LDS New Testament Notes 02: Origin and Translation of The New Testament

2014, Mike Parker http://bit.ly/ldsarc For personal use only. Not a Church publication.
New Testament
Week 2: Origin and translation of the New Testament
1) Introduction.
a) This weeks class is going to be different from all the other classes this year, in that it will
be lecture-driven and very technical.
i) I apologize in advance for the amount of information Im about to unload on you.
Please dont feel like you have to remember everything in this lesson. As always, the
notes are available online so you can review it at your own pace later.
b) The LDS position on the accuracy of the Bible.
i) [SLIDE 2] Late in his life, the Prophet Joseph Smith is reported to have said:
I believe the Bible as it read when it came from the pen of the original writers.
Ignorant translators, careless transcribers, or designing and corrupt priests have
committed many errors.
1

ii) Latter-day Saints affirm as an article of faith that We believe the Bible to be the
word of God, as far as it is translated correctly (Article of Faith 1:8a, italics added).
iii) From this and other comments by Joseph Smith,
2
and from revealed teachings in the
Book of Mormon,
3
we know that the text of the Bible has been altered since it was
written. Modern Biblical scholarship supports this conclusion.
4

c) [SLIDE 3] In this lesson we will examine the history of the bookor, rather, the
collection of booksthat we call the New Testament.
i) Tonight well answer the following questions:
(1) How were books in the New Testament written? Who wrote them? What sources
did they use? Who was their intended audience?

1
Joseph Smith, 15 October 1843. History of the Church 6:57 (http://byustudies.byu.edu/hc/6/4.html#57); Teachings of
the Prophet Joseph Smith 327 (http://scriptures.byu.edu/stpjs.html#327). Willard Richards made the only surviving
transcript of that address, and the second sentence in the quote (Ignorant translators...) is not found in it (Words of Joseph
Smith 256; http://bit.ly/wjs255256); that sentence first appears in Manuscript History of the Church, Book E-1, p. 1755,
prepared by Robert L. Campbell between 1854 and 1857. Campbell may have embellished Richards record, or he may have
been quoting from the recollection of someone who heard Josephs speech. In either case, the situation is ironic because
Campbell did the same thing that early New Testament scribes did: Add material to the text that he felt should be there but was
not present in the original. However, the suggestion that important concepts had been lost from the Bible through error or
design is an idea that Joseph articulated at other times and is found in the Book of Mormon (see footnotes 2 and 3).
2
While compiling the history of the Church in Nauvoo in the early 1840s, Joseph Smith reflected on his translation of the
Bible (on which, see pages 1516, below) and the revelation given on 16 February 1832 on the three degrees of glory (D&C 76),
and commented, From sundry revelations which had been received, it was apparent that many important points, touching the
Salvation of man, had been taken from the Bible, or lost before it was compiled. History, 18381856, volume A-1, 183
(http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-
1834&p=189); cf. HC 1:245 (http://byustudies.byu.edu/hc/1/20.html#245); TPJS 910
(http://scriptures.byu.edu/stpjs.html#9). See also D&C 76:15.
3
See 1 Nephi 13:2440; 14:23; Mormon 8:33; cf. Moses 1:41.
4
For an accessible introduction to the study of New Testament texts, I recommend Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus:
The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005). Ehrman is the James A. Gray
Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and is a leading authority on the
New Testament and the history of early Christianity. For a Latter-day Saint reaction to Ehrmans book and textual studies in
general, see Kent P. Jackson and Frank F. Judd, Jr., eds., How the New Testament Came to Be: The 35th Annual Brigham
Young University Sidney B. Sperry Symposium (Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center and Deseret Book, 2006).
Hurricane Utah Adult Religion Class New Testament: Origin & translation of the New Testament Week 2, Page 2
(2) Why do we have 27 books in the New Testament? Whats so special about these
particular books? There were lots of writings circulating among first- and second-
century Christians; why werent other books included in our New Testament
canon?
(3) How was the text of the New Testament transmitted down through the centuries?
What kinds of errors and changes crept into the text as it was copied? Have any of
these alterations been discovered and corrected?
(4) There are many modern-English translations of the Bible that are much easier to
read and understand. So why does The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints continue to use the King James Version as its official Bible? Is there any
value in modern translations? And where does the Joseph Smith Translation of
the Bible stand among these other translations?
2) [SLIDE 4] Early Christian writings.
a) The language of the Bible.
i) When we think of the Bible, we think of a book in the English language, but it was
originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
(1) Now, that may seem like an obvious point, but its important to keep in mind that
when we read the Bible in English, we are reading a translation of a foreign-
language workand an ancient foreign language, at that.
(a) So the apostle Paul did not write about faith, hope, and charity; he wrote
about (pistis elpis agape).
5
His words have been translated
into many languages, including English, and there are problems inherent with
any translation (something were going to talk about later in the lesson).
ii) The New Testament was written in Koine Greek, the common
6
language spoken by
ordinary men and women of the first century Roman Empire.
7

(1) There is nothing, in and of itself, that is dignified or lofty about Koine Greek; it
was simply the language of its time.
b) The earliest Christian churches had an oral tradition, not a written one.
i) Most individuals in the Roman Empire were barely literate: able to read just enough
to get by in the world. Less than 10 percent of the population could read books or
letters.
8

ii) The earliest Christian stories about Jesus would have been oral accounts. Christians
would meet together and share stories of Jesus miracles and teachings, and his
death and resurrection.

5
Technically, Paul wrote in a majuscule (uppercase) Greek script, without any punctuation or even spaces between words,
so he would have written .
6
The Greek word (koinos) means common or ordinary. It appears in the New Testament twelve times.
7
There has been some debate about whether the Gospel of Matthew was written first in Aramaic, the everyday language of
the Jews in Palestine. No examples of first century Aramaic copies of Matthew have been discovered, so it remains speculation.
8
Bart Ehrman notes, At the very best of times and placesfor example, Athens at the height of the classical period in the
fifth century [B.C.]literacy rates were rarely higher than 1015 percent of the population. To reverse the numbers, this means
that under the best of conditions, 8590 percent of the population could not read or write. In the first Christian century,
throughout the Roman Empire, the literacy rates may well have been lower. Misquoting Jesus 3738. Certainly many adults
were functionally illiterateable to read signs and simple words, but unable to read sentences. The mass literacy that were
familiar with in our modern society is largely the result of the Industrial Revolution, when it became necessary for workers to
be able to read and follow instructions on using complex machinery.
iii) [4.1] Sometime between 20 and 40 years after Jesus ministry these oral accounts
were compiled and written down.
9
These written accounts became the Gospels.
(1) In addition, leaders of the early Christian movement wrote letters to the small
churches that existed throughout the Roman Empire. The earliest of these letters
is Pauls First Epistle to the Thessalonians, written in A.D. 49.
10

iv) As most early Christians couldnt read, these early Gospels and letters were designed
to be read to them in the churches. For example, in his letter to the Colossians (4:15
16), Pauls directed the saints there to have his letter read (aloud) in the churches.
v) These early documents were copied by hand and shared between these small
Christian churches.
(1) The earliest copyists were not professional scribes; they were Christian believers
who just happened to be literate. Trained, professional scribes were expensive, so
local Christians who could read and write took it upon themselves to copy and
circulate these earliest letters and Gospel accounts.
(a) Many errors were introduced into the copied manuscripts at this earliest
stage.
11

