Bible ( Old Testament)
Thank you for downloading the book for free. electronic library http://filosoff.org/ Happy reading!
Bible (Old Testament).
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light. And there was light.
4 And God saw the light that it was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light day, and the darkness night. And there was evening and there was morning: one day.
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate water from water. [And so it was.]
7 And God made the firmament, and separated the water that was under the firmament from the water that was above the firmament. And it became so.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. [And God saw that *it* was good.] And there was evening and there was morning: the second day.
9 And God said, Let the waters that are under the sky be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear. And it became so. [And the waters under the sky gathered together in their places, and the dry land appeared.]
10 And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters he called seas. And God saw that *it* was good.
11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, herb yielding seed [after its kind and likeness, and] fruitful tree yielding fruit after its kind, in which is its seed, on the earth. And it became so.
12 And the earth brought forth vegetation, grass yielding seed after its kind [and after its likeness], and a tree [fruitful] bearing fruit, in which is its seed after its kind [on the earth]. And God saw that *it* was good.
13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven [to lighten the earth, and] to separate the day from the night, and for signs, and times, and days, and years;
15 And let them be lamps in the firmament of heaven, to give light to the earth. And it became so.
16 And God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, and the stars;
17 And God set them in the firmament of heaven to give light to the earth,
18 and govern the day and the night, and separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that *it* was good.
19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
20 And God said, Let the water bring forth reptiles, living creatures; and let the birds fly over the earth, in the firmament of heaven. [And so it was.]
21 And God created great fish, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. And God saw that *it* was good.
22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.
23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, after their kind. And it became so.
25 And God created the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing on the ground after its kind. And God saw that *it* was good.
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image [and] after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, [and over the beasts] and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing, reptiles on the ground.
27 And God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea [and over the beasts] and over the birds of the air, [and over every livestock, and over all the earth, ] and over every living thing that creeps on the ground.
29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is in all the earth, and every tree bearing fruit of a tree yielding seed; - you * this * will be food;
30 But to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to every creeping thing on the earth, in which there is a living soul, I *gave* all herbs for food. And it became so.
31 And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning: the sixth day.
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
2 And God finished on the seventh day his works which he had done, and rested on the seventh day from all his works which he had done.
3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, for in it he rested from all his works, which God created and made.
4 This is the origin of the heavens and the earth, when they were created, at the time when the Lord God created the earth and the sky,
5 and every shrub of the field that was not yet on the earth, and every grass of the field that was not yet growing, for the Lord God did not send rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the earth,
6 but steam rose up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth.
7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.
8 And the Lord God planted a paradise in Eden in the east, and placed there the man whom he had created.
9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food, and the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10 A river came out of Eden to water paradise; and then divided into four rivers.
11 The name of one is Pishon: it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
12 and the gold of that land is good; there bdolakh and onyx stone.
13 The name of the second river is Gihon [Geon]: it flows around the whole land of Cush.
14 The name of the third river is Hiddekel [Tigris]: it flows before Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.
15 And the Lord God took the man [whom he had made] and put him in the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it.
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, From every tree in the garden you shall eat,
17 But do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it you will die the death.
18 And the Lord God said, It is not good for the man to be alone; Let us make him a helper suitable for him.
19 From the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought [them] to the man to see what he would call them, and that whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
20 And the man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for man there was not found a helper like him.
21 And the Lord God brought a deep sleep upon the man; and when he fell asleep, he took one of his ribs, and covered the place with flesh.
22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man formed a wife, and brought her to the man.
23 And the man said, Behold, this is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she will be called woman, for she was taken from her husband.
24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, and cling to his wife; and [two] shall be one flesh.
25 And they were both naked, Adam and his wife, and were not ashamed.
1 The serpent was more cunning than all the beasts of the field that the Lord God had made. And the serpent said to the woman: Did God truly say: Do not eat from any tree in paradise?
2 And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruits of the trees,
3 only the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God said, do not eat it or touch it, lest you die.
4 And the serpent said to the woman, No, you will not die,
5 but God knows that on the day you eat them, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.
