Textual Criticism - what is it and how does it help us?

[IshChayil]

OK, from time to time we've gotten into this topic so it seemed like time to open up a thread about it.

Most modern denominations espouse the view that textual criticism of the bible is a real and edifying thing.
Well what is it?
The assumption is that the bible was originally penned in Hebrew / Aramaic / and Greek and that the highest form of the biblical text; the most holy and most correct if you will is the Autographia.
Auto = self, graphia = scriptures (or writings more literally).
The perfect autographia (sometimes called Autographa) would be the entire Hebrew/Aramaic Old Testament + Greek New Testament exactly as originally penned by prophets/scribes/apostles/kings/etc.

The truth is, there are thousands of variances in the original language text (and far far far more than this in translations of course). Men and women who love the bible enter the field of Textual Criticism of the bible in an effort to restore the text back using the minds G-d has given us, and the evidence available (fragments discovered in the Cairo Geniza old synagogue), dead sea scrolls, etc.
The discovery of new texts has shed enormous light on the original complete and perfect bible.
Example:
IN Deuteronomy 32 we have a verse that says that G-d divided the nations according to the "bnei Yisrael" sons of Israel. The problem is that there was no Israel at the time that G-d divided the nations.
Older translations will all say "children/sons of Israel".
The ancient Greek translations (septuagint/ LXX) says the "angeloi theou" (angels of G-d). Quite an interesting translation error to translate "Sons of ISrael" as "angels of G-d".
Clearly the translators of the Greek Old Testament had a different hebrew text they were looking at than the Masoretic text which popular translations like King James are based on.
Well then we discover the Dead Sea Scrolls, and viola we have a copy of the Torah that is older than ANYTHING else discovered on Earth. Guess what it says?
Instead of "bnei Yisrael" it says "bnei Elohim", the "sons of G-d". Now that certainly is the text that the Greek translators were looking at 2500 years ago when they made the LXX translation.
So now, this new discovery is available for any translator of a modern bible; it was not available for older translations which are destined to be stuck with the errant/irrational "according to the number of the children of Israel" who did not yet exist and certainly had no number yet.
(example provided from Dr. Michael Heiser).

So, this is how critical editons of the bible are born. When you read a critical edition, you'll see a footnote on certain words; you then look down to the bottom of the page and that footnote has an explanation. For example BHS (Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia) on this example will mention "the LXX says "angeloi theou" and manuscript xyz say "bnei el" "sons of G-d". The BHQ another Hebrew critical text will call out the dead sea scroll reference. These critical bibles try to not limit our knowledge of G-d to one textual tradition but to expand our knowledge but giving us access in one volume to all of the known textual variances.

The Greek New Testament critical editions latest versions are NA28 (Nestle Aland) and UBS5. These do for the Greek new testament what the BHS and BHQ do for the Hebrew/Aramaic Old Testament.
If you're really excited you'll pick up a Biblia Sacra (both critical testaments combined: BHS and NA).
There is an art and science that goes into the critical text and it's understood that the main choice may not always be the correct choice. Sometimes we go with the textus receptus (what King James is based on), and other times we go with more ancient manuscripts, and other times we go with texts as new as the King James stuff. Usually, scholars see stuff that's closer to the date of authorship is more authoritative but not always. It helps when there are multiple "witnesses" i.e. more than one text worded the same from the same time period in different locations. This is why it's silly to make a "majority vs. oldest" blank ruling. There's a lot more thought that goes into it. Having majority copies just means that there were some busy monks for a certain period of time.

This can be scary for people to learn about. I've heard many pastors lie over the years and make claims like "we have every single letter of the bible in the exact way it was passed down from the ancients".
This simply is not true and shielding people from the truth only sets them up for failure later on.
If we can believe that G-d breathed scripture through His holy prophets, and He used every aspect of their lives; their upbringing, their education or lack thereof, their dialectal oddities, other literature they came in contact with, etc. then it should not be hard to believe He has left us with this puzzle as it were.
The critical editions we have today are pretty darn good and there is not a whole lot left to question.
There are variances though and knowing about them can be very very useful and informative.

I'm no expert in this area but it's long been an area of interest of mine. I feel my own faith has been strengthened by knowing the truth. We don't have to be scared of our bible and we don't have to pretend it's something it isn't. Compared to other books of antiquity, the bible is incredibly resilient and intact.
The smart would-be theologian will use his/her knowledge to not build their house on the sand of passages which are not clearly attested in the oldest manuscripts. This is not a liberal or conservative thing; this is a seminary thing. Any of the major seminaries from any of the denominations offer courses in Biblical Criticism.

