THIRTY-NINE

The 1% Manuscripts:
Aleph & B


Is there anything wherefore it may be said, 'See, this is new? It hath been already of old time which was before us.
Ecclesiastes 1:10

The New International Version, New American Bible, New American Standard, New Jerusalem, New English Bible, and New Revised Standard are not so 'New' as we have seen, but are but merely an encore of the 'New' Age esotericism of Plato, Saccus, Clement and Origen, set on the stage of the Egyptian papyri and Eusebius' Aleph and B manuscripts.

Then the chief captain came near and took him, and commanded him to be bound with two chains...And as Paul was to be led into the castle, he said unto the chief captain, May I speak unto thee? 'Who said, canst thou speak Greek? Art not thou that Egyptian...' But Paul said, 'I am a man which am a Jew...[then] he spake unto them in the Hebrew tongue... Acts 21:33-40

Today the Greek manuscripts Aleph & B, produced under the 'authority' of Constantine's Rome, attempt to hold captive those like Paul, who want to speak the word of God in the language of the people. The 'chief captains' of the new version translation committees would open any discussion with 'canst thou speak Greek?' You will be bound by their two chains, Aleph & B unless you can identify the weak links. Vaticanus, designated 'B', and Sinaiticus, designated 'Aleph', were used by Westcott, Hort and subsequent editors to alter the traditional Greek text. Manuscript expert Sir Herman Hoskier writes:

The text of Westcott and Hort is practically the text of Aleph & B.(1)

Westcott and Hort's Introduction to the New Testament in the Original Greek affirms:

[R]eadngs of Aleph & B should be accepted as the true readings...[T]hey stand far above all documents... [are] very pure...excellent...and immune from corruption.(2)

The Corruption of Aleph & B

Many scholars today totally disagree with Westcott and Hort, noting the poor character of these minority manuscripts. Moody Vice President, Alfred Martin, calls Aleph & B "depraved."(3) Dean John Burgon writes:

I have convinced myself by laborious collation that they are the most corrupt of all. They are the depositories of the largest amount of fabricated and intentional perversions of truth which are discoverable in any copies of the word of God. They exhibit a fabricated text...[and are] shamefully mutilated.(4)

Since, on occasion, the editors of the 'new' versions depart from the readings of Aleph & B, they too comment on the errors inherent in these manuscripts. Hort admits, they "...reached by no means a high standard of accuracy."(5) Bruce Metzger, co-author of the recent Greek text, has observed, "[N]on-Byzantine readings, for example, in the Codex Vaticanus, can be explained from the tendency of scribes to assimilate and simplify the text."(6) E.W. Kenyon, noted textbook author on the subject, feels they are "disfigured."(7) Gordon Fee points out that they were copied from an [altered] papyrus much like P75; he brings us up to date and reveals the dilemma in which textual scholars find themselves today.

[T]he recensional [altered] nature of 'B' has become a byword in NT textual criticism. The recent text-critical handbooks and NT introductions, as well as the articles on 'trends' and on text- types, are almost unanimous in their concurrence with Kenyon's conclusion that the Egyptian text is now generally regarded as a text produced in Alexandria under editorial care...Hence out dilemma, for as long as our critical texts [Nestle's Greek, UBS Greek, etc.] continue to look much like a text that is generally acknowledged to be edited,....our dilemma seems to be that we know too much to believe the old...(8)

Lest someone tell you that the NIV, NASB, NRSV, etc. were translated using the eclectic method and not the text of Westcott and Hort, Fee points out:

The dilemma of contemporary NT textual criticism relates directly to the labors of Westcott and Hort. On the one hand, there has been an open disavowal -- one might call it a debunking -- of Westcott and Hort's methodology and textual theory, while at the same time critical texts issued since Westcott and Hort have generally continued to have a clearly 'Hortian' face. In fact the recent United Bible Society's Greek New Testament (UGT), which was produced by the so-called eclectic method, has moved even closer to Westcott and Hort than subsequent critical issues.(9)

Aleph & B: The New Version Manuscripts

Listen to the clang of the two chains as today's chief captains approach to constrain and control this generation.

