If
you have ever wondered about the origins of the Bible, and about the history of
its text, then you should read Larry Stone’s 2010 book The Story of the
Bible. In nine chapters, Stone
reviews the Bible’s languages, the historical backgrounds of its books, and –
of special importance to students of textual criticism – its transmission. The Story of the Bible
features pouch-pages containing 23 removable full-size, full-color facsimiles
of pages from important manuscripts and printed Bibles, including the
following:
●
William Tyndale’s 1526 English New Testament:
the last page of Luke and the first page of the Gospel of John, and
In
addition to the removable facsimiles, the text of The Story of the Bible is generously supplemented by photographs of
sample-pages of a variety of manuscripts, including the Aleppo Codex and
the Book of Kells. While less sumptuous
than some other books about manuscripts (such as Illuminated
Manuscripts – Masterpieces of the J. Paul Getty Museum), the pictures
in The Story of the Bible represent a
wide range in terms of manuscript’s ages and locales.
At the
website www.storyofbible.com
visitors can not only learn about Stone’s book but also learn more about the
manuscripts, translations, and media that are featured in it, ranging from the Great Isaiah
Scroll to The
Devil’s Bible (Codex Gigas) to The Jesus Film. There is also a special section that presents
over 100 selected
excerpts from the KJV. A YouTube video tells
more about the book, with some comments from the author.
Not
everything in Stone’s book can be relied upon.
He unfortunately repeats the
false story that says that Erasmus made a rash promise to include the Comma
Johanneum if a Greek manuscript could be found that had it in the text
of First John. In a section that focuses
on the Greek New Testament and Textual Criticism (pages 66-67), Stone is guilty
of spreading a misimpression about Mark 16:9-20, stating that this passage is
missing not only in Vaticanus and Sinaiticus but also in “other very old
manuscripts,” which is not the case. He
also perpetuates Neil Lightfoot’s grossly inaccurate method of counting textual
variants: “‘if one slight variant were
to occur in 4,000 different manuscripts, this would amount to 4,000’ variations.”
Stone also
does a disservice to scholars such as Bengel
and Bentley
(to say nothing of Reformation-era researchers such as Zegers) when he
writes that “Not until the nineteenth century did scholars begin making
judgments on which reading was “best.”” Also,
in a section about Constantine von Tischendorf, Stone repeats the highly dubious story
that Tischendorf spread (but which the monks of Saint Catherine’s Monastery
deny) about how he found parchment leaves of Codex Sinaiticus “in a basket of
manuscripts used for kindling to light fires.”
These errors – no doubt the result of dependence upon inaccurate sources
– are comparable to a few counterfeit coins in the midst of a treasure-chest filled
with valuable information.
The Story of the Bible’s website should
be updated about the Book of Kells:
although Stone says at the website that “As far as I know, Ireland’s
finest national treasure [the Book of Kells] is not online in its entirety,”
the situation has changed, and now each extant
page of the Book of Kells can be viewed at the Trinity College Dublin website.
The Story of the Bible closes with a
short but stirring chapter about Bible-distribution efforts by missionaries,
Bible societies, and Bible translators.
May The Story of the Bible
inspire its readers to not only vigilantly guard the text of the Bible and its message, but
also to continue to take the gospel into all the world.
Readers are invited to explore the embedded links to additional resources.
I'm sorry for being a little off topic, but I think you may find this dispute interesting:
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