The Bible Text and Recent Discoveries

Abstract

The last few years have been stirring ones for those who are concerned with the text of the Bible. Several discoveries of remarkable interest have been made, and new light has been thrown on the history of the Bible text both by these discoveries and by the intensive work of scholars on the materials previously available. The ultimate common object of these studies is to discover, if we can, the history of the Septuagint text before the time of Origen and his Hexapla (about A.D. 240), and that of the New Testament before the recognition of Christianity by Constantine and the production of the two great codices, Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, on which our knowledge of the Greek text principally rests (about A.D. 325). The reconstruction of this history must proceed by way of provisional hypotheses based upon the material available at any given time; hypotheses which must be modified, or abandoned if necessary, as new evidence comes to light, but the formation of which is the only method of progress. It may be of interest, therefore, to consider how matters seem to stand in the light of the latest discoveries, though always with the proviso that our knowledge is still far from complete, and that conclusions must be provisional and tentative, to be tested by further study and (it may be hoped) by discoveries yet to come.