6 And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasing to the eye and desirable, because it gives knowledge; and took its fruit and ate; and gave also to her husband, and he ate.
7 And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed together fig leaves, and made themselves aprons.
9 And the Lord God called to Adam and said to him: [Adam,] where are you?
11 And [God] said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you not eaten from the tree from which I forbade you to eat?
12 Adam said, The wife that You gave me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.
13 And the Lord God said to the woman, Why have you done this? The wife said: The serpent seduced me, and I ate.
14 And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; you will walk on your belly, and you will eat dust all the days of your life;
15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. it will hit you in the head, and you will sting it in the heel.
16 He said to the woman, I will multiply your sorrow in your pregnancy; in sickness you will bear children; and your desire is for your husband, and he will rule over you.
17 And he said to Adam, Because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, Do not eat from it, the ground is cursed because of you. in sorrow you will eat of it all the days of your life;
18 Thorns and thistles she will bring forth for you; and you will eat the grass of the field;
19 In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground from which you were taken, for dust you are and to dust you shall return.
20 And Adam called his wife's name Eve, for she became the mother of all living.
21 And the Lord God made garments of leather for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.
22 And the Lord God said, Behold, Adam has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, no matter how he stretched out his hand, and took also from the tree of life, and ate, and began to live forever.
23 And the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.
24 And he drove out Adam, and set up in the east by the garden of Eden the Cherubim, and the fiery
The Bible (“book, composition”) is a collection of sacred texts of Christians, consisting of many parts, combined into the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Bible has a clear division: before and after the birth of Jesus Christ. Before birth - this is the Old Testament, after birth - New Testament. The New Testament is called the Gospel.
The Bible is a book containing the sacred writings of the Hebrew and Christian religions. The Hebrew Bible, a collection of Hebrew sacred texts, is also included in the Christian Bible, forming its first part - the Old Testament. Both Christians and Jews consider it to be a record of an agreement (covenant) concluded by God with man and revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai. Christians believe that Jesus Christ announced a new covenant, which is the fulfillment of the Covenant given in Revelation to Moses, but at the same time replaces it. Therefore, the books that tell about the activities of Jesus and his disciples are called the New Testament. The New Testament constitutes the second part christian bible.
The word "bible" is of ancient Greek origin. In the language of the ancient Greeks, "byblos" meant "books". In our time, we call this word one specific book, consisting of several dozen separate religious works. The Bible is a book containing over a thousand pages. The Bible consists of two parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament.
The Old Testament, which tells about the participation of God in the life of the Jewish people before the coming of Jesus Christ.
The New Testament, which gives information about the life and teachings of Christ in all His truth and beauty. God, through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, gave people salvation - this is the main teaching of Christianity. While only the first four books of the New Testament deal directly with the life of Jesus, each of the 27 books seeks in its own way to interpret the meaning of Jesus or show how his teachings apply to the lives of believers.
Gospel (Greek - "good news") - the biography of Jesus Christ; books revered as sacred in Christianity that tell about the divine nature of Jesus Christ, his birth, life, miracles, death, resurrection and ascension. The Gospels are part of the books of the New Testament.
Bible. New Testament. Gospel
Bible. Old Testament
Texts of the Books Holy Scripture The Old and New Testaments presented on this site are taken from the Synodal translation.
Prayer before reading the Holy Gospel
(prayer after the 11th kathisma)
Shine in our hearts, O Lord of mankind, your imperishable light of God's understanding, and open our mental eyes, in your Gospel preaching understanding, put in us the fear of your blessed commandments, but carnal lusts, all right, we will go through spiritual life, all even to your pleasing and wise and active. You are the enlightenment of our souls and bodies, Christ God, and we send glory to You, with Your Father without beginning, and the Most Holy and Good, and Your Life-giving Spirit, now and forever, and forever and ever, amen.
“There are three ways to read a book,” writes one wise man, “you can read it in order to subject it to critical evaluation; one can read, seeking in it comforts for one's feelings and imagination, and, finally, one can read with conscience. The first read to judge, the second to have fun, and the third to improve. The gospel, which has no equal among books, must first be read only with simple reason and conscience. Read like this, it will make your conscience tremble on every page before goodness, before high, beautiful morality.