. Edwin Palmer, Executive Secretary of the NIV committee, writes that Aleph & B are "more reliable and accurate."(10)

. Ronald Youngblood, NIV translation committee member agrees, "[T]he readings found in... Vaticanus [B] and Sinaiticus [Aleph] of the fourth century are to be preferred."(11) Other committee members, such as Kenneth L. Barker, have expressed agreement.

. J.B. Phillips, author of the forward of the NASB Interlinear Greek-English New Testament, as well as numerous other new translations says, it is "the most reliable Greek Text." (Recall, he is the voiceless, necromancer, who suffered from 'clinical' psychosis.) The Introduction to this interlinear credits Tregelles, another voiceless conspirator, for the major role in this Greek text.(12)

. Lewis Foster, member of both the New King James Committee and the NIV Committee says, "The most highly valued manuscripts... [and the most] dependable...are the Codex Vaticanus [B] and the Sinaiticus [Aleph]."(13)

. The Introduction to Nestle's Greek New Testament, Novum Testamentum Graece, cites the use of Aleph & B as the basis for its text saying, "...the precedence of the Vaticanus will be justified." (14)

Consequently the footnotes in the NIV and other new versions (i.e. Mark 16:9-20), when referring to "the most reliable manuscripts, mean Aleph & B.

Scholars Shocked

No man on the previous list has come near, in scholarly collation of actual manuscripts, Dean John Burgon, the author of The Causes of Corruption of the Traditional Text, The Traditional Text and The Revision Revised. Because of his extensive hand collation of the major ancient uncials, Aleph & B included, as well as his monumental collation of the evidence in other New Testament witnesses (86,489 citations), his well-educated opinion of such translators and their new versions bears hearing.

What does astonish us, however is to find learned men... freely resuscitating these long-since forgotten critics [Aleph & B] and seeking to palm them off upon a busy and careless age, as so many new revelations...[I]t is sometimes entertaining to trace the history of a mistake which, dating from the second or third century, has remained without patron all down the subsequent ages until at last it has been taken up in our own times...palmed off upon an unlearned generation as the genuine work of the Holy Ghost. What...of those blind guides...who would now, if they could, persuade us to go back to those same codices of which the church has already purged herself.(15)

Dr. Wilber Pickering's recent research of the ancient papyri revealed the superiority of the KJV text over the new versions. (John Wenham of the Evangelical Quarterly says of Pickering's book, "It is not often that one reads a book which reorients one's whole approach to a subject, but that is what this has done for me.") Pickering says of Aleph, B and the new versions:

To judge by the circumstances that codices like Aleph and B were not copied, to speak of, that the church by and large rejected their form of text, it seems they were not respected in their day...If readings...died out in the fourth or fifth century we have the verdict of history against it...They [Aleph & B] are remnants of the abnormal transmission of the text reflecting ancient aberrant forms. It is dependency upon such forms that distinguishes contemporary critical editions of the NT...[T]heir respectability quotient hovers near zero...In particular, I fail to see how anyone can read Hoskier's Codex B and its Allies with attention and still retain respect for Aleph & B as witnesses to the New Testament ...[T]he modern critical and eclectic texts are based precisely on B and Aleph and other early manuscripts...[T]hey have been found wanting...[T]he result will be the complete overthrow of the type of text currently in vogue.(16)

Dr, Herman C. Hoskier's extensive collation of Vaticanus (B), unsurpassed to this day, leads him to conclude that the new version editors are guilty of an "...incomplete examination of documentary evidence...[working] without due regard to scientific foundation."

My thesis is then that B (Vaticanus) and Aleph (Sinaiticus) and their forerunners, with Origen who revised the Antioch text [KJV], are Egyptian revisions current between A.D. 200-400 and abandoned between 500 and 1881, merely revised in our day...(17)

Harvard and Princeton textual scholar, Dr. Edward Hills, summarizes:

Old corrupt manuscripts, which had been discarded by the God- guided usage of the believing church were brought out of their hiding place and re-instated...and today thousands of Bible- believing Christians are falling into this devils trap through their use of modern speech versions.(18)

Aleph & B: A Closer Look

What have the paleographers seen when actually collating Aleph and B that cause these scholars to reject versions such as the NIV and NASB and their foundation Aleph & B?