Ask questions, share where I left a hole. This is something that has come up a few times before since I've been around and I don't want people being scared of it any more. As a fellow student of the bible, I hope you'll embrace this and not run to put your head in the sand. I'm not trying to hurt anyone's faith; I just want that faith built on the rock and not on sand. You don't have to learn Hebrew or Greek to benefit from this stuff; there are good language translations which have excellent footnotes that inform you of slight or major variances. NET bible is quite good for footnotes. This is not liberal scholarship; this is mainstream scholarship and it's not new. If you use any modern bible translation in any language, chances are the translators themselves were staring at critical texts (BHS and NA). Heck, even the King James New Testament was based on a rudimentary "critical text" of the day. It was several (6 or 8 I can't remember) Greek texts woven together by Erasmus in his Greek New Testament so the King James translators even had access to some variances in their day and they chose what to keep and what to throw away. Granted, those Greek texts are all of the same traditon (family) of texts. The Byzanite textus receptus..
I hope to learn from folks here as well as sharing. I'm sure I left a ton out of this overview.
Shalom and enjoy!

 

[Mojo]

Thanks Ish.

In your evaluation, what makes the older better?

 

[Verifyveritas76]

I'm no expert in this area but it's long been an area of interest of mine. I feel my own faith has been strengthened by knowing the truth. We don't have to be scared of our bible and we don't have to pretend it's something it isn't. Compared to other books of antiquity, the bible is incredibly resilient and intact.

Mega Ditto’s. I’m not sure that I’m at the same place you are in a lot of this but apparently on this topic we have a lot in common. I do tend to be somewhat skeptical of a lot of the Textual Criticism, but I also realize that it has its place and can be very helpful when understood and applied properly.

FWIW, I am a big KJV fan, not because I believe it can correct the Greek or Hebrew, or because I believe it is ALL Truth, but because of the events surrounding its compilation and the results and conclusions and depth of study that it supports and facilitates. I’m ok with other versions for context and perspective, but for me, if I’m engaging in serious study, my platform of choice to dive from is the KJV.

One of my hot button studies a while back was the events and sequences of the Exodus Passover and the Crucifixion Passover. While there were multiple places I had to get clarification from the Hebrew or Greek, I’m convinced that it would have either been impossible or have taken me much much longer to reach my current level of understanding in any of the other modern translations. Not that the translation was perfect, but it wasn’t incorrect if that makes sense, and it was close enough to allow me to fill in some blanks and reconcile perceived contradictions to my satisfaction.

 

[IshChayil]

Mega Ditto’s. ...Textual Criticism, but I also realize that it has its place and can be very helpful when understood and applied properly.
FWIW, I am a big KJV fan, not because I believe it can correct the Greek or Hebrew, or because I believe it is ALL Truth, but because of the events surrounding its compilation and the results and conclusions and depth of study that it supports and facilitates. I’m ok with other versions for context and perspective, but for me, if I’m engaging in serious study, my platform of choice to dive from is the KJV....

Hehe, Rush Limbaugh got me through stress in the work place for many years. Thanks for the Mega dittos
As far as translations go, with the versions of the original language texts available to them at the time, I think King James is pretty darn good.

For many years I could only read and understand the Torah and historical books in Hebrew, but not many of the Psalms. The language is different, and even more archaic in Psalms.
Sometimes the archaism is contrived; a poet is trying to sound like older Hebrew; the appeal I think is similar to part of King James V. appeal today.
For native English speakers the "sound" of it is bible-y because the language is archaic (not an insult to KJV guys, look up any of the older words there in a dictionary and archaic or obsolete is how it gets labeled).
I participated in a year and a half discipleship class which used King James decades ago. I have mixed feelings about this because if they had used a modern translation I would have gotten much more out of the class. There was a learning curve to learn the dead language that is Victorian English. I think basically what I got out of that year and a half of study was learning to understand King James lol. That being the case, in the past when I couldn't understand the Older language in many of the Hebrew Psalms, I could find some solace in King James' beautiful renditions of the psalms. Poetry, generally can not be translated well. You miss the alliteration, consonation, word plays based on similar roots, acrostics, etc. but in my opinion King James does just about as good a job as anyone could possibly do to translate this poetry into English. Psalm 119 even includes the whole Hebrew alphabet for each stanza, trying to be true to the original (though most people have no clue why those Hebrew letters are there).
I once read a Russian translation of "The Jabberwocky" poem in Beowulf. Nice try but just nowhere near as good as the "English".

I think your perspective makes sense; not everyone has the time, drive, or yearning to dig deep in original languages but the tools are there for serious bible study and it's good to be able to use them when we need them. Having a favorite translation is fine as long as we have a healthy dose of "this translation is not 100% perfect but it's good enough for most of the stuff I'm doing". Knowing at least that a certain translation may leave out some words from the original bible or may add some words can go a long way in dealing with problematic passages which just don't seem to fit (which will only be noticed by serious students anyway).

 

[IshChayil]

Thanks Ish.

In your evaluation, what makes the older better?

