BOOKS 40 TO 66 · 27 BOOKS · WRITTEN IN GREEK
The New Testament The promise kept
BOOKS 27 books: 4 Gospels, 1 book of history, 21 letters and 1 book of prophecy.
WRITTEN About AD 45 to 95, by apostles of Jesus and their close companions.
LANGUAGE Koine Greek, the everyday Greek spoken all over the Roman Empire.
ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS More than 5,800 Greek manuscripts, plus thousands of early copies in Latin, Syriac and Coptic. No other ancient book comes close.
EARLIEST MANUSCRIPT Papyrus 52, a scrap of John 18, usually dated about AD 125 to 175.
THE LIST OF 27 The churches used these books from the start. In AD 367 Athanasius, a bishop in Egypt, listed the same 27 books we have today. What Does Testament Mean Testament is an old word for covenant, a binding promise. The Old Testament is the story of God's covenant with Israel. The New Testament is the new covenant Jeremiah promised in Jeremiah 31:31, sealed by the blood of Jesus. On the night before He died, Jesus lifted the cup and said, This cup is the new covenant in My blood.
Why Four Gospels Each Gospel writer had a different audience. Matthew wrote for Jewish readers and shows Jesus as the promised King. Mark wrote fast and short, likely for Romans, and shows Jesus as the Servant who acts. Luke, a doctor, wrote a careful history for a Greek reader and shows Jesus as the Savior of everyone. John wrote last and shows Jesus as God in the flesh. Four witnesses, one Jesus. In court, four matching witnesses who each add their own details are more believable than four who repeat the same script.
The Three Oldest Bibles The next three pages show the three oldest Bibles that still hold most of the New Testament, oldest first: Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus. Older pieces of single books survive on papyrus, like Papyrus 52, but these three held the whole Bible in one book, and they are the copies scholars check first.
400 Quiet Years Between Malachi and Matthew, about 400 years pass with no new prophet. A lot happens. The Persians hand the world to Alexander the Great, and Greek becomes the language of everything. The Jews translate their Scriptures into Greek. The Maccabees win a war for the temple, which is where Hanukkah comes from. Then Rome takes over in 63 BC. By the time Jesus is born, the roads are Roman, the language is Greek, and the people are waiting for the Messiah. The stage is set.
The Books THE GOSPELS Matthew, Mark, Luke, John Four accounts of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, built on eyewitness testimony.
HISTORY Acts How the church spread from Jerusalem to Rome.
PAUL'S LETTERS Romans to Philemon 13 letters from Paul to churches and friends.
GENERAL LETTERS Hebrews to Jude 8 letters from other leaders, including Peter, James and John.
PROPHECY Revelation How the story ends: Jesus wins.
Why We Say Yahweh God told Moses His personal name in Exodus 3:15. In Hebrew it is spelled YHWH, and it shows up about 6,800 times in the Old Testament. Out of respect, Jewish readers stopped saying it out loud and said Lord instead, so most English Bibles print LORD in capital letters. The Owner's Manual puts His name back. Where you see Yahweh, the Hebrew says YHWH. Where you see Lord, the Hebrew usually says Adonai, which means master. Where you see God, the Hebrew usually says Elohim, the mighty Creator.
Jesus Is Yeshua Jesus is the English form of the Hebrew name Yeshua. It is the same name as Joshua, the man who led Israel into the promised land. The name means Yahweh saves. That is why the angel says in Matthew 1:21, You are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.
Lord in the New Testament The New Testament was written in Greek. God is Theos and Lord is Kyrios. When Jesus quotes the Old Testament, the Hebrew behind Lord is often YHWH, but the Greek says Lord, so this Bible keeps Lord in the New Testament. When you see Lord in a quote from the Old Testament, you can look up the verse and find Yahweh there.
How This Bible Marks It
QUOTES When a New Testament writer quotes the Old Testament, the quoted words are printed in italics. The Old Testament verse is in italics too, so you can see both ends. When a writer only points back to an Old Testament verse without quoting it, you get a note but no italics.
FULFILLED When a verse fulfills a prophecy, the note at the bottom of the column says FULFILLS and points back to the prophecy.