Vaticanus (B)

1. The use of recent technology such as the vidicon camera, which creates a digital form of faint writing, recording it on a magnetic tape and reproducing it by an electro- optical process, reveals that B has been altered by at least two hands, one being as late as the twelfth century. Metzger admits, "A few passages therefore remain to show the original appearance of the first hand." The corrector "omitted [things] he believed to be incorrect."(19)

2. B agrees with the Textus Receptus only about 50% of the time. It differs from the Majority Greek in nearly 8,000 places, amounting to about one change per verse. It omits several thousand key words from the Gospels, nearly 1000 complete sentences, and 500 clauses. It adds approximately 500 words, substitutes or modifies nearly 2000 and transposes word order in about 2000 places. It has nearly 600 reading that do not occur in any other manuscript. These affect almost 1000 words.

3. Linguistic scholars have observed that B is reminiscent of classical and Platonic Greek, not Koine Greek of the New Testament (see Adolf Deissman's Light of the Ancient East). Nestle concedes he had to change his Greek text when using Aleph & B, to make it 'appear' like Koine.

4. Codicologists (scientists who study the make-up of ancient book forms) note that B was written on vellum scrolls, (skin"...obtained from animals not yet born") not papyrus codices, as were used among "the early Christians."(20)

5. B does not consider the following as part to the bible: Revelation, Phil., Titus, I and II Timothy, large parts of Samuel, Kings, Nehemiah, the Psalms, and Genesis. B omits crucial parts of Mark and Luke. In their place it add apocryphal books such as Bel and the Dragon, Tobit, Judith and the Epistle of Barnabas. In Job, for example, it has 400 'half-verses' of Theodotian, a follower of Blavatsky's 'friend' Marcion.(21)

6. Protestant theologians question its lack of use by anyone for 1300 years--then its sudden 'discovery' in the Vatican in 1481. Its immediate use to suppress the Reformation and its subsequent release in 1582, as the Jesuit-Rheims Bible, are logical, considering the manuscript's omission of anti-catholic sections and books (i.e. Hebrews 9:14, Revelation, etc.). Its Catholic 'tone' is evidenced by the fact that at Vatican Council II, each bishop was given his own copy with an introduction by Jesuit priest, Carlo Martini.(22) Protestant researchers have never been permitted to examine the actual manuscripts and work only from copies provided by the Vatican.

7. It agrees essentially with Origen's Hexapla, omitting the deity of Christ frequently and making other Gnostic or Arian alterations.

Sinaiticus

1. Princeton Professor, Bruce Metzger's recent Manuscripts of the Greek Bible reveals:

In the light of such carelessness in transcription, it is not surprising that a good many correctors (as many as nine) have been at work on the manuscript ...Tischendorf's edition of the manuscript enumerates some 14,800 places where some alternation has been made to the text...[With] more recent detailed scrutiny of the manuscript...by the use of ultra-violet lamp, Milne and Skeat discovered that the original reading in the manuscript was erased...[in places].(23)

See also Scribes and Correctors of the Codex Sinaiticus (British Museum, 1938).

2. F.H.A. Scrivener's Full Collation of the Codex Sinaiticus with the Received Text of the New Testament and other researchers (see Dean Burgon's The Revision Revised) find:

. There are about 9000 changes in this text from that of the Majority and Traditional Text, amounting to one difference in every verse. It omits some 4000 words from the Gospels, adds 1000, repositions 2000 and alters another 1000. It has approximately 1,500 readings that appear in no other manuscript: this affects nearly 3000 words. The following omissions are just a few examples.

.The end of Mark and John.
.Thirty-nine words from John 19:20, 21; twenty words from John 20:5,6; nineteen words from Mark 1:32-34; fourteen words from Mark 15:47.
.John 5:4, Matthew 16:2,3, Romans 16:24, Mark 16:9-20, I John 5:7, Acts 8:37, Genesis 23:19-24,46, Numbers 5:27- 7:20, I Chron. 9:27-19:27.
.Exodus, I and II Joshua, I and II Samuel, I and II Kings, Hosea, Amos, Micah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Judges. .In Luke 8, for example, 19 out of 34 words are changed. In Matthew chapter one, sixty words are changed.
.It adds Apocryphal books, such as Bel and The Dragon, Tobit, Judith, The Epistle of Barnabas and The Shepherd of Hermas, among others.