“When reading the Gospel,” inspires Bishop. Ignatius (Bryanchaninov), - do not look for pleasure, do not look for delights, do not look for brilliant thoughts: look to see the infallibly holy Truth.
Do not be satisfied with one fruitless reading of the Gospel; try to fulfill his commandments, read his deeds. This is the book of life, and one must read it with life.
The Rule Regarding Reading the Word of God
The reader of the book must do the following:
1) He should not read many sheets and pages, because he who has read a lot cannot comprehend everything and keep it in memory.
2) It is not enough to read and to reason a lot about what is read, because in this way what is read is better understood and deepened in memory, and our mind is enlightened.
3) See what is clear or incomprehensible from what is read in the book. When you understand what you are reading, it's good; and when you don't understand, leave it and read on. What is incomprehensible will either be clarified by the next reading, or by another repeated reading, with the help of God, it will become clear.
4) What the book teaches to evade, what it teaches to seek and do, about that try to fulfill it by the very deed. Avoid evil and do good.
5) When you only sharpen your mind from a book, but do not correct your will, then from reading a book you will be worse than you were; more evil are learned and reasonable fools than simple ignoramuses.
6) Remember that it is better to love in a Christian way than to understand highly; it is better to live redly than to say redly: "the mind swells, but love creates."
7) Whatever you yourself learn with the help of God, teach it to others lovingly as the occasion arises, so that the seed sown may grow and bear fruit.”
Old Testament- the first and older of the two parts of the Christian Bible, along with the New Testament. The Old Testament is the Holy Scripture common to Judaism and Christianity. The Old Testament is believed to have been written between the 13th and 1st centuries. BC e. Most of the books of the Old Testament are written in Hebrew, but some of them are written in Aramaic. This fact is associated with a change in the political situation.
Read the Old Testament online for free.
Historical books
Books instructive
Prophetic books
The texts of the Old Testament were widely disseminated after their translation into ancient Greek. This translation dates from the 1st century and is called the Septuagint. The Septugian was adopted by Christians and played a key role in the spread of Christianity and the formation of the Christian canon.
The name "Old Testament" is a tracing paper from ancient Greek. IN biblical world the word "covenant" meant a solemn agreement of the parties, which was accompanied by an oath. According to Christian tradition, the division of the Bible into the Old and New Testaments is based on lines from the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah:
"Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah."
The Old Testament is authorship.
The books of the Old Testament were created by dozens of authors over the centuries. Most books traditionally bear the names of their authors, but most modern Bible scholars agree that authorship was attributed much later and that, in fact, most of the books of the Old Testament were written by anonymous authors.
Fortunately, the text of the Old Testament has come down to us in many copies. These are the original texts in Hebrew and Aramaic, and numerous translations:
- Septuagint(translation into ancient Greek, made in Alexandria in the III-I centuries BC),
- Targums- translation into Aramaic,
- Peshitta- translation into Syriac, made among the early Christians in the 2nd century AD. e.
- Vulgate- translation into Latin, made by Jerome in the 5th century AD. e.,
The Qumran manuscripts are considered the most ancient source (incomplete) of the Old Testament.
The Septuagint became the basis for the Church Slavonic translations of the Old Testament - the Gennadiev, Ostroh and Elizabethan Bibles. But the modern translations of the Bible into Russian - the Synodal and the translation of the Russian Bible Society were made on the basis of the Masoretic text.
Features of the texts of the Old Testament.
The texts of the Old Testament are considered divinely inspired. The divine inspiration of the books of the Old Testament is recognized in the New Testament, a similar point of view is shared by early Christian historians and theologians.
Canons of the Old Testament.
To date, there are 3 canons of the Old Testament, somewhat different in composition.
- Tanakh - Jewish canon;
- Septuagint - Christian canon;
- Protestant canon that arose in the 16th century.
The canon of the Old Testament was formed in two stages:
- Formation in the Jewish environment,
- Formation in a Christian environment.
Jewish canon is divided into 3 parts:
- Torah (Law),
- Nevi'im (Prophets),
- Ketuvim (Scriptures).