JESUS SPEAKING The words of Jesus are printed in red, and so are the words of God the Father. Only the words they actually said are red.
THE FAMILY LINE Names in the bloodline of Jesus are underlined in red in the family trees in Matthew 1 and Luke 3. THE THREE OLDEST BIBLES · 1 OF 3 · FIELD NOTES · CONFIDENCE: HIGH Codex Vaticanus Codex Vaticanus, Matthew 1:22 to 2:18, three columns on a page. Public domain.
WHAT IT IS A handwritten Bible in Greek, and probably the oldest Bible in the world that still has most of its pages. Codex means a book with pages instead of a scroll. The words are written in three columns on each page, and in two columns in the poetry books like Psalms and Job.
HOW OLD IT IS It was copied about AD 300 to 350, and many scholars narrow that to about 300 to 325. That makes it a little older than Codex Sinaiticus, or about the same age. Its text of Luke and John matches Papyrus 75, a copy usually dated about AD 175 to 225, almost word for word. So those Gospels were copied with great care.
WHERE IT IS TODAY In the Vatican Library in Rome, where it is called Vat. gr. 1209. That is where the name Vaticanus comes from. 759 leaves survive out of about 830. Every page is free to view at digi.vatlib.it.
HOW IT GOT THERE Nobody knows where it was made. It was probably in the library's first catalogue in 1475, and it is certainly listed in 1481. Napoleon's armies carried it off to Paris after a treaty in 1797, and it came home to Rome in 1815.
WHAT IS IN IT The Old Testament in Greek, plus Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah, Judith, Tobit, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach and 1 Esdras. It has no 1 to 4 Maccabees and no Prayer of Manasseh. In the New Testament it has the four Gospels, then Acts, then the letters of James to Jude, then Paul's letters, with Hebrews right after 2 Thessalonians.
WHAT IS NOT IN IT The first pages are gone, so Genesis starts at 46:28. A few verses of 2 Samuel 2 and Psalm 106:27 to 138:6 are lost too. At the other end it stops in the middle of a word in Hebrews 9:14. The rest of Hebrews, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon and Revelation are lost. In the 1400s someone added the end of Hebrews and Revelation in a much newer hand, but that part is a separate, later copy.
VERSES THAT ARE NOT THERE Mark ends at 16:8. Then the scribe left the next column empty before Luke begins. Some think he knew of a longer ending and left room for it. John 7:53 to 8:11, the woman caught in adultery, is not there, and neither is Acts 8:37. This Bible prints those in [brackets]. THE THREE OLDEST BIBLES · 2 OF 3 · FIELD NOTES · CONFIDENCE: HIGH Codex Sinaiticus Codex Sinaiticus, open to two of its pages. Every surviving page can be viewed free at codexsinaiticus.org/en.
WHAT IT IS A handwritten Bible in Greek, copied about AD 330 to 360, a little after Codex Vaticanus or about the same time. It is the oldest complete copy of the New Testament in the world, because Vaticanus has lost its last pages. It also held the Old Testament in Greek, and about half of that part survives. The words are written in four neat columns on each page.
MADE FROM ANIMALS Its pages are parchment, made from animal skins. It took about 200 animals or more, mostly calves with some sheep. That made it a hugely expensive book.
WHO HAD IT MADE Nobody knows for sure. In AD 331 Constantine, the first Christian emperor, ordered fifty Bibles for the churches of his new capital. Some scholars think this could be one of them, and others disagree.
FOUND BY ANOTHER CONSTANTINE The man who found it was a German scholar named Constantin von Tischendorf, who shared his name with that emperor. In 1844 he visited Saint Catherine's Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt and left with 43 leaves. He said they were in a basket waiting to be burned, but the monks dispute that story. In 1859 he was shown the rest of the book and took it to the Tsar of Russia. The monks say it was only a loan.
WHERE IT IS TODAY In 1933 the Soviet government sold most of it to the British Museum for 100,000 British pounds. In 1975 the monks found more pages in a storage room under a chapel. Today it is split among four places: the British Library in London, Leipzig University in Germany, the National Library of Russia and Saint Catherine's Monastery. In 2009 all four put every surviving page online for free at codexsinaiticus.org/en.