It's a matter of transmission. The more hands a text sees the more chance there is of copying errors or G-d forbid, intentional changes.
If you have a chapter of John from the year 150, there is a very high likelihood that fragment is a first generation copy (if we assume John was written somewhere 70-90 AD).
It's just one generation away. So assuming it's not by John's hand himself, the zeal of the early believers who were persecuted for their faith and willing to die for it gives me a high degree of trust in their willingness to get it right. Remember we are talking hand copies.
Many of the "errors" we find in the original language text of the new Testament hail from dictation errors.
We can tell that one person was reading the text, while another person was copying it. This was common in the much later time of the monasteries. The church needed 20 copies of gospel x; they get 21 scribes in a room; one dictates and the others copy what they think they heard in Greek. There are tell-tale signs of these kinds of errors but you can start to see why one may consider a more ancient "witness" text more reliable. If we take it to it's logical conclusion a first hand copy would be the most trustworthy no?
If we have the gospel of John from John's own hand, or some fragment surely that would trump anything at all that we found later no matter how many copies we had of those.
Going back to my previous example of the monks, you can see how we get more copies from a possibly errant copy. Once you have an error, and you dictate that error to 20 guys, well now you have 21 errant manuscripts. This gets compounded exponentially as copying continues and copying did continue ... a lot.
There was no "acid-free paper" like today so this means the texts did not survive long. Often a monk was copying a damaged text, perhaps missing some verses and he had to rely on memory of the gist of those verses; this introduces additional error/variance.
This is a short and sweet example but I think it illustrates why generally speaking the more ancient manuscripts receive higher rankings.
Now the way I understand textual criticism so far, if you just have one ancient fragment which differs from the "majority text" (which guys, does not mean it's the majority of manuscripts I think some fellas got a little excited and read into that, we're just talking basically about the family of texts known as the textus receptus) we would not necessarily trust that ancient witness fragment more than other, more modern texts. If, however, we find an almost completely intact ancient Greek bible like the the codex Sinaiticus, and almost completely in tact Greek bible, Septuagint + New Testament well that gets weighted much much much more heavily.
What's nice about a critical bible is you are getting it all. It's not like some here in the forums thought that you are deleting something from the bible.
If it's attested to it gets included in a critical edition. The only difference is ALL the differences generally get included and there is a whole system of funky symbols identifying which textual family which "original" Greek or Hebrew word, phrase, sentence, paragraph belongs to.
In general, I think you can see how if we found a completely in tact 2nd century bible well wow it'd be pretty hard to take much issue with that.
If we found 3 of them in different locations and they were in agreement with each other, I personally would probably just use that from now on as my original language bible.
It'd be pretty hard for a reasonable person to say "hey but the text fragments we have from 700 years later has more copies so it must be better ... riiiight?"
Expand this out to if we found 1000 complete original language bibles all alike from just from 200 hundred years ago. Who cares? it's too recent.
So there is a moving line in time which adds credibility to the witness weight of a text/fragment.

 

[Mojo]

But there is an element of faith in either proposition, correct?

You have to have faith that the older copy was dictated credibly.
You have to have faith that the new manuscript was dictated from a more reliable source.

In your study so far, what percentage variance is there from the two source schools?

 

[IshChayil]

But there is an element of faith in either proposition, correct?
You have to have faith that the older copy was dictated credibly.
You have to have faith that the new manuscript was dictated from a more reliable source.
In your study so far, what percentage variance is there from the two source schools?

Presumably the older copy was not dictated but was hand copied (the scribe was looking at the precious original and writing down what he saw); I say presumably because we didn't have the vast church infrastructure which existed in later centuries.

Regarding percentages in variance this is hard to say; I'm just going to take an educated guess OK?
I'm going to guess 5% variance. What's good is that much of the scholarship I've read on the subject make claims that there are no variances which fundamentally affect theology.
Now that may just be scholars trying to calm people down; I have personally seen a few things which certainly do affect theology or could possibly affect theology as far as adding points to one side or another but nothing for example that changes the requirements for salvation or anything like that.

For example, there is an addition in the Byzantine text that almost explicitly spells out the trinity; this just isn't in the other texts and you can kind of see how some overzealous monk may have added that in there (it's the verse about the water and the blood etc).
For torah keepers one which matters is the addition to the whole "washing with clean hands" debate Yeshua has with some Pharisees.
There is an addition in some manuscripts which says "He therefore declared all foods clean". Neither of these affect the all important "how does one get saved" doctrine, but they can have an impact on secondary issues like "does kashrut still matter?".

Then there are places where it is just wonderful to clean things up; if you saw what I wrote about Dt. 28 and the table of nations and how it says G-d ordered them accorrding to the sons of Israel? Which makes no sense because there were no sons of Israel yet. Then we find textual variances which just solve a problem so when it neatly solves a problem and we see it's "sons of G-d" (i.e. archangels or something like that) well it clears it up and reconciles a lot of things like LXX to DSS (Dead Sea Scrolls) and awesome! The verse has been restored and makes sense now.