Alexandrian canon differs from the Jewish one in the composition and arrangement of the books, as well as in the content of individual texts. This fact is explained by the fact that the Alexandrian canon is based not on the Tanakh, but on the proto-Masoretic version. It is also possible that some of the test differences are due to Christian reinterpretation of the original texts.
Structure of the Alexandrian Canon:
- legal books,
- Historical books,
- teaching books,
- Prophetic books.
From point of view Orthodox Church The Old Testament consists of 39 canonical books, while the Catholic Church recognizes 46 books as canonical.
Protestant canon appeared as a result of the revision of the authority of the biblical books by Martin Luther and Jacob van Liesveldt.
Why read the Old Testament?
The Old Testament can be read for various purposes. For believers, this is a sacred, sacred text, for the rest, the Old Testament can become a source of unexpected truths, an occasion for philosophical reasoning. You can read the Old Testament along with the Iliad and the Odyssey as a great monument of ancient literature.
Philosophical and ethical ideas in the Old Testament are rich and varied. It is also about destroying false moral values, and about the love of truth, and about the concepts of infinity and limit. The Old Testament sets out a peculiar view of cosmology, discusses issues of personal identification, marriage and family issues.
Reading the Old Testament, you will discuss both everyday issues and global issues. On our site you can read the Old Testament online for free. We have also provided the texts with various illustrations of Old Testament subjects in order to make reading even more pleasant and informative.
2 And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light. And there was light.
4 And God saw the light that it was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light day, and the darkness night. And there was evening and there was morning: one day.
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate water from water. [And so it was.]
7 And God made the firmament, and separated the water that was under the firmament from the water that was above the firmament. And it became so.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. [And God saw that This well.] And there was evening, and there was morning: the second day.
9 And God said, Let the waters that are under the sky be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear. And it became so. [And the waters under the sky gathered together in their places, and the dry land appeared.]
10 And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters he called seas. And God saw that This Fine.
11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, grass yielding seed [after its kind and likeness her, and] a fruitful tree, bearing fruit after its kind, in which is its seed, on the earth. And it became so.
12 And the earth brought forth vegetation, grass yielding seed after its kind [and after its likeness], and a tree [fruitful] bearing fruit, in which is its seed after its kind [on the earth]. And God saw that This Fine.
13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven [to lighten the earth, and] to separate the day from the night, and for signs, and times, and days, and years;
15 And let them be lamps in the firmament of heaven, to give light to the earth. And it became so.
16 And God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, and the stars;
17 And God set them in the firmament of heaven to give light to the earth,
18 and govern the day and the night, and separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that This Fine.
19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
20 And God said, Let the water bring forth reptiles, living creatures; and let the birds fly over the earth, in the firmament of heaven. [And so it was.]
21 And God created great fish, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. And God saw that This Fine.
22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.
23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, after their kind. And it became so.
25 And God created the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing on the ground after its kind. And God saw that This Fine.
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image [and] after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, [and over the beasts] and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing, reptiles on the ground.
27 And God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea [and over the beasts] and over the birds of the air, [and over every livestock, and over all the earth, ] and over every living thing that creeps on the ground.
29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is in all the earth, and every tree bearing fruit of a tree yielding seed; - to you this will be for food;
30 but to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to every creeping thing on the ground, in which there is a living soul, gave I eat all herbal greens. And it became so.
31 And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning: the sixth day.
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
2 And God finished on the seventh day his works which he had done, and rested on the seventh day from all his works which he had done.
3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, for in it he rested from all his works, which God created and made.
4 This is the origin of the heavens and the earth, when they were created, at the time when the Lord God created the earth and the sky,
5 and every shrub of the field that was not yet on the earth, and every grass of the field that was not yet growing, for the Lord God did not send rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the earth,
6 but steam rose up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth.
7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.
8 And the Lord God planted a paradise in Eden in the east, and placed there the man whom he had created.
9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food, and the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10 A river came out of Eden to water paradise; and then divided into four rivers.
11 The name of one is Pishon: it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
12 and the gold of that land is good; there bdolakh and onyx stone.