HOW IS IT DIFFERENT It has all 27 New Testament books we have today, plus two extra books at the end, the Letter of Barnabas and part of the Shepherd of Hermas. Early Christians read those two, but the church later left them out. The order is different too. Paul's letters come right after the Gospels, Hebrews sits after 2 Thessalonians, and Acts comes after Paul's letters. Later scribes made about 23,000 corrections to it over the centuries.
VERSES THAT ARE NOT THERE Mark ends at 16:8, and the woman caught in adultery, John 7:53 to 8:11, is missing. About 16 single verses found in the King James Version are missing too, like Acts 8:37. This and other early copies suggest scribes added those verses later. This Bible prints them in [brackets] so you can see them and decide. None of them changes a core teaching of the faith. THE THREE OLDEST BIBLES · 3 OF 3 · FIELD NOTES · CONFIDENCE: HIGH Codex Alexandrinus Codex Alexandrinus, the last page of Luke, two columns on a page, with a decorated ending and the title The Gospel According to Luke. British Library. Public domain.
WHAT IT IS A handwritten Bible in Greek, the youngest of the three great old Bibles. It is written in two columns on each page.
HOW OLD IT IS It was copied in the early 400s, about AD 400 to 440. That is roughly 75 years after Codex Sinaiticus.
WHERE IT IS TODAY In the British Library in London, bound in four volumes called Royal MS 1 D V to VIII. 773 leaves survive. Its name comes from Alexandria in Egypt, where it was kept before it left for Europe. Its New Testament volume was photographed and put online in full in 2012.
HOW IT CAME TO ENGLAND Cyril Lucaris, who had led the church of Alexandria, probably brought it to Constantinople around 1621, after he became the Patriarch there. In 1624 he offered it to King James I, but James died in 1625. It reached his son, King Charles I, in 1627. The King James Version came out in 1611, so its translators never saw it.
WHAT IS IN IT The Old Testament in Greek, with 1 to 4 Maccabees, Psalm 151 and the Odes, a set of songs from the Bible gathered after the Psalms. Its table of contents also lists the Psalms of Solomon, but those pages are lost. The New Testament runs in this order: Gospels, Acts, James to Jude, Paul's letters with Hebrews after 2 Thessalonians, and Revelation. At the end it adds 1 Clement, a letter from the church in Rome written about AD 96, and part of 2 Clement. Early Christians read those two, but the church did not keep them in the Bible.
WHAT IS NOT IN IT Some pages are lost: Matthew 1:1 to 25:6, John 6:50 to 8:52 and 2 Corinthians 4:13 to 12:6. Scholars counted the lines that fit on the lost pages of John and found there was not enough room for the story of the woman caught in adultery, John 7:53 to 8:11.
WHAT IS DIFFERENT Unlike the two older Bibles, it has the long ending of Mark, 16:9 to 20. It does not have the extra words in 1 John 5:7 that the King James Version has. In the Gospels its wording is mostly the kind found in the many later Greek copies, while in the letters and Revelation it is closer to the oldest copies. FIELD NOTES · MANUSCRIPTS · CONFIDENCE: HIGH Textual Criticism The title page of Erasmus's Greek New Testament, printed in Basel in 1516. It became the start of the Textus Receptus. Public domain.
IT DOES NOT MEAN CRITICIZING THE BIBLE Textual criticism sounds like people picking the Bible apart. It is the opposite. The word criticism comes from the Greek word krino, which means to judge carefully. A jeweler judges which diamond is real. A textual critic judges which wording is the original. It is the careful work of comparing copies to find the exact words the apostles wrote.
WHY WE NEED IT The original pages Paul and John wrote wore out long ago. What we have is more than 5,800 handwritten Greek copies. No two are exactly alike, because every copy was made by hand. Most differences are spelling, word order or a skipped word. Comparing thousands of copies lets scholars spot the slips.
HOW IT WORKS Older copies usually carry more weight, but not always. Scholars also ask where the copies came from, how many places share a reading, and which reading best explains how the others came about. A reading found early in Egypt, Italy and Syria at the same time is hard to argue with.