(2) Professional scribes were not widely used until the fourth century, when
Christianity became socially acceptable and the state religion of the Roman
Empire.
12

3) [SLIDE 5] Formation of the scriptural canon.
a) In the early second century A.D., the question of which of these early writings were
authoritative and should be accepted by all Christiansand which should be considered
without authority and discardedbegan to be debated. Prominent Christians began to
craft lists of books that should be considered part of the Christian canon.
13

i) The word canon comes directly from the Greek word (kanon), which refers to
a measuring rod.
14
The idea is that these books would be the measuring stick by
which all teachings would be judged.
(1) This is similar to the Mormon term standard works: A standard is an object
used for calibrating measuring devices.

9
The four Gospels in our New Testament, however, probably date to later than that. Most scholars date Mark, the earliest
of the four, to sometime in late 60s, nearly forty years after Jesus life. Some argue for an earlier date for Mark, in the mid-50s
A.D., but this is still twenty to twenty-five years after the events Mark describes. (And Mark himself was not an eyewitness to
the events in his Gospel. Well cover more about that in lesson 3.)
10
This means that Pauls letters were written before the Gospels that are in the New Testament, although its clear that
Paul had access to accounts of Jesus teachings (see, for example, Acts 20:35).
11
This explains why our earliest copies of the New Testament tend to vary between themselves much more than later,
medieval manuscripts. Later professional scribes would make fewer errors, but more deliberate changes. Well discuss this
below, starting on page 6.
12
Misquoting Jesus, 7274.
13
The earliest list of canonical words was prepared by the Gnostic Christian Marcion of Sinope (c. A.D. 85160), who
accepted eleven books as authoritative: A heavily-edited version of the Gospel of Luke, plus ten letters of Paul. Marcions views
were considered heretical by the church in Rome, and they excommunicated him in late 140s A.D.
Around A.D. 185 Irenaeus of Lyons (c. early 2nd centuryA.D. 202) insisted on a canon of four Gospels. He condemned as
heretical Christians who used only one Gospel (Marcionites and Ebionites), as well as those who used more than four
(Valentinians).
14
This word appears five times in the New Testament, where the King James Version translates it as rule or line
(2 Corinthians 10:13, 15, 16; Galatians 6:16; Philippians 3:16).
b) The Gospel of Luke begins with the explanation that many have undertaken to set
down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among the early
Christians (NRSV Luke 1:1).
i) Many certainly refers to more than the four Gospels that we have today. There
were numerous Gospel accounts of Jesus life circulating in the early Christian
community that did not make it into our modern New Testament.
(1) These ancient Gospels were attributed to Peter, Thomas, James, Mary, and even
Judas;
15
additional letters supposedly written by Paul; and apocalypses similar to
Johns Revelation, attributed to Peter and other New Testament authors.
16

(2) We also have legitimate letters written by prominent Church leaders in the late
first and early second centuries. For example, Clement, bishop of the church in
Rome, wrote an epistle to the Corinthian saints around A.D. 95. This epistle,
known as 1 Clement, was considered scripture by some early Christians.
17

c) It took nearly three centuries for the New Testament canon to be finalized. The first list
of canonical works that contained the 27 books in our New Testament appeared in A.D.
367.
18
By the end of the fourth century, the current canon had been pretty much fixed
and remains so to this day.
19

d) So how did a book get chosen to be included as part of the canon?
i) There are three basic factors: It had to be widely used and accepted, it had to be
written by a known apostle or prominent leader, and it had to not include any
heretical teachings.
20

ii) And so it is that all of the books in our New Testament are attributed to well-known
leaders in first century church. How many of them were actually written by the early
apostles, however, has been a subject of intense debate.
(1) [SLIDE 6] The authorship of some New Testament books is unquestioned.
(a) Most of Pauls epistlesincluding Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and
1 Thessaloniansare not disputed: Paul definitely wrote them.
(2) Other New Testament books are anonymous.

15
Although the Gnostic Gospel of Judas was contained in a set of papyri discovered in the 1970s, its translation in 2006
brought a great deal of media attention and public awareness (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Judas). For the
reaction in the Mormon scholarly community, see the series of six articles in BYU Studies 45/2 (2006): 453
(http://byustudies.byu.edu/showTitle.aspx?title=166).
16
See Wikipedias article on New Testament apocrypha (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Testament_apocrypha); also
Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament (New York: Oxford University Press,
2003). Most of these books date from the second century A.D. to as late as the Middle Ages, and are clearly pseudonymous.
However, some (such as the Gospel of Thomas) are contemporary with the books in the New Testament, and while of
questionable authorship, represent the views of some very early Christians.
17
Lost Scriptures, 16768. Various translations of this lengthy letter are available (see
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/First_Epistle_of_Clement). The epistle known as 2 Clement was written in the mid-second
century A.D. by an anonymous author and falsely ascribed to Clement. Lost Scriptures, 185.
18
In his Easter letter of A.D. 367, Athanasius (c. A.D. 293373), Bishop of Alexandria, presented a list of 27 books that
would become the New Testament canon, and he used the word canonized (kanonizomena) in regards to them. He also listed
a 22-book Old Testament and seven books not to be included in the canon but to be read. (See
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf204.xxv.iii.iii.xxv.html).
19
In c. 383, Pope Damasus I commissioned the Latin Vulgate edition of the Bible, which included the 27 books of the New
Testament in nearly the same order we have them today.
20
The last requirement was, of course, a circular argument. (The teachings in the Bible tell us what books to allow into
the Bible.) What was considered orthodoxy and heresy was intensely debated in the first few centuries, with a clear winner
finally appearing by the fourth century. Well cover more about this in lesson 30.
(a) None of the Gospel writers identify themselves. For example, there is no
passage in Matthew that reads, I, Matthew, wrote this Gospel).
(i) The titles of the Gospels (The Gospel According to X) were added in the
second century, based on tradition. Their assumed authorship got them
included in the canon.
(b) Although the Epistle to the Hebrews is commonly ascribed to the Apostle
Paul,
21
the writer didnt identify himself, and the language and ideas are very
different from Pauls.
22

