I saw Les Misérables in London soon after it opened, loved it, aand then read the novel by Victor Hugo, in my opinion an overly long, rather boring novel that I had to force myself to finish. I know many of you will strongly disagree, but that doesn't matter, it was my reaction to the original. I loved the way in which the playright and others involved in the production adapted, revised, and distilled a great story into a beautiful and moving musical. Eventually the movie version came out and resisted seeing it for years because I didn't like what I heard in the previews, but eventuality (only recently) bought the DVD and watched it several times. Explaining some of the novel's elements left out of the play and movie (eg, the coin incident) to my daughter choked me up and I realized some of the beauty of the novel that I had not originally appreciated. A text comes to its completion as a conversation among its audience,band a classic multiplies the audiences involved in the conversation.

Even when we don't have an original autograph, some scholars will still imagine earlier sources or versions based on various criteria and methodologies. Do they succeed in this quest? Probably not all that well, but it is still an attempt to appreciate multiple dimensions of a text that may not be apparent otherwise.

Just my two cents.

But a couple of further pessimistic thoughts, with respect to the Gospels more than the Paulines:

It isn't even clear to me that there was a single autograph. Even today, works can go through multiple editions (there may be several versions an author circulates privately as he continues to work on it, versions which sometimes circulate quite widely; then there are sometimes even multiple "final", printed editions). 

Adding to that is the more general question, Who is the author? Who is a redactor (does he count as an author)? Who is just a scribe taking liberties? I think it is common to recognize, especially in some of the gospels, that there are sometimes several voices at work or several layers in the text (John and Luke are prime examples). 

All the evidence suggests that the earlier we go, the less reliable transmission was and the freer people were with changing the text. And the earliest period is precisely where we have the fewest data. Thus when the texts were most in flux is when we have no direct view of the process. Indeed it seems that in the earliest stages the texts were, one might say, living documents.

So not only is it not clear how we could recover the pristine original with the data we have, it isn't even clear that there is a single pristine original to recover. 

I am frustrated by the fact that no matter what scholars attempt to do we will never know what the original gospels or letters of Paul said. The delicate tracing through manuscripts, church fathers and finally the bursting on the scene of the Codex Sinaiticus will never satisfy me. I would love some comments to prove me wrong.

Thanks 

Doug

Is 1 Cor 15:3 best rendered with:
"Christ died for our sins"?
"Christ died on account of our sins"?

1Corinthians 15:3
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(Etheridge) For I delivered to you from the first, according as I had received:
That the Meshiha died for our sins, as it is written;
(Murdock) For I delivered to you from the first, as I had received it;
that the Messiah died on account of our sins, as it is written:
(KJV) For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received,
how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;

Is Matthew 20:28 best rendered with:
ransom?
redemption?
salvation?
deliverance?

Matthew 20:28
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(Etheridge) So, the Son of man came not to be served, but to serve,
and to give his life the redemption for many.
(Murdock) even as the Son of man came, not to be served, but to serve;
and to give his life a ransom for many.
(Lamsa) Just as the Son of man did not come to be ministered to, but to minister,
and to give his life as a salvation for the sake of many.

Matthew 20:28 (Berean Literal)
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even as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve,
and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

Mark 10:45 (Lamsa)
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For also the Son of man did not come to be ministered to, but to minister,
and to give his life as a salvation for the sake of many.

Luke 1:68
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(NIV)
“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has come to his people
and redeemed them.
(Lamsa)
Blessed is the Lord, the God of Israel;
for he has visited his people
and wrought a salvation for them.

Hebrews 8:10
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(Young's Literal)
because this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel,
after those days, saith the Lord,
giving My laws into their mind,
and upon their hearts I will write them,
and I will be to them for a God,
and they shall be to Me for a people;

(Aramaic Bible in Plain English)
“But this is The Covenant that I shall give to the family of the house of Israel:
After those days, says THE LORD JEHOVAH,
I shall put my law in their minds
and upon their hearts I shall write it,
and I shall be to them a God,
and they shall be to me a people.”