THREE FAMILIES OF COPIES The Alexandrian copies come from Egypt and are the oldest, like Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. The Byzantine copies come from the Greek speaking church and are by far the most numerous, but most were made after AD 800. The Western copies, like Codex Bezae, often add extra words.
1516: ERASMUS The Dutch scholar Erasmus printed the first Greek New Testament for sale, in Basel, with the printer Johann Froben. He rushed it out using a handful of late copies. His only copy of Revelation was missing its last page, so he translated the last six verses back into Greek from the Latin.
1519 TO 1535: MORE EDITIONS Erasmus put out four more editions. Luther used the 1519 edition for his German New Testament in 1522. The 1522 edition added the famous words in 1 John 5:7 about the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, from a single Greek copy made around 1520. Later editions borrowed readings from the Complutensian Polyglot, a giant Spanish Bible printed in 1514.
1546 TO 1551: STEPHANUS The Paris printer Robert Estienne, called Stephanus, printed four editions. His 1550 edition was the first to list differences between manuscripts in the margins. His 1551 edition was the first to split the New Testament into the numbered verses we still use.
1565 TO 1604: BEZA Theodore Beza, who took over for John Calvin in Geneva, published nine editions. He owned Codex Bezae, the old Greek and Latin copy shown on the next page, but hardly used it. The King James translators leaned mostly on Beza's 1588 and 1598 editions. Beza's text also has a guess at Revelation 16:5, and so far no one has found a Greek copy that supports it.
1633: THE NAME The Elzevir family, printers in Leiden, Netherlands, said in their 1633 preface that readers now had the text received by all. In Latin, that is textus receptus, and the name stuck.
1881: SCRIVENER The English scholar F. H. A. Scrivener rebuilt the Greek text that the King James translators actually followed, choice by choice. It came out in 1881, and a new printing came out in 1894. Churches that use the Textus Receptus today usually print his text. FIELD NOTES · MANUSCRIPTS · CONFIDENCE: HIGH Three Greek Texts Codex Bezae, John 1:1 to 16 in Greek, copied around AD 400. Theodore Beza gave it to Cambridge University in 1581. Public domain.
THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS The Greek text from Erasmus, Stephanus, Beza and the Elzevirs, built from a handful of late copies. It stands behind Luther's German Bible, the Geneva Bible, the King James Version and the New King James. In a few places it has words almost no Greek copy has, like the ending of Revelation that Erasmus translated from Latin.
THE CRITICAL TEXT Built by comparing all the copies and giving the oldest ones the most weight. 1831: Karl Lachmann became the first to print a Greek text that broke from the Textus Receptus. 1844 and 1859: Constantin von Tischendorf found Codex Sinaiticus. 1881: Westcott and Hort published their famous edition. 1898: Eberhard Nestle's first edition. 1966: the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament, made for translators. 2012: the 28th edition of Nestle and Aland, the one most scholars use. Work still goes on today. The NIV, ESV, NASB, CSB and NLT are translated from this text.
THE MAJORITY TEXT Follows whatever reading most Greek copies have, which usually means the Byzantine copies. Zane Hodges and Arthur Farstad printed one in 1982, and Maurice Robinson and William Pierpont printed another in 1991, updated in 2005. The Greek Orthodox Church uses a similar text, printed in 1904. Supporters say God kept His word safe in the church's many copies. Critics answer that most of those copies are late.
HOW BIG ARE THE DIFFERENCES The Textus Receptus and the Majority Text differ in about 1,800 places. The critical text and the Majority Text differ in about 6,500. That sounds like a lot, but most are spelling, word order or a little word like the. Only a small number change the meaning of a sentence at all.
THE FAMOUS ONES Mark 16:9 to 20 and John 7:53 to 8:11 are in the Textus Receptus and the Majority Text but missing from the oldest copies. 1 John 5:7 to 8, about the three in heaven, and Acts 8:37 are in the Textus Receptus only. In 1 Timothy 3:16, the Textus Receptus and Majority Text say God was manifest. The oldest copies say He who was manifest. In Revelation 22:19, the Textus Receptus says book of life, and the Greek copies say tree of life.
