Bible Commentary

[catholicmarsh]

Yes,
I have a question regarding the New American Bible Commentary. In certain passages I read in the Commentary that, “this verse is not included in the earliest manuscripts.” What does this mean exactly? Does it mean that certain verses were added? If so does this change the whole context of the Scripture. If we believe it is all true and inerrant what does this say if people came along later and added things to the Scripture? Does this mean that only certain parts are inspired? An example of this is in the Gospel of St. John where Jesus says, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Looking forward to hearing about this. Thanks
-CatholicMarsh

 

[SyCarl]

There are differences in manuscripts although they agree more than 95% of the time… The majority of these differences are matters of spelling of names and such.Less than 1% are something more than this and doctrine is affected by the differences. Some explantions for the differences are copyist errors. In some cases a marginal comment may have been mistaken copied as part of the text. Or someone might have skipped a line if they both start the same way. Copying errors are virtually inevitable when trying to copy something as long as the Bible, especially when you are copying someone else’s handwriting. Many copyists could not read since you don’t have to be able to read to copy.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Many copyists could not read since you don’t have to be able to read to copy.

I find that very hard to believe, if not laughable. If you had a pen in your hand back then, then you were likely trained/educated.
What you are describing is akin to giving an English speaking person a book written in Chinese and telling them to “copy what they see”…the results would be disastrous.

 

[Rolltide]

Here’s a translation of a letter from Petrarch dating from the 1300s that deals with exactly this issue regarding copyists:

Francis Petrarch, Familiar Letters.
Section 275-278
On the Scarcity of Copyists to Lapo da Castiglionchio
history.hanover.edu/texts/petrarch/pet14.html

I find that very hard to believe, if not laughable. If you had a pen in your hand back then, then you were likely trained/educated.
What you are describing is akin to giving an English speaking person a book written in Chinese and telling them to “copy what they see”…the results would be disastrous.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Here’s a translation of a letter from Petrarch dating from the 1300s that deals with exactly this issue regarding copyists:

Francis Petrarch, Familiar Letters.
Section 275-278
On the Scarcity of Copyists to Lapo da Castiglionchio
history.hanover.edu/texts/petrarch/pet14.html

I couldnt quite follow this, was he looking back to a time when all he knew was copying (without knowing what he was writing)? He says stuff like “committing many and many a passage to memory as I wrote” but that doesnt sound like an illiterate.

 

[Ilroy]

Yes,
I have a question regarding the New American Bible Commentary. In certain passages I read in the Commentary that, “this verse is not included in the earliest manuscripts.” What does this mean exactly?

Basically it is thus:
We don’t have any of the original manuscripts in their entirety if at all, so the translations we do have are based on many different manuscripts that we do have. Some of the manuscripts may not have a particular word or sentence but it may be found in another manuscript. For this reason, the translators put these footnotes to show that the word or snetence may or may not have been in the original.
Sycarl’s assertion that these small differences are the reason for all the different doctrines among the denominations does not, IMO, hold much water. If that were the case then there would have been as many differences in doctrine within the Church long before the advent of denominations.