(c) The language in the epistles of John (1, 2, and 3 John) is similar to the Gospel
of John, but, like the Gospel, the author does not give his name. The author of
2 and 3 John identifies himself only as the Elder (2 John 1:1; 3 John 1:1).
(3) Some New Testament books are pseudonymous: That is, they were written by
someone else who used the name of a famous apostle.
(a) It was very common in the ancient world for individuals to write philosophical
or theological treatises and then attribute their works to famous authors.
(i) The reason for this is simple: If you want other Christians to accept your
ideas, youre much more likely to succeed in your goal if you start your
letter Paul the Apostle, rather than Ralph the shipbuilder.
(ii) The early Christian community was not immune to the common Greek
practice of writing under a pseudonym.
(b) Its accepted among most scholars that some of Pauls epistlesincluding
Ephesians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Tituswere not written by Paul himself, but
by later authors who were perhaps disciples or imitators of Paul.
23

(c) Likewise, although both epistles of Peter begin by affirming they were written
by Peter, the apostle of the Lord, most scholars do not accept that Peter
himself was the author of either letter, based largely on issues of language,
style, and content.
24

(4) Finally, even when we do know the name of the author of a book, its not always
certain that hes the same person as tradition affirms.
(a) The author of the Epistle of James identifies himself only as James, a servant
of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ (James 1:1). Its assumed that the writer
was the brother of Jesus (Matthew 13:55) and bishop of Jerusalem (Acts
15:1321), but we dont know that for certain.

21
Pauls letters are placed in the New Testament in order by length, with the longest letter (Romans) first and the shortest
(Philemon) last. Hebrews was placed after Philemon because there were doubts very early on that Paul had written it. Both the
superscription (The epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews) and the subscription (Written to the Hebrews from Italy by
Timothy) were added by later scribes based on tradition.
22
A great deal of argument has been had over who actually wrote the book of Hebrews, with various candidates including
Paul, Barnabas, Apollos, and Clement. Well discuss this more in lesson 26.
23
These four books are widely accepted as having been written pseudonymously. There is also vigorous debate about the
authorship of Colossians and 2 Thessalonians. Well discuss this more in the individual lessons on these letters.
24
Even if one accepts that Peter wrote one of the letters ascribed to him, its unlikely that he wrote the other, because the
difference in vocabulary and style between them is significant. Well discuss the authorship issue and dating of these letters in
lesson 28.
(b) The Book of Revelation is ascribed to the Apostle John, although the author
identifies himself only as John (Revelation 1:1, 4, 9; 21:2; 22:8). Its by
tradition that we have come to accept the John of Revelation as the apostle
and author of the Gospel.
25

(5) Regardless of authorship, all of these books are in our canon and are accepted as
scripture. Who wrote them is an interesting question, but its their message that
were primarily concerned with.
4) Next were going to talk about the transmission of the text of the New Testament: What
happened to the documents and their words over the centuries?
a) Early copies.
i) Weve already discussed how the earliest copies of the New Testament books were
made by amateurs, and how the mistakes they made led to differences in the text of
the manuscripts that were circulating.
(1) Most of these differences were simply accidental. Scribes get tired, their minds
wander, they misread or mishear sources, they misspell words, their pens slip,
etc.
(a) [SLIDE 7] One example comes from John 17:15, where Jesus prayed to the
Father on behalf of his disciples:
I do not ask that you
keep them from the world, but that you
keep them from the evil one.
(i) In one early, very important manuscript
26
the scribes eye accidentally
skipped over the middle line of the text he was copying from, and he
wrote: [7.1]
I do not ask that you
keep them from the evil one.
27

(ii) Fortunately that mistake was caught and not transmitted to later
manuscripts.
(b) [SLIDE 8] Heres an example of an accidental change that found its way into
our King James Bible:
Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood
(KJV Revelation 1:5a).
(i) The earliest and best manuscripts of Revelation dont read washed, they
read released: In other words, Jesus set us free from our sins with his
blood.

25
The Book of Mormon affirms that Revelation was written by the Apostle John (1 Nephi 14:1827; Ether 4:16). Although
other modern scriptures identify John as the writer of the Gospel of John (e.g. D&C 93:6, 11, 12, 15, 16, 18, 26), they do not
directly state that he is the same John who was the apostle of the Lord and author of Revelation.
26
This reading is in the fourth-century Codex Vaticanus, which otherwise is one of the earliest and best complete
manuscripts of the New Testament.
27
Misquoting Jesus, 92. The translation of John 17:15 is Ehrmans.
(ii) The Greek words for released (, lusanti) and washed (,
lousanti) are spelled almost identically, and are pronounced exactly
alike.
28
Its very likely that one medieval scribe was writing while another
scribe dictated to him, and the writer misunderstood which word was
meant by the reader. That inadvertent change got passed down to other
manuscripts and into the Bible we use.
ii) Some scribes also made deliberate changes to the texts they worked with.
(1) Most of these changes were well-intentioned, based on the scribes desire to
correct a reading he felt was in error. But some were done with the deliberate
intent to change the scriptures so that they supported the doctrines the scribe
himself believed.
29

(a) [SLIDE 9] One famous example of a well-intentioned change is found in
Lukes version of the Lords Prayer (Luke 11:24).
KJV Luke 11:24 Earliest mss. Luke 11:24
2
Our Father which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom
come. Thy will be done, as in heaven,
so in earth.
2
Father, Hallowed be thy name. Thy
kingdom come.

3
Give us day by day our daily bread.
3
Give us day by day our daily bread.
4
And forgive us our sins; for we also
forgive every one that is indebted to
us. And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.