Usually, there is a lot of give and take in deciding by committee which original language text to list in the main chunk (up top) and which ones to footnote bellow as BTW these are out there too. Sometimes the later stuff gets up there, like if there just aren't enough ancient witnesses to overpower the sheer number of later witnesses, and sometimes the older stuff gets to play lead. Overall though, we aren't talking a huge percentage I don''t think. I may be even way off with my 5%, I wouldn't be surprised to find the general variance to be more like 3% or less even. Keep in mind, a lot of these textual critics are truly zealous for the text so a lot of thought can go into spelling issues as well and that still counts as a variance or you may have a Greek word in a different case (Genitive instead of Accusative) but it doesn't affect the meaning, that still counts as a variance even though the meaning may not even be affected at all (some Greek verbs take more than one case for it's object).
Hope that helps...I'll keep my eyes out for a better answer from a better authority, in short it's not much

 

[Mojo]

In my mind, 5% is way too much. I know it's just your guess, but 5% out of the total number of words in just the NT is a huge number.

If it's on the order of 0.5%, then I would say, it should calm nerves.

From what I've researched so far myself, I have heard scholars attest that soteriology is largely unaffected by the two schools, as you are stating.

I still feel safer with a greater body of witnesses (manuscripts) but am willing to consider the other side.

 

[PeteR]

The percentage is way smaller than 5%!! .05% much more likely. Textual Criticism is a good thing, but at the end of the day, all of it has a faith element and minor differences as point to the veracity, not away.

 

[Mojo]

The percentage is way smaller than 5%!! .05% much more likely. Textual Criticism is a good thing, but at the end of the day, all of it has a faith element and minor differences as point to the veracity, not away.

It does all end up being a faith issue.

I know of some folks who insist all of scripture was written by a bunch of old guys high on drugs.

 

[IshChayil]

@Mojo and @Ancient Paths regarding my guess on percentage variance. Here's what I based my guess on.
I'm just basing the guess on how when I read my Old Testament, I only read it in the "original" never use a translation and I'm usually using a critical edition and there are a LOT of footnotes on a LOT of words sharing on such and such text. When I read my new testament in Greek there are also quite a few footnotes.
Often these are just spelling variances or the same word will be in a different grammatical form. Sometimes in psalms there are lines where every single word has a footnote about varying manuscripts. I think the shock factor from my 5% comes from thinking that the variations are always very different or something like that.
There are also different forms of words used, like in the example about "sons of G-d" some texts say בני אלהים (bnei-elohim) and others say בני אל (bnei-el) while those things are different in Hebrew they translate the same way in context "sons of G-d" so that would count as a textual variation but as you can see it really has no impact on the meaning of the text.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if the actual "meaningful variations" was at that low 1/2 % range you guys are hoping for but I would be surprised if the overall variations (including spelling differences, grammatical differences, use of synonyms etc) was not at least on the order of magnitude I'm talking about (i.e. whole percentages).

Please keep in mind as you absorb this information that everything I have read so far regarding the issue of transmission of ancient texts, the bible just whallops everything in terms of the low variations and also regarding things like having manuscripts relatively close to the authorship dates. Heck the New testament even kicks the crap out of the Quran in this area which is funny b/c it's a point the Muslims usually pick (ignorantly) on the bible for.

 

[IshChayil]

In my mind, 5% is way too much. I know it's just your guess, but 5% out of the total number of words in just the NT is a huge number.
If it's on the order of 0.5%, then I would say, it should calm nerves.
From what I've researched so far myself, I have heard scholars attest that soteriology is largely unaffected by the two schools, as you are stating.
I still feel safer with a greater body of witnesses (manuscripts) but am willing to consider the other side.

It's not so much that there are 2 schools... in general everyone likes older stuff better (except for the King James crowd); I suppose if you will that's the other school.
It's understood that you will, for example, have large quantities of the 6 or 8 texts Erasmus used around 1500 AD because his Greek text was the first one to be made on a printing press.
Naturally we wouldn't care so much about quantity in a case like that (I'm just using that as an extreme example). Ironically Erasmus himself longed to get his hands on additional texts but some account say there was a race on to get the first Greek New Testament to press so he settled for the handful of variations he had and the first en mass critical text was born, and used in the King James translation later. That's right, they looked at Erasmus' critical text granted they were all from the Byzantine family so it's variations within a single family so not that critical but still critical...
Hope I was clear, so that EVEN within the different families of texts, like the textus receptus used for King Jimmy, we have variances among texts within textual families. This is to be expected before printing press times and even then you can get misprints like a typo today.
Sorry if I'm bloviating I feel I'm not stating it exactly.
OLDER is *not* ALWAYS better in the consensus view so there is some room for textus receptus supremacy or at least in certain verses especially if they are verses not well attested by more ancient sources (like we only have 1 ancient text for a certain variation who's to say that 1 text is correct and all the others are wrong?)
there are simply more factors than that.

 

[Mojo]

Thank you friend.