When using this manuscript to 'alter' the new versions, Greek editors must choose between Aleph A, Aleph B, and Aleph C, the alterations, it lapsed into a wastebasket in a monastery, where it was 'discovered' by Constantine von Tischendorf in the mid-eighteen hundreds. It was kept by the Russian government from 1859 until 1933. Eastern Germany and Russia, however, still retain portions of it. The fact that some pages were written on sheepskin and some on goatskin is a telling sign of its part-Christian, part-heathen character.

Vaticanus Meets Sinaiticus

For many bare false witness against him but their witness agreed not together. Mark 14:56

False witnesses spoke against Jesus Christ, the living Word, but as history tells us, their 'versions' did not correspond. The Written word had two such witnesses against it and they too do not agree with the Majority of manuscripts, or with each other.

1. Metzger says, "In the New Testament, particularly in the Gospel and Acts, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus very frequently agree with the majority of manuscripts."(24)

2. Not only do they disagree with the Majority of manuscripts, but they do not agree with each other. The 8000 changes in B are the 9000 changes in Aleph are not the same changes. When their changes are added together, they alter the Majority text in about 13,000 places. This is two changes for every verse. Together they omit 4000 words, add 2000, transpose 3500, and modify 2000.

3. They disagree with each other a dozen times on every page.

4. Colwell says they disagree 70% of the time and in almost every verse of the gospels. Burgon says, "It is easier to find two consecutive verses in which these manuscripts differ than two in which they agree.(25)

Footnotes for the above, Chapter 39.

1. Daniel Otis Fuller. Which Bible (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Grand Rapids International Publications, 1984), pp. 135. 136.

2. B.F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort. Introduction to the New Testament in the Original Greek (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, Orig. 1882), pp. xxii, 225, 212, 220, 239, 210.

3. Which Bible, p. 150.

4. The Revision Revised, pp. 76, 520, 318.

5. Introduction to the New Testament in the Original Greek, p. 233.

6. Jacob Van Bruggen, The Ancient Text of the New Testament (Winnipeg: Premier, 1 976), pp. 30-31

7. Frederic Kenyon. The Text of the Greek Bible (London: Gerald Duckworth and Co. Ltd.. 1958), p. 308.

8. Richard N. Longenecker and Merrill C. Tenney, New Dimensions in New Testament Study (Grand Rapids Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House, 1974, p. 23.

9. Ibid.,p. 19.

10 Kenneth L. Barker (ed.), The NIV: The Making of a Contemporary Translation (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986), p. 143.

11. Ibid., p. 112.

12. Alfred Marshal, NASB Interlinear Greek-English New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House. 1984). intro.

13. Lewis Foster, Selecting a Translation of the Bible (Cincinnati, Ohio: Standard Publishing Co.), p.16.

14. Nestle, Erwin and Aland, Kurt. Novum Testamentum Graece (Stuttgart: Privilegierte Wurttembergische Biblelanstalt. 1960), intro.

15. The Revision Revised, pp. 94, 151, 334-335.

16. Wilber Pickering, The Identity of the New Testament Text (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishing Co., 1980), pp. 120, 136, 145, and back cover.

17. Which Bible, pp. 134-143.

18. Edward F. Hills, The King James Version Defended (Des Moines Iowa: The Christian Research Press, 1973).

19. Bruce Metzger. Manuscripts of the Greek Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 74.

20. Ibid., p. 14; Philip W. Comfort, Early Manuscripts and Modern Translations of the New Testament (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale Publishing House, 1990), p. 5; also Cambridge History of the Bible Vol. 1, "Books in the Graeco-Roman World and in the New Testament."

21. Manuscripts of the Greek Bible, p. 74.

22. Ibid. p. 74.

23. Ibid. p. 77.

24. Ibid. p. 78

25. Revision Revised, p.12; The Identity of the New Testament Text, p. 220.


(New Age Bible Versions by G.A. Riplinger)

(COMMENT: In common everyday English, the above chapter is telling us that the manuscripts that all new bibles are based on are a piece of junk. That is telling it like it is in street language or as Martin Luther would say, language that the common people can understand.)