4
And forgive us our sins; for we also
forgive every one that is indebted to
us. And lead us not into temptation.

(i) [SLIDE 10] In the earliest manuscripts of Luke, the prayer is much
shorter. Later scribes, probably concerned that Lukes version of the
Prayer was different than Matthews version (Matthew 6:913), added
some of Matthews material to Luke to make it read more like Matthew.
(ii) The longer version of the prayer is in the King James Bible. Virtually all
modern Bibles use the older, shorter version.
30

(b) [SLIDE 11] Heres an example of a theologically-motivated change thats also
found in the Gospel of Luke: When Jesus was presented at the temple soon
after his birth, a prophet named Simeon took the infant in his arms and
blessed God (Luke 2:2532). When he had concluded his prayer, the earliest
and best manuscripts record:
And the childs father and mother were amazed at what was being said
about him. (NRSV Luke 2:33).
(i) Some second- and third-century Christians were Adoptionists: They
believed that Jesus earthly father was Joseph, and that Jesus became the
Son of God at his baptism, when God adopted him, spiritually.
31

28
An English equivalent would be the words pair, pare, and pear: These three words sound exactly alike, but have very
different meanings that can only be discerned by the hearer based on the context in which they are used.
29
The standard text on this is Bart Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological
Controversies on the Text of the New Testament (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). Ehrmans thesis for his book is
scribes occasionally altered the words of their sacred texts to make them more patently orthodox and to prevent their misuse
by Christians who espoused aberrant views (xi). His later book, Misquoting Jesus, distills much of the scholarship in the
earlier work down a level more accessible to the layman.
30
The longer reading is also found in the NKJV, which updates the King James language, but doesnt fix any of its textual
errors.
(ii) Because the original reading of Luke 2:33 can be read to imply that Joseph
was Jesus father, [11.1] early orthodox scribes changed this passage so
that it read:
And Joseph and his mother were amazed at what was being said about
him.
(iii) The later reading is also found in the King James Version of the Bible.
iii) These types of changes werent unknown to early Christians.
(1) [SLIDE 12] Origen, a prominent third-century Christian scholar and theologian
(c. A.D. 185c. 254), complained that
The differences among the manuscripts [of the Gospels] have become great,
either through the negligence of some copyists or through the perverse
audacity of others; they either neglect to check over what they have
transcribed, or, in the process of checking, they make additions or deletions as
they please.
32

iv) [SLIDE 13] Today there are about 5,800 surviving Greek manuscripts of the New
Testament.
33

(1) These include:
(a) Two fragments from the early 2nd century (A.D. 101150) that are no larger
than the size of a credit card.
34

(b) Six partial or complete copies of entire books date to the late second or early
third century (A.D. 151200), with thirty from the third century (A.D. 201
299).
35

31
Adoptionism was declared heretical by Pope Victor I at the end of the second century, and was rejected in A.D. 325 by the
First Council of Nicaea, which affirmed that Jesus was eternally begotten of God. For more anti-adoptionist changes in the
New Testament, see Misquoting Jesus, 15562. Well discuss Adoptionism in lesson 30.
32
Origen, Commentary on Matthew 15:14; quoted in Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, The Text of the New
Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 4th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005): 200.
33
Of the 5,700 manuscripts there are four kinds: (1) Papyrus manuscripts, written on material made from the papyrus
reed, are the earliest New Testament manuscripts. These date from the second to the seventh centuries. Papyri were usually
rolled into scrolls. There are only about 100 of them remaining. (2) Majuscule or uncial manuscripts written on parchment
(dried animal skins) in large Greek letters that resemble uppercase. These date from the fourth to the ninth centuries; there are
about 270 of them known today. (3) Minuscule manuscripts are also written on parchment, but use small Greek letters written
in a cursive style. They were prepared starting in the ninth century, and represent most of the Greek manuscripts in existence:
Nearly 2,700almost half the total manuscriptsare minuscules. (4) Lectionaries are majuscule or miniscule in form, but
instead of containing the entire New Testament, they have selected readings to be used in church each week and on holy days.
There are 2,165 known lectionaries, with one dating as early as the fourth century, but most dating to the ninth century or
later. Majuscules, minuscules, and lectionaries were usually bound, with individual pages sewn on one edge like a book, known
as a codex. Misquoting Jesus, 8890.
New Testament manuscripts are also grouped into textual families, based on similar readings. Among the five text-types
the three most important are: (1) The Alexandrian text-type, which includes most of the earliest and best manuscripts, with
the shortest readings and fewest scribal changes. These are believed to have derived from the text preserved by Christian
scholars in Alexandria, Egypt. (2) The Western text-type, which are also very early, but have longer readings than the
Alexandrian texts, and also more paraphrases and harmonizing. (3) The Byzantine text-type is the most recent, beginning in
the fifth century and becoming the dominant text by the ninth century. In this family, difficult readings have been eliminated,
grammar smoothed out, and synoptic passages harmonized. Most of the surviving Greek manuscripts are minuscules of the
Byzantine family. Metzger and Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament, 27680.
34
These are Rylands Library Papyrus 52 (
52
), a small fragment containing John 18:3133 and 3738, and Papyrus 90
(
90
), a remnant of a manuscript that contains John 18:3619:7.
35
The oldest complete copy of any New Testament book is found in Papyrus 46 (
46
, c. A.D. 200), which has, among other
fragments of Pauls writings, a complete copy of 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians,
and 1 Thessalonians.
For a list of the earliest New Testament papyri, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_papyri
For a count of available manuscripts by century and manuscript type, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_manuscript
(c) [SLIDE 14] There are two large and ornate volumes from the 4th century that
contain most of the New Testament.
36

(d) [SLIDE 15] None of the earliest manuscripts we have are from the first
century A.D. (the century when the originals were written).
(e) [SLIDE 16] The vast majority (around 96%) of the Greek manuscripts still in
existence are late, dating to after the sixth century. The number of
manuscripts that date to earlier than the fifth century (i.e., A.D. 125400) is
less than 100.
37

(2) How significant are the textual differences between these manuscripts?
(a) [SLIDE 17] One prominent New Testament scholar put it this way:
Scholars differ significantly in their estimatessome say there are 200,000
variants known, some say 300,000, some say 400,000 or more! We do not
know for sure because, despite impressive developments in computer
technology, no one has yet been able to count them all. Perhapsit is best
simply to leave the matter in comparative terms. There are more variations
among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament.
38

(i) I must emphasize that most of these differences are minor and easily
identified as scribal errors, differences in spelling, and so forth. Less than
300 of the variants have any real significance on the interpretation of the
text that could affect Christian belief,
39
and none of them dramatically
change the story of Jesus and the early Christian movement.
(ii) Most of these changes have been identified by scholars and corrected in
modern translations of the Bible.
40

v) [SLIDE 18] Despite the number of differences among the surviving New Testament
manuscripts, were indebted to the scribes who produced them for doing as good a
job as they did.
(1) Notwithstanding many errors and some deliberate alterations, for the most part,
we probably have a good representation today of how the earliest text of the New
Testament read.

