TRANSCRIBED by a few men, copied by many hands, and now duplicated by the millions by the genius of the printing press, its message has come down to us through the ages as a miracle. Yes, it is a miracle in its origin, preservation, distribution, and its effect upon humanity. We call this package of paper with black marks a book, God's Book—the Bible.
Collecting this Book in its various translations is more than a hobby—it is a spiritual experience.
What a thrill it would be to look upon the first portion of God's Word as transcribed by Moses. This, of course, is not possible, for time has taken its toll and none of the original manuscripts are extant today. We can, however, picture in our imagination the first scroll upon which Moses wrote the wonderful words of revelation as instructed by the Lord. We read in Exodus 34:27, "The Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words ..."
Until a few years ago the oldest Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament known to be in existence were dated about the ninth century. The late date of these manuscripts led to many conjectures regarding the reliability of our Old Testament sources.
After the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered and recognized as Biblical manuscripts probably one thousand years older than those from which our present Bible was translated, scholars waited anxiously to learn how our modern Bible would compare with this ancient text. The result can best be appreciated by quoting from the book written by Dr. Millar Burrows, who was one of the first to work on the scrolls. He said:
"Some readers may be disappointed that translations of the Isaiah manuscript are not included. The fact is that most of the differences between these manuscripts and the traditional Hebrew text do not involve changes of meaning that would be evident in a translation, and the differences that do involve such changes are not sufficiently frequent to justify taking the space for translations of these texts."—The Dead Sea Scrolls, 1955, p. 348. (Italics supplied.) This is an amazing testimony to the Lord's preservation of His Book.
Everyone knows that it is not easy to copy anything correctly, and it is amazing that such a statement can be made even though the Bible manuscripts were copied many times through the centuries. The evidence available on our whole Bible reveals the wonderful fact that we can rely on it as the true Word of God. Its preservation is a miracle—proof that God's hand is on His Book!
It is possible to secure a photographic facsimile of the Isaiah scroll, and I am happy to have this as part of my library.
We owe much to the Jews for their care in the preservation of the Old Testament. Through the years, up to the present time, they have continued their reverent and careful preservation of the Book. Although found mostly in codex form it is still preserved in manuscript form on scrolls of animal skin. The art of the ancient scribes, with all their reverent care in copying, is still practiced today.
Every synagogue has its Torah scrolls (Pentateuch) kept carefully in a cabinet called the ark. These Torah scrolls are held in great reverence by modern Jews and are very carefully and reverently handled and preserved. Irreverent hands cannot touch them, and they are very rarely found in the possession of individuals, especially of Gentiles. When they are worn beyond the point of usefulness they are reverently buried in a cemetery with a sacred ceremony. Just recently such a burial service for some old scrolls was conducted in my own city by one of the local synagogues.
I have a complete Torah scroll (see illustration) which was brought from Poland by Jewish refugees. It was secured through the efforts of a refugee friend who trusted a Seventh-day Adventist to handle the precious and holy object. The scroll's age has not yet been determined, but what a story it could tell of its own preservation and the persecutions and trials of the Jews in Poland.
Is it not possible that we as Adventist Christians, claiming to love God's Word, could learn a lesson from our Jewish friends and show more reverence in handling God's Holy Book?
One of the earliest translations of the Old Testament from Hebrew into another language was called the Septuagint. This was a Greek translation made in Alexandria about the middle of the third century B.C. The need for this translation was created by the dispersion of the Jews into the Greek world. This translation became the Bible of most of the Jews and later of the Christians for several centuries. While no original manuscripts are now in existence, it was preserved by copying until the development of printing, and is available to us today.
The Bible as Christians accept it became complete with the writings of the apostles, which were made during the first century of the Christian Era and called the New Testament. Written primarily in the Greek language, it was widely circulated during the first centuries. It appears that it was found not only in scroll form at that time but also in the new codex form. Of course, there are no original manuscripts in existence today, but many ancient portions have been found in recent years—some dating as early as the third century.
A study of the newly discovered manuscripts reveals that this part of our Bible
has also been marvelously preserved through the centuries. "There are nearly 4,500 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. These include over 200 uncial documents, counting all fragments, which range in date from the second to the ninth century, about 100 papyri and ostraca, mainly uncial, approximately 2,500 cursive documents dating from the ninth to the fifteenth century, and nearly 1,700 lection-aries, some of which were written in uncials as late as the twelfth century. ... So far as the quality and the quantity of the evidence go, the New Testament may be said to be by far the best-preserved ancient document in the world."—The Ancestry of the English Bible, p. 161, 3d revised ed.