 

[IshChayil]

Picture is worth a thousand words right? The picture is from Isaiah 53 in my BHS (Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia), this is the Hebrew text used in almost all modern Christian translations.
So there are 2 kinds of critical notes going on in the text. If you look to the left you'll see some Hebrew symbols and words; these are notes that the Masoretes left for us, a bit modernized with Arabic numerals and such. You see, even the Hebrew codices which yield the MT (Masoretic Text) have a sort of critical apparatus built into them. The scribes don't dare to change the words of the text so instead they'll write things like "read it like this word instead" and they substitute another word which makes sense. (see my spiel in Messianic Jews / hebrew Roots forum about how people get confused about G-d's name because they for one don't understand this mechanism) i.e. Nehemia Gordon. Often the received text of the Hebrew has an impossible form for a word like a verb describing something G-d is doing but it's in the feminine, so the Masoretes will correct by inserting in the notes the masculine form of that word. This is known as the "Masorah parvah" Then the small row(s) under the text are also from the masoretic notes/ancient apparatus called the "Masorah magnah". There's a lot to talk about just in the ancient "critical apparatus" if you will but I'll shelve that for now. Look at the bottom; the large amount of text bellow the Masorah pravah; that's the modern critical notes referencing alternate texts from this section of scripture.
All those notes reference variant readings. Now Look back up at the main Hebrew text.
Notice all the white space? In this particular part of scripture we don't even have the words packed in there, so there are just like 8 words or less per line yet we still get so many variations listed on the bottom and on the side.
Can you guys start to see where my variance estimate came from? We can bring it down but I really think we'll be in whole percentages still but I could be wrong. You be the judge.
I did not choose this section due to any higher than normal variances; I was gonna upload a pic from a psalm where a third of the page is notes but the ruach nudged me to upload from Isaiah 53 instead.

 

[PeteR]

@Mojo and @Ancient Paths regarding my guess on percentage variance. Here's what I based my guess on.
I'm just basing the guess on how when I read my Old Testament, I only read it in the "original" never use a translation and I'm usually using a critical edition and there are a LOT of footnotes on a LOT of words sharing on such and such text. When I read my new testament in Greek there are also quite a few footnotes.
Often these are just spelling variances or the same word will be in a different grammatical form. Sometimes in psalms there are lines where every single word has a footnote about varying manuscripts. I think the shock factor from my 5% comes from thinking that the variations are always very different or something like that.
There are also different forms of words used, like in the example about "sons of G-d" some texts say בני אלהים (bnei-elohim) and others say בני אל (bnei-el) while those things are different in Hebrew they translate the same way in context "sons of G-d" so that would count as a textual variation but as you can see it really has no impact on the meaning of the text.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if the actual "meaningful variations" was at that low 1/2 % range you guys are hoping for but I would be surprised if the overall variations (including spelling differences, grammatical differences, use of synonyms etc) was not at least on the order of magnitude I'm talking about (i.e. whole percentages).

Please keep in mind as you absorb this information that everything I have read so far regarding the issue of transmission of ancient texts, the bible just whallops everything in terms of the low variations and also regarding things like having manuscripts relatively close to the authorship dates. Heck the New testament even kicks the crap out of the Quran in this area which is funny b/c it's a point the Muslims usually pick (ignorantly) on the bible for.

While I don't remember exact numbers from seminary, I do remember they were exceedingly low as you state. Further, very, and I mean VERY few differences actually occur at critical places. Most word variances are inconsequential.

Sure, it is nice to understand textual pedigree, but the average person need know that they can trust most older English translations. Original language is good for deeper word study, but again, the average person just needs to master the English.

Personally, I use NASB while cross referencing in several... KJV, OJB, CJB... then study words in esword or online tools. I also have BDB and Thayer on my shelf. Preference is Nestle-Aland UBS GNT.

The whole textual criticism discussion, outside of ivory tower boundaries, if not handled carefully, causes good solid Christians to question validity to their (often) detriment.

JMHO...

 

[andrew]

The whole textual criticism discussion, outside of ivory tower boundaries, if not handled carefully, causes good solid Christians to question validity to their (often) detriment.

See, I would take the exact opposite position: My faith is in God, not the book. If I were imprisoned without a bible, I would still have a relationship with God. If I grew up in the wild like Tarzan or Mowgli, I could still know God (the bible says so).

Don't get me wrong: I value the book, and have spent countless 100s of hours reading and studying and learning from it. But it doesn't have to be flawless for me to have a relationship with the perfect God, and I would seriously question the nature of the faith of someone who would start to doubt the existence or the purposes of God if they started to think that maybe some textual criticism was legit. (Approx the same situation as someone who suffers a loss or a setback and then starts to question the existence or intentions of God.)

I'm nobody's judge, and I don't mean that as a put down, I would just be motivated to try to help that person understand that their faith and trust and hope can't be in their theology or in a book, but should be in God Himself.