36
These are the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus, both of which were written in the early-to-mid fourth century
and are of the Alexandrian text-type. Both are in excellent condition and invaluable to understanding the earliest forms of the
New Testament text. However, even though they come from the same time period and manuscript family, there are over 3,000
differences between them in the Gospels alone. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Sinaiticus#Text-
type_and_relationship_to_other_manuscripts).
37
Based on data in the chart at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_manuscript#New_Testament_manuscripts. See also
the tables following John Gee, The Corruption of Scripture in Early Christianity, Early Christians in Disarray:
Contemporary LDS Perspectives on the Christian Apostasy, Noel B. Reynolds, ed. (Provo, Utah: BYU Press and FARMS,
2005): 194204 (http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1100&index=8).
38
Misquoting Jesus, 8990.
39
The standard work on this is Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (United
Bible Societies, 1993), which catalogs 284 significant variant readings in the New Testament.
40
There are some passages where the original reading remains in dispute, with modern Bibles favoring one reading or the
other. In these cases, most Bibles include a footnote that gives the alternative reading. Probably the most famous example of
this is John 1:18, where Christ is called either the only Son who is in the bosom of the Father or the only God who is in the
bosom of the Father, with the question of the extent of Christs divinity resting on which one is the original. Well discuss this
passage in lesson 15.
b) [SLIDE 19] Early translations of the New Testament.
i) Early Christian missionaries translated the New Testament from Greek into different
languages to assist in spreading of the Christian faith. The three most common early
translations were Syriac, Coptic, and Latin.
(1) The number of early Latin translations increased after Christianity became the
state religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century.
(2) Imperfections in the early Latin copies prompted Pope Damasus I to request the
scholar and priest St. Jerome to undertake a revision of the Latin Bible around
A.D. 382. Jeromes work became the Vulgate Bible.
(a) Vulgate is the Latin word for common. Jeromes translation was called the
Vulgate because it was commonly used by the Roman Catholic Church.
(b) As the centuries passed and the Latin language faded into obscurity,
eventually only priests and scholars spoke and read Latin. The Vulgate
remained the most commonly-used Bible during the Middle Ages, but few
people could read it.
(c) The current version of the Vulgate was created in A.D. 1592 under the
authority of Pope Clement VIII, and it remains the official Latin Bible text of
the Roman Catholic Church.
c) [SLIDE 20] The first attempts at printing the New Testament.
i) Johannes Gutenberg is famous for inventing movable type in A.D. 1450. His
development is, without question, the most important invention of the last 1,000
years.
(1) The first book he printed was the Bible, and the version he printed was the Latin
Vulgate.
(2) Gutenberg didnt print many copies by modern standards: only 180.
41
But few
people could afford to purchase such a treasure, and just as few could actually
read it.
ii) With printing now underway, the demand for Bibles increased. Scholars began to
work on publishing a printed edition of the Greek New Testament.
(1) [SLIDE 21] The first person to complete this was the Dutch priest and scholar
Desiderius Erasmus.
(a) He printed the first Greek New Testament in 1516, using about half a dozen
Greek manuscripts which he compared and then decided on his preferred
readings. When he couldnt obtain a Greek manuscript for a specific passage,
he used the Latin Vulgate and translated it back into Greek.
42

41
Of those, only 47 or 48 are known to still exist, and only 21 of them are complete copies
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutenberg_Bible).
42
One prominent example of this is Erasmus translation of Revelation 22:1621, which was based on the Vulgate and
translated by Erasmus himself into Greek. In so doing, Erasmus introduced an errant reading in 22:19: The original Greek
reads tree of life, but Erasmus text reads book of life. This error has been perpetuated in the King James Version to this
day. Another example if Acts 9:5b-6a (it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said,
Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him), which is not found in the earliest and best Greek
manuscripts, but became part of the Vulgate text and was therefore included by Erasmus in his Greek text, and hence the KJV.
(b) Erasmus Greek text was widely criticized in its day. His opponents criticized
him for not including some readings that were found only in the Latin
Vulgate.
43
From their point of view, Erasmus had tampered with scripture.
(c) Despite its flaws, his work eventually became the standard Greek text on
which later English translations were based. It was known by the Latin name
Textus Receptus (abbreviated TR), meaning received text.
44

(i) But the TR is based on only a handful of inferior Greek manuscripts, most
of them dating from the 12th century, with the oldest one from the 10th
century.
45

(ii) There are dozens of verses in the TR that are not part of the original New
Testament, but were added or altered by later scribes.
46

(iii) The TR became the basis for the King James Bible and all subsequent
Protestant translations until 1881.
47
Yet its textual basis is essentially a
handful of late and haphazardly-collected manuscripts.
5) English translations of the Bible.
a) Before we go further, its important to note that all translations are interpretations:
Mistakes come into the text when the translator doesnt understand the original
language, or has to make a judgment call when a word could be translated more than
one way. The translators choice of words can be affected by previous translations or by
the translators theological beliefs.
i) [SLIDE 22] Reflecting on the Old Testament, Joseph Smith observed:
Our latitude and longitude can be determined in the original Hebrew with far
greater accuracy than in the English version. There is a grand distinction between
the actual meaning of the prophets and the present [English] translation.
48

43
The best-known example is Erasmus treatment of the infamous Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7b8a). Erasmus
protested that the Comma couldnt be found in any Greek manuscript, so he did omitted it from his first two editions of the TR.
Consequently a Greek manuscript was produced (probably made to order!) and he reluctantly inserted it in his third edition.
44
In the second edition of the TR (1633), the preface (written in Latin) refers to the work as as Textum ergo habes, nunc
ab omnibus receptum: in quo nihil immutatum aut corruptum damus. (What you have here is the text which is now
received by all, in which we give nothing changed or corrupted.)
45
All of Erasmus manuscripts were minuscules of the Byzantine text-type. See footnote 33.
46
The following verses are clearly late additions and are not in the earliest and best Greek manuscripts. They are in TR
(and hence the King James Bible) but are not included in most modern Bibles or, if they are, they are bracketed or moved to
footnotes: Matthew 17:21; 18:11; 23:14; Mark 7:16; 9:44, 46; 11:26; 15:28; 16:920; Luke 17:36; 23:17; John 5:3b4; Acts 8:37;
9:b6a; 15:34; 24:6b7; 28:29; Romans 16:24; 1 John 5:7b8a
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bible_verses_not_included_in_modern_translations). Additionally, Mark 16:920 and
John 7:538:11 are clearly not original; they are included in most Bibles, but bracketed off to indicate they are late additions.
47
The TR quickly achieved near-sacred status. Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, scholars occasionally
published older or alternative Greek readings, but these were ignored or condemned. In 1707 John Mill examined 32 printed
Greek New Testaments and over 100 manuscripts; he found differences in 3,041 of the almost 8,000 verses in the New
Testament, accounting for around 30,000 variant readings. His work was attacked by Daniel Whitby, rector of St. Edmunds in
Salsbury, as undermining the authority of the scriptures and tampering with the text. The Text of the New Testament, 15455.
48
Joseph Smith, 8 April 1843. HC 5:342 (http://byustudies.byu.edu/hc/5/18.html#342); TPJS 29091
(http://scriptures.byu.edu/stpjs.html#290). The transcript of this sermon in the History of the Church was compiled from
notes taken by William Clayton and Willard Richards, and differences between the two were worked out by later editors. The
first sentence (Our latitude and longitude...) is in Richards account, and the second (There is a grand distinction...) is in
Claytons. WJS 185, 188 (http://bit.ly/wjs185186).
In the King Follett Discourse, given 7 April 1844, Joseph commented that he found the German Bible to be the most
correct translation, and to correspond nearest to the revelations he had received (HC 6:307; TPJS 349; WJS 351, 354, 358,
366). Josephs German Bible was probably a 1603 Hutter Polyglot, with Hebrew, German, Latin and Greek texts of the New
Testament in parallel columns. If so, this Bible was the one made by Protestant reformer Martin Luther in 1534. Like the King
James Version, the Luther Bibles New Testament was based on the Textus Receptus. This Bible is considered to be largely
responsible for the evolution of the modern German language (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Bible). While Josephs
b) [SLIDE 23] The Authorized King James Version (abbreviated KJV or AV).
49

