Bible Manuscript Recently Discovered?

Jerome · Apr 30, 2011

So I was perusing the New New International Version and noticed this at I John 5:8:

not found in any Greek manuscript before the fourteenth century
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Now my Old New International Version says at that footnote:

not found in any Greek manuscript before the sixteenth century
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So an older manuscript has apparently been discovered relatively recently.

Does anyone recall an announcement of this important discovery? I sure don't.

Can anyone identify which newly found manuscript these eminent translators are referencing?

Martin Marprelate · Apr 30, 2011

I think you will find that they were wrong the first time and have corrected themselves.

Steve

Jerome · Apr 30, 2011

Really?

Do you recall where you read them admitting such?

preachinjesus · Apr 30, 2011

There have been a number of significant textual discoveries over the past two decades.

We are living in a time of significant growth and refinement of the critical text. Several of the recent discoveries are both affirming previous critical textual work while also disproving a lot of secular theories against the construction of the Bible. It is really making the Critical Text of the New Testament that far, far superior text to use for translation work.

As far as the NIV point, I'm not certain of the actual issues but it wouldn't be surprising. Keep in mind the original NIV is from 1984 and based on textual work primarily from the 1970s and before. There's been a lot of helpful work done since then.

I'm not with my resources today, but I do know that there is a recent textual discovery of a load of manuscripts and fragments that when fully surveyed will likely rival the Dead Sea Scrolls impact on textual work.

Deacon · Apr 30, 2011

New finds are being found in known manuscripts quite often

Here's one:

The Comma Johanneum in an Overlooked Manuscript [LINK]
By Daniel B. Wallace 7/2/2010

This manuscript, housed at the BSB, is one of the manuscripts I examined today. It is an eleventh century parchment minuscule bearing the shelf number Cod. graec. 211. The codex contains Acts, the general letters, the corpus Paulinum (including Hebrews), and Revelation. There are extensive notes, written in a much later hand, running through Paul’s letters. The order of the books is: Acts, general letters, Paul’s letters, Revelation. The general letters are in their common modern order, as are Paul’s (with Hebrews at the end). First John is on leaves 68 verso through 74 verso.

On 74 recto is 1 John 5.7–8. The page begins in the middle of 1 John 5.4. Verses 7–8 read, οτι τρεις εισιν οι μαρτυρουντες, το πνευμα, και το υδωρ, και το αιμα· και οι τρεις εις το εν εισιν (‘For there are three that testify, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and the three are in agreement’). This is unremarkable as it is. But there is a marginal note, written above the text in the upper margin. The note is written in a much later hand—at least second half of the sixteenth century as can be seen by the introduction which specifies ‘v. 7.’ Verse numbers were not invented until 1551, in Stephanus’ fourth edition of his Greek New Testament. Hence, this cannot be any earlier than that date. The hand, however, looks to be much later. I would judge it to be 17th–18th century.
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Metzger notes 8 different mauscripts containing the verse:

61 codex Montfortianus, dating from the early sixteenth century.

88v.r.: a variant reading in a sixteenth century hand, added to the fourteenth-century codex Regius of Naples.

221v.r.: a variant reading added to a tenth-century manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

429v.r.: a variant reading added to a sixteenth-century manuscript at Wolfenbüttel.

636v.r.: a variant reading added to a sixteenth-century manuscript at Naples.

918: a sixteenth-century manuscript at the Escorial, Spain.

2318: an eighteenth-century manuscript, influenced by the Clementine Vulgate, at Bucharest, Rumania.
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[Bruce Manning Metzger and United Bible Societies, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Second Edition a Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament (4th Rev. Ed.) (London; New York: United Bible Societies, 1994). 647-48.]

Also the Vatican library contains Minuscule 629 (dated to the fourteenth or fifteenth century), noted to contain the addition.

* Not so sure of the relability but if you type "Manuscript" and the manuscript number, WIKI provides a brief note concerning the document.

My guess is that this manuscript is the reason for the change.

Rob

Tater77 · Apr 30, 2011

Here is the verse and note in question as found on Biblegateway.com

1 John 5:8 (New International Version, ©2011)

8 the[a] Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.

Footnotes:

1. 1 John 5:8 Late manuscripts of the Vulgate testify in heaven: the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. And there are three that testify on earth: the (not found in any Greek manuscript before the fourteenth century)

franklinmonroe · Apr 30, 2011

Is it possible that a manuscript which was previously thought to be 16th C. has (upon further examination or evidence) been 'redated'?

Dr. Bob · Apr 30, 2011

Many feel that the "Greek textual documentary proof" of inserting this text into First John is fanciful at best.

Wouldn't put much past those Irish monks (the only Greek text to include it were "found" in the margin of manuscripts in an Irish monastery) to win a bet . . [insert tongue-in-cheek icon here]

rsr · Apr 30, 2011

My guess is the same as Deacon's. My understanding is that the manuscript in question (minuscule 629) was not included in the UBS apparatus until the 4th edition (1993).

Minuscule 629, BTW, is a Greek/Vulgate document; the Vulgate, of course, includes the Comma.

For those interested in such things, it may be worth noting that 629, like Vaticanus, is in the Vatican library and thus is "Catholic" in the same way that Vaticanus is, and in fact is even more "Catholic" because it, like the Vulgate, includes the Comma.

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