"You search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life, and these are they which testify of Me, but you are not willing to come to Me that you might have life."

 

[Verifyveritas76]

Question everything, even the very existence of God. I believe this is attributed to Thomas Jefferson.

A Book that cannot be questioned, or a theory or premise about a Book that cannot be questioned, should at face value be suspect. The incredible effect for me is that He has always proven Himself to be true when I’ve looked for Him sincerely and in truth.

The questions that I’ve had about the truth, validity, and content of the Scriptures has always resulted in a deeper confidence in them, even if I came to totally or partially reject the superficial theories and premises used to shore up another’s beliefs in the Scripture’s authority.

If that’s where they are at that moment, who am I to forcibly remove their sense of security. I’m just not there and refuse to go back just because of another’s unwillingness to have their faith stretched and tested.

Peace, love and all the fuzzy stuff

 

[IshChayil]

So looking at the pic I uploaded from this section of Isaiah 53, I counted about 140 words in the text and around 25 differences among manuscripts.
That'd be a whopping 17.8% differences for this page if we just counted blindly differences vs. words. This wouldn't really be a fair way to do this though because this is just showing differences from the MT (Masoretic text) so you'll have some witnesses that have 1 word different, but all the other witnesses agree with MT so how do we really count that?

While I don't remember exact numbers from seminary, I do remember they were exceedingly low as you state. Further, very, and I mean VERY few differences actually occur at critical places. Most word variances are inconsequential....
Personally, I use NASB while cross referencing in several... KJV, OJB, CJB... then study words in esword or online tools. I also have BDB and Thayer on my shelf. Preference is Nestle-Aland UBS GNT.
The whole textual criticism discussion, outside of ivory tower boundaries, if not handled carefully, causes good solid Christians to question validity to their (often) detriment.
JMHO...

Seems like a healthy perspective brother.
BDB and Thayer are good lexicons albeit both are outdated. BDB does not include anything from the vast knowledge of Hebrew we gained from the discovery of the Canaanite (i.e. Hebrew dialect) known as Ugaritic which many scholars claim was a more significant discovery for bible studies than the dead sea scrolls; it's mostly built on the German scholar Gesenius' musings of other, further, cognate languages such as classical Arabic and such.
Thayer is also decent for Greek but comes before a vast array of Greek paparyi discoveries in Egypt. Left with Thayer one would not know that "only begotten" is an errant translation of monogeniys as I've commented in the original languages thread here.
I humbly disagree that text criticism is an ivory tower issue, as we have seen from this thread a beloved story likely was not even part of the bible originally.
It's very important to know these things especially as faith is more and more under siege these days and burying our heads in the sand is certainly not being ready to give an answer for the faith that is in us.
For serious students of the bible, awareness of this issue helps to solve a great many "problems" in the bible like the "children of Israel" issue I referred to in Dt. 32 not making any sense.
The fact that you brother, are yourself using "Nestle-Aland UBS GNT" means you are yourself using the text critical editions so you are already benefiting from the choices made by the scholarship.
That's what I want other serious bible students to have access to, the text critical resources you yourself use and trust or at least translations which footnote well the major variants and call attention to it. how about if we all just be a bit more curious about this?

Shalom

P.S. i'm totally coveting your seminary experience! The sages say we are allowed to covet/envy scholarship and bible learning though!

 

[IshChayil]

ב"ה​

To start with I’d like to remind everyone that I am a staunch bible-believer; I believe that the autographia, original language bible: Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek is 100% inerrant. I also believe that Hashem chose to use His human imagers to maintain the text as well as His holy prophets and scribes to produce it. He did not take over prophet’s bodies and ghost write the text but He cultivated all the experiences in their lives to get them ready to prophesy. This means there is G-d’s touch and human touch by means of chosen prophets in all revelation. Incorporating this method of understanding scripture provides me with a ready defense for it when enemies come knocking with evidence that the bible has elements responding to the Ba’al Cycle, or borrowings from Greek poets or Babylonian elements. G-d chose to use His family, humans for this task and He knew what we’d be exposed to along the way and how the human mind works. When we say the bible is “inspired” what we are really saying is that people wrote it, but G-d inspired them. He did not possesss their arm and make them write word for word and He usually did not dictate verbatim … He inspired. He used their whole life, experiences, etc. to get the result He wanted. I like the way Dr. Michael Heiser puts it, “it’s not like a scene from the X-Files. G-d didn’t take over the prophet’s body, then in the morning the prophet wakes up and says ‘hey look, I wrote something last night, I wonder what it is!’ that’s just not the way that biblical prophecy worked.” He adds regarding the “holy stappler” that when a prophet died, the other guys didn’t just say “OK let’s get out the stapler, everyone turn in all the stuff you have that Isaiah wrote and we’ll just staple it together”, no that’s not how inspiration works. If the Maker of the Universe can inspire prophets to compose His word He can also have His hand on the editing / compilation process. I’m sure He was aware of scribal errors that would be introduced into the text, and various traditions. Instead of the lie that “every letter in the bible is exactly the same as it always ways, perfectly preserved” why can’t we consider that instead G-d has allowed humans to maintain the bible and perhaps has intervened at times to make sure that the central 95% message of the text survived? Why do we have to put Him and His ways in an impossible to defend box? He is our sovereign L-rd and Master, and for me, acknowledging the thousands of textual variances and studying them when necessary is an avenue of my love for my G-d and the ultimate respect for His word; not making it into something in man’s image (i.e. ghost-writing word for word the way we would do it), but allowing G-d’s process of prophets, holy editors, holy scribes, etc. to work.