i) The Authorized Version was prepared by order of King James I. The project was
begun in 1604, and published in 1611.
50

(1) Its called the Authorized Version because it was the Bible authorized by the
King of England to be read aloud in the worship services of the Church of
England.
(2) It was not a new translation, but rather a revision of the Bishops Bible, published
in 1568.
51

(a) James I ordered that the Bishops Bible was to be followed with as little
alteration as possible.
(3) The King James Bible was revised and corrected five times after it was
published.
52
The version that we use today is the 1769 Blayney edition.
53

ii) The impact of the KJV on English language and culture cannot be overstated.
54

(1) The works of Shakespeare and the KJV are widely regarded as the greatest
literary achievements of the English language.
(2) The KJV has inspired countless works of art and prose, from Handels Messiah to
Martin Luther King, Jr.s I Have a Dream speech.
iii) But setting aside its cultural impact for moment, how good of a translation is it?
55

comment regarding the accuracy of the Luther Bible may have been true in 1844, it is no longer the case due to the advent of
modern Biblical scholarship. (My thanks to Ben McGuire for identifying the edition of the Bible Joseph was using.)
49
For an accessible and interesting book on the history of the KJV, I highly recommend Alister McGrath, In the
Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture (New York: Anchor
Books, 2001).
50
The KJV was the third official English translation of the Bible commissioned by the Church of England. The first was the
Great Bible in A.D 1538 (during the reign of King Henry VIII); the second was the Bishop's Bible of 1568 (during the reign of
Queen Elizabeth I).
51
The Bishops Bible itself was heavily dependent on previous English translations. According to BYU scholars Jon
Nielson and Royal Skousen, about 76% of the KJV Old Testament is William Tyndales contribution, while 84% of the New
Testament reflects Tyndales work. How much of the King James Bible is William Tyndales? An Estimation Based on
Sampling, Reformation 3 (1998): 4974.
52
New editions of the KJV were released in 1613, 1629, 1638, 1762, and 1769.
53
Named after Benjamin Blayney (17281801), a fellow and vice-principal of Hertford College who was employed by the
Clarendon Press to prepare the edition. Minor updates have been made to the text since then, including some for the 2013 LDS
edition of the KJV (http://www.lds.org/bc/content/shared/content/english/pdf/scriptures/approved-adjustments_eng.pdf).
54
See McGrath, In the Beginning, 12.
55
There are some Protestants who claim that the KJV is not just the best Bible, but the only Bible that is totally inerrant,
totally infallible, and totally inspired. This is the so-called King James Only movement.
Because Latter-day Saints use the KJV as our official Bible, some of the false KJV only ideas have been adopted by some
members. Philip L. Barlow has examined how the King James Bible was understood by early Latter-day Saints and the
resistance to modern versions that appeared beginning with President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.s opposition to the Revised
Standard Version of the Bible in the early 1950s. Barlow, Why the King James Version?: From the Common to the Official
Bible of Mormonism, Dialogue 22/2 (Summer 1989): 1942 (https://dialoguejournal.com/wp-
content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V22N02_21.pdf); Barlow later reworked his Dialogue essay into chapter 5 of his book,
Mormons and the Bible: The Place of the Latter-day Saints in American Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991):
14881.
LDS resistance to new Bible translations didnt always exist. For example, in an article in the Church magazine
Improvement Era about the Standard Version (1881) and the American Standard Version (1901) of the Bible, the author
concluded: It is admitted, even by those opposed to new translations, that these modern versions are more accurate than the
King James, yet the Bible reader, whose time and opportunities do not permit him to compare it with the original texts, or
other translations, accepts it with its many faults, because it is the Bible of his forefathers. Conservatism in a matter of this
kind is to be commended, but those who accept the eighth article [of faith]will seek for the best translation, and through the
keys promised by our Father in heaven, will draw living water from the inspired writings of the prophets. Frederic Clift, The
Bible. English Revision, 1881American Standard Revision, 1901, Improvement Era 7/10 (August 1904): 777
(http://archive.org/stream/improvementera0710unse#page/777).
(1) Weve already discussed how the King James New Testament was translated from
Erasmus Textus Receptus, which contains many errors and alterations.
(2) In addition, the KJV contains many passages that are difficult to understand.
(a) [SLIDE 24] For example, lets look at 2 Corinthians 6: Paul has just finished a
long discourse to the Corinthians, defending his ministry and teachings, and
then he pleads:
KJV 2 Corinthians 6:1113 [24.1]NRSV 2 Corinthians 6:1113
11
O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto
you, our heart is enlarged.
12
Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are
straitened in your own bowels.
13
Now for a recompence in the same, (I
speak as unto my children,) be ye also
enlarged.
11
We have spoken frankly to you
Corinthians; our heart is wide open to
you.
12
There is no restriction in our
affections, but only in yours.
13
In returnI
speak as to childrenopen wide your
hearts also.
(i) The King James translation follows the Greek text fairly closely, but that
has the unfortunate result of making it harder to understand for the
modern English reader. Likewise, the 400-year-old Jacobean English is
difficult for most people to follow; we simply dont talk that way
anymore.
56