One often reads of the many corrections made in the most recent versions, yet the fact is, as quoted from Dr. Hort in his Introduction to the New Testament in the Original Greek: "The amount of what can be called substantial variation . . . can hardly form more than a thousandth part of the entire Text." These new discoveries should give us greater faith and prove that we need not discard our Bible for a new one.
The best examples of early Christian Bibles in Greek, which included the Old and New Testaments, are the Codex Vaticanus, in the Vatican library, and the Codex Sinaiticus, now in the British Museum. These are thought by some scholars to be two of the fifty copies ordered made by the Emperor Constantine in the fourth century. There is also the famous Codex Alexandrinus produced in the fifth century which now can be seen in the British Museum. Photographic reproductions ofat least portions of these and other ancient Bible manuscripts have been made available to scholars and collectors.
In the centuries after the fall of Rome and during the Dark Ages the Greek language gradually became an unknown tongue in Western Europe.
Greek manuscripts were very scarce at the time of Tyndale's translation of the New Testament, and those available were dated not earlier than a.d. 1000. I had hoped for some time to secure at least a part of an old New Testament manuscript. Finally I came into possession of a portion of 74 pages containing major parts of the Gospels of Luke and John—dated about a.d. 950—earlier than any available to Tyndale. What a thrill it is to own and handle such a precious portion of God's written word.
While the Scriptures were translated into several languages, such as Old Latin and Syriac, early in the Christian Era, the first real effort to establish an Authorized Bible in Latin for the Western Church was made by Jerome in the late fourth century with the encouragement of Pope Damasus.
While at first it was not readily accepted it finally became the official Bible of the Roman Church and became incorporated in the Vulgate, or commonly received translation.
Through the following eleven hundred years many copies were made. A large number are still in existence today and portions are available for collectors. It has been estimated that there are more than eight thousand Latin Bible manuscripts in existence. These, of course, were not available to the common people at the time of their production. In fact, we are told that many Roman priests never saw or used a copy of the Bible. My collection includes several vellum manuscript pages of the Latin Bible dating from the tenth to the fifteenth century.
At the time of the invention of printing in Western Europe the only Bible text known there was that of the Latin Vulgate. The first great book printed was a Latin Vulgate Bible. This is known as the Gutenberg Bible-—named after its publisher, who is credited with the invention of movable type which made printing possible. While the exact date of the printing of this Bible is not known, most experts appear to accept the date as a.d. 1454.
We do not know the exact number of copies printed either, but today there are 42 copies known to be in existence. The copies in America can be found in the Library of Congress, the Morgan Library in New York City, the New York Theological Seminary in New York City, the New York Public Library, and the Chicago Bible Society. I have had the privilege of examining the copy in the Morgan Library. Although this Bible is accepted as the first example of printing with movable type, it certainly is a beautiful work of printer's art.
Original copies of the Gutenberg Bible are extremely valuable, some being valued at more than five hundred thousand dollars. Some years ago an incomplete copy was broken up and single pages were made available to collectors, many of which are in private and public libraries. Some of these pages have sold in recent years at prices of five hundred dollars and more. I have had in my possession a Gutenberg page—printed on vellum.
The great and wonderful development of printing opened up a new phase in the history of the Bible and its publication. It led to a tremendous multiplication of copies of the Bible—at first in Latin. It is estimated that no less than 124 editions of the Latin Bible were printed by a.d. 1500. Bibles printed before this date are called incunabula Bibles.
My present collection includes a complete copy of the De Hailbrun Latin Bible printed in Venice in a.d. 1480. It is a beautiful specimen of typography with the first letter of Genesis more than two inches high and hand painted in blue and gold. It also has hundreds of hand-painted letters in red and blue throughout at the beginning of books and paragraphs. Its colophon reads: "Explicit biblia impressa Venetiis per Franciscum de hailbrun—.M.CCCC.LXXX."
I have a complete copy of a Latin Bible printed by Kaspar Hochfeder of Nuremberg about a.d. 1490. In this also the first letter of Genesis is very large and is hand painted in blue and gold. This too has many capital letters hand painted in red and blue.
The Bible was also printed in eleven other European languages before a.d. 1500. A German Bible was printed in 1466, an Italian in 1471, a Dutch in 1477, and a French in 1478. These Bibles are rather scarce today, but portions of some are available to collectors.
The first real attempt after the Dark Ages to translate and publish a Bible in a European language other than Latin, so that the people could read it in their own tongue, was made in England about the year 1380. However, the fifteenth century closed without a printed Bible for the English-speaking people.
The second installment of this article will cover the story of the world's greatest Book—the English Bible.