Hebrews 10:16
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(NIV)
“This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds.”
(Aramaic Bible in Plain English)
“This is the covenant that I shall give them after those days, says THE LORD JEHOVAH:
I shall put my law into their minds,
and I shall write it upon their hearts,

dukhrana.com, Peshitta tool, EBV with footnotes:
Hebrews 10:16 - “Dit is het Verbond dat Ik na die dagen aan hen geven zal, zegt de HEERE! ‘Ik zal mijn Wet in hun verstand leggen en die op hun harten schrijven,
Ik zal mijn Wet ... schrijven - dit is de lezing van de Aramese Peshitta. De lezing van de Griekse NA28, MHT en TR luidt: ‘Ik zal mijn wetten in hun harten geven en Ik zal ze in hun verstand schrijven”.

translate.google.com:
Hebrews 10:16 – “This is the Covenant that I will give them after those days, says the LORD!
‘I will put my Law in their minds
and write it on their hearts,
I will write my Law ... – this is the reading of the Aramaic Peshitta.
The reading of the Greek NA28, MHT, and TR reads:
‘I will put my laws in their hearts and I will write them on their minds’.

Andrew Xian Nyhärt, _The One Law Covenant: Recovering the Heart of the New Covenant_ (2025), 186pp., on 57, 61

In Hebrews 8 and 10, the writer quotes Jeremiah 31-- the new covenant promise-- not from the Hebrew wording but from the Greek Septuagint.
The LXX renders Jeremiah's "_my law [torati]_" in the singular as "_my laws [tous nomous mou]_" in the plural.
Hebrews cites that Greek wording faithfully.
...
Also worth noting: Hebrews itself, outside the quotation, prefers "law" in the singular when stating the theological shift (Heb. 7:12).

=====================
snips
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Hebrews 7:5 N-AMS
INT: according to the law this is

Hebrews 7:12 N-GMS
NAS: a change of law also.

Hebrews 7:16 N-AMS
NAS: [such] not on the basis of a law of physical

Hebrews 7:19 N-NMS
KJV: For the law made nothing

Hebrews 7:28 N-NMS
NAS: For the Law appoints men

Hebrews 7:28 N-AMS
NAS: which came after the Law, [appoints] a Son,

Hebrews 8:4 N-AMS
KJV: gifts according to the law:

Hebrews 8:10 N-AMP
GRK: Κύριος διδοὺς νόμους μου εἰς
NAS: I WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS,

Hebrews 9:19 N-AMS
INT: according to the law by Moses

Hebrews 9:22 N-AMS
INT: according to the law and apart from

Hebrews 10:1 N-NMS
KJV: For the law having a shadow

Hebrews 10:8 N-AMS
NAS: are offered according to the Law),

Hebrews 10:16 N-AMP
GRK: Κύριος διδοὺς νόμους μου ἐπὶ
NAS: I WILL PUT MY LAWS UPON THEIR HEART,
KJV: I will put my laws into their

Hebrews 10:28 N-AMS
NAS: who has set aside the Law of Moses

I am wondering if anyone can point me to information on how the New Testament progressed from various scattered manuscripts over several centuries to what appears to suddenly become the completed Codex Sinaiticus.

Many Thanks

Doug

Such an interesting topic.

I can't wait to get a hold of it.

Although inerrancy was the driving force in my leaving the fundamentalist church I was a part of after my third and final year of Bible School,  the seed was planted during my second year when I began doubting the pre-tribulation rapture, which was sacrosanct. In trying to reconcile various verses (the irreconcilable), I favored a mid-tribulation or post-tribulation rapture. 

Ernest Sandeen wrote this book in 1970. Although dated in the sense that it describes the history of fundamentalism only through 1930, it does an excellent job of tracing the origins of the fundamentalist movement. Although fundamentalism is far broader than what Sandeen calls "millenarianism" (a species of premillennialism that stresses the rapture of the church followed by the imminent return of Christ to establish an earthly kingdom from Jerusalem), Sandeen deftly shows the close relationship between the fundamentalist movement in this country and millenarianism. At the same time he acknowledges other influences on fundamentalism, such as the biblical literalism of the Old Princeton theology. (Nineteenth century Princeton theology, as exemplified by the Hodges and Warfield, held to biblical inerrancy but was postmillennialist in orientation.)

This book contains a valuable description of the influence of John Nelson Darby and dispensationalism on the broader movement of fundamentalism and discusses in some detail the influence of the Bible Conference Movement as well as the Keswick movement on the development of fundamentalism as it entered the twentieth century.

All in all, this is a valuable resource for those interested in the various religious movements (Christian and otherwise) that laid the groundwork for the religious scene in post-World War II America. As one who grew up in the fundamentalist circles of the 1950s and early 1960s, I found this book to be quite valuable in gaining a better perspective on the milieu in which I was immersed at the time.

I'd love to get a hold of it to better understand the origins of at least some of what I got caught up in all those years ago.