(3) [SLIDE 25] Another difficulty for the modern reader is that the meanings of
many words have changed over the last 400 years. Words like closet,
conversation, careful, lewd, and prevent all mean very different things today
than what they meant to the King James translators.
(a) Even worse, the word let and the phrase by and by mean exactly the opposite
today of what they did in 1611!
57

(b) The LDS edition of the King James Bible corrects some, but not all,
58
of these
in its footnotes, but our familiarity with these words makes it likely that well
read right through and assume we know what they mean.
(4) Finally, the KJV also has printing errors: simple mistakes that should have been
corrected, but have remained in the text down to today.
(a) [SLIDE 26] For example Matthew 23:24 has the famous mistake strain at a
gnat.
(i) Jesus didnt mean the scribes and Pharisees were staring intently at a
gnat. [26.1] The passage is supposed to read strain out a gnat, meaning
to filter water through a cloth to remove any gnats before drinking.
59

56
The English of the King James Version was outdated even in Joseph Smiths time, which is one of the reasons Noah
Websterbest known for his dictionary of the English languagetook it upon himself to update the KJVs language. The result
was his 1833 Common Version of the Bible, which never entered into widespread use. More information and Websters preface
to his work are available at http://www.bible-researcher.com/webster.html
57
Even more confusing, by and by means immediately in the New Testament, but after a while in the scriptures
revealed in Joseph Smiths time (Alma 32:42; 55:11, 14; 3 Nephi 27:11; Ether 5:1; D&C 63:35; 101:58). In the JST, Joseph
added the phrase by and by in his addition to Matthew 24 (Joseph SmithMatthew 1:55), but in the sense of after a while.
58
The correct meaning of the phrase by and by is footnoted in the LDS edition of the Bible at Mark 6:25 and Luke 17:7,
but not at Matthew 13:21 and Luke 21:9.
59
The Greek verb is (diuliz), from which we get our English word dilute, means to filter through, strain through,
pour through a filter, or strain out (http://biblehub.com/greek/1368.htm). Gnats were considered unclean animals according
to the Law of Moses (Leviticus 11:20-23).
(ii) This wasnt a translation error; it was a simple typo in the first edition of
the KJV (at instead of out), and it has not been fixed for over 400 years!
c) [SLIDE 27] The KJV is the Churchs official version of the Bible, and will be our primary
text for this class.
i) However, it is not superior in its translation, its language, or its source documents to
other Bible translations, and it is quite often inferior to more recent Bibles.
ii) We continue to use it primarily because in doctrinal matters, latter-day revelation
supports the King James Version in preference to other English translations.
60

iii) It is also has a similar language style to the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smiths
revelations.
(1) This family relationship is important for showing connections between
passages in the Bible and similar passages in modern scripture.
iv) The KJV is sufficient for devotional use. However, for serious Bible study, the KJV
has many shortcomings which stand as obstacles to understanding.
61

v) The Churchs preference for the KJV should not, and does not, prevent us from using
other translations to help us understand the Bible better, clarify difficult KJV
passages, and correct places where the KJV translators were in error.
62

d) [SLIDE 28] Brigham Young said:
[If the Bible] be translated incorrectly, and there is a scholar on the earth who
professes to be a Christian, and he can translate it any better than King James
translators did it, he is under obligation to do so. I think it is translated just as
correctly as the scholars could get it, although it is not correct in a great many
instances.
63

6) [SLIDE 29] For this course, I strongly recommend (although I dont require) that you use a
good, quality study Bible in a modern English translation.
a) A study Bible is one that has introductory essays for each book and footnotes on each
page that help you understand the meaning and context of what youre reading.
b) There are many different study Bibles available through local and online bookstores.
Some are also available for free on the Internet.
c) There are two that I recommend:
64

i) The New Oxford Annotated Bible.
(1) This volume, published by Oxford University Press, uses the New Revised
Standard Version (NRSV), which is a modern descendant of the King James
Bible.
65

60
Church Handbook of Instructions, Book 2: Administering the Church (2010): 21.1.7 (p. 180)
(https://www.lds.org/handbook/handbook-2-administering-the-church/selected-church-policies?lang=eng#21.1.7).
61
The King James Bible published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a big step forward in helping to
make the text more understandable.
62
At BYU, upper division courses in the Old and New Testament require students to use a modern-English study Bible.
63
Brigham Young, 27 August 1871. Journal of Discourses 14:22627;
http://en.fairmormon.org/Journal_of_Discourses/14/31#226
64
One Bible that I cannot recommend is the New International Version (NIV, 1984; rev. 2011). The NIV is the best-selling
English Bible in the world, but it contains a significant number of theologically-motivated translations. (See
http://bit.ly/Tyka4x)
(a) The NRSV is widely used by scholars and students in university-level courses,
and I will be using it frequently in this class.
(2) Its available through Amazon.com in hardback and paperback for around $25
30.
(3) Your syllabus and the class website also have a link to a free online version of the
NRSV, without the Oxford footnotes.
ii) The NET Bible (New English Translation).
(1) The NET Bible is a new translation that was completed by a team of Evangelical
Christian scholars at the Dallas Theological Seminary in 2005.
(a) What makes it unique is that they made the drafts of their translations and
footnotes available on the Internet for anyone to make suggestions and
corrections.
(2) The best thing about this Bible is its nearly 61,000 detailed footnotes.
(3) The leather study version is available for purchase online for $3040.
(a) Be sure to get the Full Notes Edition, not the Readers or Compact editions.
(4) Its also available for free online, with all of the footnotes. Your syllabus and the
class website have the link.
iii) I also like the English Standard Bible (ESV) and New American Standard Bible
(NASB) for their accuracy, clarity, and faithfulness to the Greek text. I cant
recommend any study Bibles in these translations, but you can read these
translations online for free.
7) [SLIDE 30] Id like to wrap up tonight with a brief look at the Joseph Smith Translation of
the Bible.
66

a) Many Sunday school discussions over problematic passages in the Bible end with
someone quoting the Joseph Smith Translation and stating that that was how the text of
the Bible originally read. However, the reality is a little more complex than that.
b) Josephs new translation
67
was not done in the usual manner of a scholar, using
ancient languages and manuscripts, but was a revelatory experience using only a King
James Bible.
i) Like Josephs other revelations, the translation was not a simple, mechanical
recording of divine dictation, but rather a process of study-and-thought,
accompanied and prompted by revelation from the Spirit of the Lord.