13 The name of the second river is Gihon [Geon]: it flows around the whole land of Cush.
14 The name of the third river is Hiddekel [Tigris]: it flows before Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.
15 And the Lord God took the man [whom he had made] and put him in the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it.
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, From every tree in the garden you shall eat,
17 But do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it you will die the death.
18 And the Lord God said, It is not good for the man to be alone; Let us make him a helper suitable for him.
19 From the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought [them] to the man to see what he would call them, and that whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
20 And the man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for man there was not found a helper like him.
21 And the Lord God brought a deep sleep upon the man; and when he fell asleep, he took one of his ribs, and covered the place with flesh.
22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man formed a wife, and brought her to the man.
23 And the man said, Behold, this is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she will be called woman, for she was taken from her husband.
24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, and cling to his wife; and [two] shall be one flesh.
25 And they were both naked, Adam and his wife, and were not ashamed.
Could you please tell us how old are the oldest copies of the New and Old Testaments that exist today and where are they kept?
Hieromonk Job (Gumerov) answers:
When compiling a classification of biblical manuscripts, textual scholars take into account not only their content (Old Testament and New Testament texts), completeness (the entire biblical corpus, individual books and fragments), but also material (papyrus, parchment) and form (scroll, codex).
Ancient biblical manuscripts have come down to us on papyrus and parchment. To make papyrus, the inside of the fibrous cane was cut into strips. They fit tightly on a smooth board. Other strips smeared with glue were placed on the first layer at a right angle. The resulting sheets, about 25 cm wide, were dried under pressure in the sun. If the reed was young, then the page was light yellow in color. Dark yellow papyrus was obtained from old reeds. Separate sheets were glued together. The result was a strip about 10 meters long. Although a scroll (non-Biblical) is known to be 41 meters long, papyri over ten meters in size were very inconvenient to consume. Such big books How Gospel of Luke And Acts of St. apostles were placed in separate papyrus scrolls 9.5 - 9.8 m long. Rollers were attached to the left and right of the scroll. On one of them the entire papyrus was wound: texts in Hebrew and other Semitic languages on the left, and in Greek and Roman on the right core. When reading, the scroll unfolded to the size of a page. As the page was read, the papyrus was wound on another roller. For greater convenience, large scrolls were sometimes cut into several pieces. When the Savior entered the Nazareth synagogue, He was given the book of the prophet Isaiah. The Lord Jesus Christ opened the book and found the place. In the Greek text literally: rolling out a book(Luke 4:17) and rolling up a book (4:20).
From the 2nd century BC. parchment began to be used for writing - a material made from animal skin treated in a special way. Parchment was used by Jews to record sacred texts. For this purpose, only leather was used. pure(according to the law of Moses) animals. Leather Books mentions St. Apostle Paul (2 Tim. 4:13).
Parchment had advantages over papyrus. He was much stronger. The parchment strip could be written on both sides. The name stuck behind such scrolls opistograph(Greek opisthe - from behind; grapho - I write). The vertical fibers on the back of the papyrus made it difficult for scribes to work. However, parchment had its drawbacks. It was easier to read papyri: the polished surface of the parchment tired the eyes. The corners of parchment sheets begin to wrinkle and become uneven over time.
The scroll was inconvenient to use. When reading, both hands were occupied: one had to unroll the scroll, and the other to wind it up as it was read. The scroll had another drawback. Since the biblical texts were used by the early Christians for liturgical purposes, it was difficult to quickly find the necessary place in the Holy Scriptures. At the end of the 1st c. or at the beginning of the 2nd c. in early Christian communities began to use codes. The sheets of papyrus folded in the middle were folded together and then sewn together. These were the first books in our understanding. This form of papyrus made it possible for Christians to combine all four Gospels or all the Epistles of the Apostle Paul into one book, which the scroll did not allow, because it became huge in size. It was now easier for scribes to check manuscripts against autographs. “It is probably fair to assume that it was the Gentile Christians who rather early began to use the form of the codex for the Holy Scriptures instead of scrolls, in order to thereby consciously distinguish between the practice of the Church and the practice of the synagogue, where the transmission of the text of the Old Testament by means of scrolls was traditionally preserved” (Bruce M. Metzger, Textology of the New Testament, Moscow, 1996, p. 4).
