The Transmission of the Biblical Writings – Common Textual Errors Part 3

In these blog posts, we are looking at the transmission of the Biblical texts, and specifically at common errors that were made during the process of copying texts. So far we have looked at the four common errors – mistaking similar letters, a wrong division of words, placing wrong vowels in Hebrew words, and skipping or doubling letters or words or full lines. Today we will wrap this up with two final common errors those copying ancient manuscripts (again, not just the biblical texts – any ancient manuscript).

The fifth common mistake occurred when the copyist wrote from memory instead of the manuscript. This is easy to do, especially when one is familiar with the text being copied. Furthermore, monks were especially likely to do this if the verse has a parallel in another passage of Scripture. As the monk would write down the verse he would remember and conflate or replace it with a similar passage. 

One final common “mistake” is a bit different than the others, for in a certain sense it is not a “mistake” at all. This occurred when the scribes intentionally made changes. Often this was done to change grammar or spelling which may have changed over time. Other times it was done to harmonize two parallel passages (for example to make the wording the same in two different gospel accounts). Sometimes it appears that the scribe did this to make the passage easier to understand. Finally, in a few cases, it appears the scribe did this to “correct” perceived theological difficulties in the way the text had originally been written. We should be clear that these things were not done maliciously, and by far the most common one is simply updating spelling. But nonetheless, this did create differences between manuscripts.

Because of these six common errors, plus some other minor ones, differences could creep into manuscripts over time. Next time we will look at textual criticism, the art of evaluating manuscript differences to try and determine the original text.

In Christ,

Bret