast to the text faithfully received and confessed by God's people can be done with authenticity and integrity. Amen? Let me invite you to stand again together. Let's pray.