Experts distinguish: complete biblical manuscripts, including the entire text of the Holy Scriptures, the complete corpus of the Old Testament, the complete corpus of the New Testament, individual books and fragments of books.
Old Testament.
1. In Hebrew.
The oldest Old Testament manuscripts date back to the 3rd century BC. We are talking about manuscripts found in the vicinity of Wadi Qumran near the Dead Sea. Of over 400 texts, 175 are biblical. Among them - all the Old Testament books, except for the book of Esther. Most of them are incomplete. The oldest of all biblical texts was a copy Books of Samuel (1-2 Kings) (3rd century BC). The most valuable find are two manuscripts Isaiah's books(complete and incomplete). The entire book of the great prophet that has come down to us dates back to the 2nd century BC. Before its discovery in 1947 in Cave No. 1, the oldest Hebrew text was Masoretic- 900 A.D. A comparison of two documents separated in time by 10 centuries showed the exceptional reliability and accuracy with which the Jewish sacred text was copied over 1000 years. Scholar Gleason Archer (G.L. Archer) writes that copies of the books of the prophet Isaiah found in the cave of Qumran “turned out to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible by more than 95 percent of the text. And 5 percent of the differences come down mainly to obvious misspellings and spellings of words.” A special depository has been set up in Jerusalem for the Dead Sea Scrolls. In a special section of it are the precious manuscripts of the prophet Isaiah. Why are the sacred biblical texts in Hebrew (with the exception of the Dead Sea Scrolls) very late (9th - 10th centuries AD)? Because the Jews had a custom from ancient times not to use in worship and prayer reading holy books, which have become shabby and dilapidated. Old Testament piety did not allow this. Fire sacred books and objects were not indulged. The so-called genizah(Heb. concealment, burial). There they were for centuries, gradually collapsing. After the genizah was filled, the objects and books collected in it were buried in Jewish cemeteries with ritual solemnity. The genizah were, apparently, at the Jerusalem temple, and later at the synagogues. Many old manuscripts were found in the Cairo geniz, located in the attic of the Ezra synagogue built in 882 in Fostat (Old Cairo). Geniza was opened in 1896. Its materials (more than one hundred thousand sheets of documents) were transported to the University of Cambridge.
2. On Greek. The text of the Septuagint has come down to us in the form of codices.
Codex Sinaiticus (Sinaiticus). Dated to the 4th century. It was found in 1859 in the monastery of St. Catherine (in Sinai) and transferred to the Imperial Library in St. Petersburg. This Code contains almost the entire text of the Old Testament (in Greek translation) and the full text of the New Testament. In 1933 the Soviet government sold it to the British Museum for £100,000.
Vatican Code (Vaticanus). Dated to the middle of the 4th century. Belongs to the Vatican. The codex contains the entire text of the Greek Bible (Septuagint). The text of the New Testament has losses.
Codex Alexandrinus ( Alexandrinus). The text was written in 450 in Egypt. The manuscript contains the entire Old Testament and New Testament, beginning with the 25th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. The codex is kept in the British Museum.
New Testament.
The textual criticism of the New Testament has made remarkable achievements in the 20th century. There are currently over 2328 manuscripts or fragments of manuscripts in Greek language that has come down to us from the first three centuries of Christianity.
By 1972, the Spanish paleographer José O'Callahan had completed the identification of 9 fragments from Cave 7 near the Dead Sea as New Testament passages: Mk. 4:28; 6:48, 52-53; 12:17; Acts. 27:38; Romans 5:11-12; 1 Tim. 3:16; 4:1-3; 2 Pet. 1:15; Jacob. 1:23-24. Fragments from the Gospel of Mark date back to AD 50. From Acts in the 60th year, and the rest of the scientist refers to the 70th year. Of these 9 passages, 1 Tim. 3:16: And unquestioningly - a great piety mystery: God appeared in the flesh, justified Himself in the Spirit, showed Himself to the Angels, was preached in the nations, accepted by faith in the world, ascended in glory(1 Timothy 3:16). These discoveries are invaluable in confirming the historicity of New Testament texts and refuting false claims that today's Christians use distorted texts.