So here is an overview and compilation of the textual problems we face with the adulteress and Yeshua story found in John 8. It is now my view that this story is a midrash of sorts; an ancient story meant to teach a moral principle. I can not claim to know if this ever happened or not; I only present the overwhelming evidence that this story was not in the Greek John prior to the 5th century and after that was marked as dubious by scribes. Because the bible is the best attested book of antiquity the sword cuts two ways; we have great evidence of what the bible is, but we also have great evidence of what it isn’t or at least wasn’t.

Setting the mood:

We've got a darn good version in the Hebrew and Greek today.
In 2006, Paul D. Wegner (Paul D. Wegner (PhD, Kings College, University of London) is a professor of Old Testament with a specialty in the study of Isaiah. He taught at Phoenix Seminary for eleven years and, before that, at Moody Bible Institute for nearly thirteen years) reaffirmed F.F. Bruce’s assessment (A Student’s Guide To Textual Criticism of the Bible): “It is important to keep in perspective the fact that only a very small part of the text is in question. . . . Of these, most variants make little difference to the meaning of any passage.”

The adulteress brought to Yeshua, problems with the text:

I feel it may be better to use the words of conservative preachers and scholars: Baptists, Southern Presbytarians, etc. to express my concern so nobody here will think this is just ishChayil or some lefties trying to hurt biblical fundamentalism…

Here is a good overview for the problems we face with the adulteress story in John; taken from Jon Bloom, Sr. Pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota (emphasis mine)

Why This Section Isn’t Original to John’s Gospel
The evidence goes something like this:

1. The story is missing from all the Greek manuscripts of John before the fifth century.
   
   
2. All the earliest church fathers omit this passage in commenting on John and pass directly from John 7:52 to John 8:12.
   
   
3. In fact, the text flows very nicely from 7:52 to 8:12 if you leave out the story and just read the passage as though the story were not there.
   
   
4. No Eastern church father cites the passage before the tenth century when dealing with this Gospel.
   
   
5. When the story starts to appear in manuscript copies of the Gospel of John, it shows up in three different places other than here (after John 7:36; 7:44; 21:25), and in one manuscript of Luke, it shows up after 21:38.
   
   
6. Its style and vocabulary is more unlike the rest of John’s Gospel than any other paragraph in the Gospel
   
   
7. (not present in pastor Bloom’s article, but I’d like to add here "later scribal uncertainty" for the earliest texts where we do find it i.e. post 5th century AD) i.e Even when the story appears in late, Eastern Greek texts it is marked by the scribes as suspicious.

********************
Commenting along these lines allow me to introduce world renown Greek scholar, Bruce Metzger, Presbytarian, served on the board of both The American Bible Society (Good News Translation & the Contemporary English Translation) and the United Bible Societies (a worldwide association of Bible Societies from 200 countries and 146 member Bible Societies). This is not a liberal guy, this is a rock solid conservative scholar and these bible societies are not liberal tools; they provide translations in various languages around the world (over 150 bible translations).
In addition, Metzger was a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. Any English or German speaker who is ever serious about Biblical Greek knows his name; he is simply an unavoidable giant. What did Metzger have to say about the Adulterous woman story? Well lots, but here is a blurb from his renowned textual commentary on the Greek New Testament (published by UBS, the guys who over see nearly 150 bible translations worldwide!-if the devil is in this we are in big trouble...):

7:53–8:11 Pericope of the Adulteress

The evidence for the non-Johannine origin of the pericope of the adulteress is overwhelming. It is absent from such early and diverse manuscripts as 66, א B L N T W X Y Δ Θ Ψ 0141 0211 22 33 124 157 209 788 828 1230 1241 1242 1253 2193 al. Codices A and C are defective in this part of John, but it is highly probable that neither contained the pericope, for careful measurement discloses that there would not have been space enough on the missing leaves to include the section along with the rest of the text.
In the East the passage is absent from the oldest form of the Syriac version (syrc, and the best manuscripts of syrp), as well as from the Sahidic and the sub-Achmimic versions and the older Bohairic manuscripts. Some Armenian manuscripts and the Old Georgian version omit it.
In the West the passage is absent from the Gothic version and from several Old Latin manuscripts (ita, *, ). No Greek Church Father prior to Euthymius Zigabenus (twelfth century) comments on the passage, and Euthymius declares that the accurate copies of the Gospel do not contain it.