65
The KJV was updated in the 1880s with the Revised Version. The RVs American variant, the American Standard
Version, appeared in 1901. Both the RV and the ASV were updated with the Revised Standard Version in 1952. The New
Revised Standard Version, an update of the RSV, was released in 1989.
66
This is condensed version of a lesson I gave in the Doctrine and Covenants course of study: See D&C lesson 15, pages 1
8 (http://sites.google.com/site/hwsarc/home/dc/week15).
67
In Josephs revelations the Lord referred to it as the translation of my scriptures (94:10) or the new translation of my
holy word (124:89).
(1) There have been many discoveries of ancient Biblical manuscripts since Joseph
Smiths time. There are a handful of interesting parallels to Josephs work, but in
most instances recently-discovered Bible manuscripts and modern translations
do not match the Joseph Smith Translation.
68

c) So if the Joseph Smith Translation is Joseph Smiths correction of errors in other Bible
translations, why do most of these corrections not match known Biblical manuscripts?
i) Just because the new translation was a divinely inspired project does not necessarily
assume (a) that it is a restoration of the original Bible text, or (b) that it is infallible.
ii) [SLIDE 31] Josephs new translation could be many things. For example, different
portions of the work may include:
(1) Restorations of material once written by the biblical authors but since deleted
from the Bible.
(2) Historical events or doctrines that were not recorded anciently, or were recorded
but never included in any collection of scripture.
69

(3) Corrections of Biblical passages that were in error even in their original form.
(4) Inspired commentary by the Prophet Joseph which enlarged, elaborated, and
even adapted Biblical passages to a latter-day situation.
70

(5) Josephs changes to the wording of the Bible to make it more clear and
understandable for modern readers.
(6) Harmonization of historical details and attempts to clarify apparent
contradictions in the KJV text.
iii) Restoration of original, lost text almost certainly accounts for a small portion of the
changes Joseph made to the Bible. He did not claim to be mechanically preserving
some hypothetically perfect Biblical text; rather, he used the existing King James
text as a basis for commentary, expansion, and clarification, with particular attention
to issues of doctrinal importance for Latter-day Saint readers.
d) The evidence suggests that Joseph Smith did not believe that there was a perfect
original Biblical manuscript that he was restoring. Instead, he was expanding on the
King James text and revealing new concepts that may or may not have been in some of
the ancient manuscript traditions.
i) So, in this class, well be using the JST in our study, but well also be looking at other
possible translations and examining what they tell us.
8) Conclusion.
a) With numerous English translations of the Bible, modern scripture to help us interpret
the Bible, and living prophets to help us apply its teachings, one would think that the
Bible would be more widely-read than ever.

68
See Kevin L. Barney, The Joseph Smith Translation and Ancient Texts of the Bible, Dialogue 19/3 (Fall 1986): 85102
(http://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V19N03_87.pdf).
69
The Enoch material in Moses 57 might fall into this category.
70
This may be similar to what Nephi meant by likening the scriptures to himself and his people in their particular
circumstance (1 Nephi 19:23; 2 Nephi 11:8).
i) [SLIDE 32] Unfortunately, as Elder D. Todd Christofferson pointed out in a recent
General Conference:
[Five hundred years ago] scriptural ignorance abounded because people lacked
access to the Bible, especially in a language they could understand. Today the
Bible and other scripture are readily at hand, yet there is a growing scriptural
illiteracy because people will not open the books.
71

b) [SLIDE 33] Despite the textual problems in the New Testament,
Latter-day Saints have continued to trust in the general accuracy of the biblical texts
even though [we] know that that text may not always be correct. Thus, [we] study and
revere the Bible, especially in the context of other scriptures and modern revelation,
which have much to say about the Bible and how it is to be interpreted, and as [we]
study [we] ponder and pray that [we] may receive inspiration from God and come to
understand the Bibles messages as [we] need to be applied in [our] lives.
72

c) The central message of the New Testament is that Jesus Christ died for our sins and was
resurrected; that is what is important.
i) Latter-day Saints are not concerned about inconsistencies in the text because we are
not scriptural inerrantists (those who believe the scriptures are perfect and without
error). We recognize that the message of the scriptures is sacred, not their precise
words.
ii) Even the writers of the Book of Mormon were aware of the limitations of their
writing: If there are faults they are the mistakes of men; wherefore, condemn not
the things of God (Title Page).
73

iii) Any doctrinal questions that might arise in our minds because of difficult or
erroneous New Testament passages should be resolved by appealing to modern
scripture and the teachings of modern prophets.
(1) Latter-day Saints love and revere the New Testament and count its teachings as
sacred, but ultimately the foundation of what we believe is based on modern
revelation to living prophets, not to ancient texts.
74

71
D. Todd Christofferson, The Blessing of Scripture, General Conference, April 2010 (https://www.lds.org/general-
conference/2010/04/the-blessing-of-scripture).
72
Victor L. Ludlow, Bible, Encyclopedia of Mormonism (New York: Macmillan, 1992): 1:107
(http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Bible).
73
The Book of Mormon rejects claims to its inerrancy in several other passages as well: See 1 Nephi 19:6; 2 Nephi 3:21;
31:3; 33:4; Mormon 8:17; 9:3133; Ether 12:2326.
74
Late in his life, Wilford Woodruff spoke about being in the Kirtland Temple in the 1830s and hearing a leading man in
the Church preach that those who give revelations should give revelations according to [the scriptures], as what is written in
those books is the word of God; we should confine ourselves to them. Woodruff then recalled the Brigham Young arose and
taught: When compared with the living oracles those books are nothing to me; those books do not convey the word of God
direct to us now, as do the words of a Prophet or a man bearing the Holy Priesthood in our day and generation. I would rather
have the living oracles than all the writing in the books. Joseph Smith then affirmed Brighams remarks. Wilford Woodruff,
General Conference, October 1897 (https://archive.org/stream/conferencereport1897sa#page/22).
d) [SLIDE 34] In the final analysis, a scholarly approach to the scriptures is, at best, only a
supplement to the real goal of coming closer to Christ. Elder Christofferson counseled:
Faith will not come from the study of ancient texts as a purely academic pursuit. It
will not come from archaeological digs and discoveries. It will not come from scientific
experiments. It will not even come from witnessing miracles. These things may serve
to confirm faith, or at times to challenge it, but they do not create faith. Faith comes
by the witness of the Holy Spirit to our souls, Spirit to spirit, as we hear or read the
word of God. And faith matures as we continue to feast upon the word.
75

9) [SLIDE 35] Next week we begin our study of the Gospels, beginning with Mark.
a) Reading: Mark 1:16:6.

75
The Blessing of Scripture.

LDS New Testament Notes 02: Origin and Translation of The New Testament

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