The oldest manuscript of the New Testament (part of the Gospel of John: 18:31-33, 37-38) is Detail by J. Ryland(P52) - papyrus dating from the period 117 - 138, i.e. during the reign of Emperor Hadrian. A. Deissman (Deissman) admits the possibility of the appearance of this papyrus even during the reign of Emperor Trajan (98 - 117). It is kept in Manchester.
Another oldest New Testament manuscript - Papyrus Bodmer(P75). The 102 surviving pages contain the texts of the Gospels of Luke and John. “The publishers of this document, Victor Martin and Rodolphe Kasser, determined that it was written between 175 and 225. Thus, this manuscript is the earliest copy of the Gospel of Luke available today and one of the earliest copies of the Gospel of John "(Bruce M. Metzger. Textology of the New Testament, M., 1996, p. 39). This most valuable manuscript is in Geneva.
The Chester Beatty papyri(P45, P46, P47). Located in Dublin. Dated to the year 250 and a little later. This code contains most of the New Testament. P45 has thirty folios: two folios from Matthew, six from Mark, seven from Luke, two from John, and thirteen from Acts. Several small fragments of the Gospel of Matthew from this codex are in the collection of manuscripts in Vienna. P46 consists of 86 sheets (11 x 6 inches). Papyrus P46 contains the letters of St. Apostle Paul to: Romans, Hebrews, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians. R47 - ten sheets containing part of the Revelation (9:10 - 17:2) of the Apostle John the Theologian.
Uncials on parchment. We are talking about leather codices that appeared in the 4th century, written uncials(lat. uncia - inch) - in letters without sharp corners and broken lines. This letter is distinguished by greater sophistication and clarity. Each letter stood in a line in isolation. There are 362 uncial manuscripts of the New Testament. The oldest of these codes ( Sinai, Vatican, Alexandrian) have already been mentioned above.
Scientists supplemented this impressive collection of ancient New Testament manuscripts with the text of the New Testament, which was compiled from 36,286 quotations from the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament found in the works of the holy fathers and teachers of the Church from the 2nd to the 4th century. Only 11 verses are missing in this text.
Textual scholars in the 20th century did a colossal job of comparing all (several thousand!) New Testament manuscripts and revealed all the discrepancies that arose through the fault of scribes. Their evaluation and typology was made. Clear criteria for establishing the correct option are formulated. For someone familiar with this strictly scientific work the falsity and unfoundedness of the statements about the distortion of the current sacred text of the New Testament are obvious.
It is necessary to turn to the results of these studies to make sure that, in terms of the number of ancient manuscripts and the shortness of time separating the earliest text that has come down to us from the original, not a single work of antiquity can compare with the New Testament. Let's compare the time separating the earliest manuscript from the original: Virgil - 400 years, Horace - 700, Plato - 1300, Sophocles - 1400, Aeschylus - 1500, Euripides - 1600, Homer - 2000 years, i.e. from 400 to 2000 years. 250 manuscripts of Horace, 110 of Homer, about a hundred - of Sophocles, 50 of Aeschylus, only 11 of Plato have come down to us. It is sad to realize how much millions of our contemporaries have been poisoned by the poison of unbelief, how deeply anti-Christian sentiments have taken root on the soil of a sinful life. If a person doubts the authenticity of the treatises of Aristotle, the speeches of Cicero, the books of Tacitus, or asserts that we use distorted texts of ancient authors, then the thought of his mental or mental health will arise. With regard to the Bible, people can afford any rude and ridiculous statements. Now we are witnessing how a detective story, full of false ideas and gross errors that arose due to the ignorance and anti-Christian attitude of the author, captivated tens of millions of people. The reason for everything is mass disbelief. Without grace, a person is full of innate and irremediable error. Nothing shows him the truth; on the contrary, everything misleads him. The two vehicles of truth, reason and feeling, in addition to their inherent lack of truthfulness, still abuse each other. Feelings deceive the mind with false signs. The mind also does not remain in debt: spiritual passions cloud feelings and cause false impressions.(B. Pascal. Thoughts on Religion).