Metzger, B. M., United Bible Societies. (1994). A textual commentary on the Greek New Testament, second edition a companion volume to the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (4th rev. ed.) (pp. 187–188). London; New York: United Bible Societies.

So as summarized by Metzger, the Greek legend, and nodded by United Bible Societies (overseers of over a hundred fifty translations):

• Point 1 is fulfilled (no early Greek manuscript has the story).
• Points 2&4 are also covered (no Greek church father prior to 12th century comments on the passage! Then, and only then in the 12th century the Greek church father says accurate copies of the gospel don’t have it. It’s quite a compelling story so at the least an honest thinker will consider it strange that the church fathers would have had nothing to say on this story.
• Point 3 (this story interrupts the narrative) you can test on your own in any translation, read before and after the story and see how smooth it is. On this point we can quote Metzger additionally:

“When one adds to this impressive and diversified list of external evidence the consideration that the style and vocabulary of the pericope differ noticeably from the rest of the Fourth Gospel (see any critical commentary), and that it interrupts the sequence of 7:52 and 8:12 ff., the case against its being of Johannine authorship appears to be conclusive.”

• This quote also handles nicely Pastor Bloom’s claim of point 6 (style and vocabulary of the adulteress story is different from the rest of John’s gospel).
• Point 5 (when the story appears it is often inserted in different locations than where we find it today). Here Metzger comments regarding it's insertion in various places of John and Luke:

“It is obviously a piece of oral tradition which circulated in certain parts of the Western church and which was subsequently incorporated into various manuscripts at various places. Most copyists apparently thought that it would interrupt John’s narrative least if it were inserted after 7:52 (D E (F) G H K M U Γ Π 28 700 892 al). Others placed it after 7:36 (ms. 225) or after 7:44 (several Georgian mss) or after 21:25 (1 565 1076 1570 1582 armmss) or after Luke 21:38 (f )."

• Finally, concerning point 7 which I added (even Eastern manuscripts which have the story have scribal markings displaying questioning of the reliability of the story [see my overview on scribal comments]). Metzger writes:

"Significantly enough, in many of the witnesses that contain the passage it is marked with asterisks or obeli, indicating that, though the scribes included the account, they were aware that it lacked satisfactory credentials."

Metzger and the committee unanimously agreed this story was not originally part of the Gospel of John. The majority considered it an ancient tale and out of respect decided to include it in the critical text with the double brackets marking it for deletion. This treating the story as I do, a Jewish midrash.

Conclusion:
It’s not just about your favorite English translation; it’s about Russian, German, French, etc. I remember being shown in the Ukrainian bible (only translation in their language at the time) how whenever Jews did something bad they were called “zhidi” (Kikes) but when they did something righteous they were referred to as “Yudaisti” (Judaists). I refuse to accept that is “inspired translation” and even if we are blessed with decent translations in the English, it's fairly universally accepted you go back to the original languages when making a translation.

In summary, if anyone wishes to believe that the story of the adulteress was preserved as a midrash told in churches through the centuries so that the holy spirit could lead some holy editors to insert it into the gospel, there is nothing wrong with that. G-d can do anything right? I do advise this to be your recourse though if you feel you must defend the story as being in originally in John because otherwise if you go up against a learned leftist in a public setting you will not be doing the gospel a favor by looking ignorant and stamping your foot on the ground closing your eyes and saying “I believe it was there 2000 years I believe it was there for 2000 years…” If we are to be fundamentalist, let’s be fundamentalist about the autographia and be grateful that the bible in its current form is indeed the best preserved work of antiquity.
I'll leave you with a quote from Daniel Wallace, author of "Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics",
"... keeping these two pericopae in our Bibles rather than relegating them to the footnotes seems to have been a bomb just waiting to explode. ...We have to educate believers. Instead of trying to isolate laypeople from critical scholarship, we need to insulate them. They need to be ready for the barrage, because it is coming. The intentional dumbing down of the church for the sake of filling more pews will ultimately lead to defection from Christ."

shalom

 

[IshChayil]

See, I would take the exact opposite position: My faith is in God, not the book. If I were imprisoned without a bible, I would still have a relationship with God. If I grew up in the wild like Tarzan or Mowgli, I could still know God (the bible says so).
Don't get me wrong: I value the book, and have spent countless 100s of hours reading and studying and learning from it. But it doesn't have to be flawless for me to have a relationship with the perfect God, and I would seriously question the nature of the faith of someone who would start to doubt the existence or the purposes of God if they started to think that maybe some textual criticism was legit.

This made me think about the early believers. How many of those early believers who died for their faith were even literate?
Now how about the first eon AD? How many believers were literate and how many of those who were literate could afford a complete bible, hand written, etc.?
I'm gonna guess maybe 2% were literate and had their own bible.