NO DIFFERENCE IN DOCTRINE Not one teaching of the Christian faith depends on a verse in dispute. The Trinity is taught without 1 John 5:7, in Matthew 28:19 and 2 Corinthians 13:14. Jesus is called God in John 1:1 and 20:28 in every text. All three texts tell the same gospel: Jesus died for our sins, was buried and rose again. Even the skeptical scholar Bart Ehrman wrote that his book does not stand against the view of his teacher Bruce Metzger, that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by these differences.
WHICH ONE THIS BIBLE USES The New Testament in The Owner's Manual is translated from the critical text, the oldest copies. But it does not delete the extra words found in the Textus Receptus and the Majority Text. It prints them in [square brackets], so you can see all three at once: Matthew 6:13, Mark 16:9 to 20, John 7:53 to 8:11, Acts 8:37 and 1 John 5:7. In a few places, like 1 Timothy 3:16, this Bible uses the King James wording and a TEXT note tells you what the oldest copies say. Every change is listed in the change log. HOW THIS BIBLE WORKS · DATING THE BOOKS · CONFIDENCE: HONEST When Were the Gospels Written? Roman soldiers carry the lampstand and other treasures from the temple in Jerusalem, after it was destroyed in AD 70. The spoils panel inside the Arch of Titus, Rome. Photo Sailko, CC BY 3.0.
TWO DATES AGAIN Just like the Old Testament, many New Testament book intros give two dates: the traditional date first, then the date many critical scholars give. The gap here is much smaller, usually 10 to 30 years. Almost everything hangs on one event: the Romans destroying the temple in Jerusalem in AD 70.
THE TRADITIONAL DATES Mark in the 50s or 60s. Matthew and Luke in the 60s. Acts around AD 62. John around AD 85 to 95. Paul's letters from about AD 48 to 64.
THE CRITICAL DATES Mark around AD 66 to 70. Matthew and Luke around AD 80 to 90. Acts around AD 80 to 90, and some say the early 100s. John around AD 90 to 110. Almost all scholars agree that Paul wrote at least seven letters, in the AD 50s and early 60s, about 20 to 30 years after the cross.
WHY CRITICS DATE LATER: 1, THE TEMPLE Jesus said not one stone of the temple would be left on another, Mark 13:2, and that Jerusalem would be surrounded by armies, Luke 21:20. Some scholars do not believe anyone can predict the future. Others point to details, like Luke saying armies would surround Jerusalem, Luke 21:20, and say these sound like the writer already knew what happened. That is why many date Mark near AD 70 and Matthew and Luke after it.
2, WHO COPIED WHOM Most scholars think Matthew and Luke used Mark, and Luke says others had already written before him, Luke 1:1 to 3. So if Mark is dated around AD 70, Matthew and Luke have to come later.
3, BIG IDEAS TAKE TIME Some scholars think big teachings about Jesus, like John calling Him God, took a long time to grow, so John must be late. They also point to verses about believers being put out of the synagogue, John 9:22, which they think fit a later time. HOW THIS BIBLE WORKS · DATING THE BOOKS · CONFIDENCE: HONEST The Case for Early Gospels Papyrus 52, often called the oldest known scrap of the New Testament, holding words from John 18. It is usually dated about AD 125 to 175. Public domain.
THE ANSWER TO 1 If Jesus is who He said He is, predicting the temple's fall is not a problem. The Gospels never describe the temple burning or name Titus. Some point to Matthew 22:7, where a king burns a city, but that kind of picture was common in the Old Testament. Jesus told His followers to flee to the mountains when they saw armies around Jerusalem, Luke 21:20 to 21. The historian Eusebius says the Jerusalem church left before the war and went to a town called Pella, across the Jordan River.
THE ANSWER TO 2, THE ACTS CLUE Acts ends with Paul under house arrest in Rome, around AD 62. It never tells of Nero's attack on Christians in AD 64, Paul's death in the mid 60s, the death of James, the brother of Jesus, in AD 62, or the temple's fall. Many say the simplest reason is that Acts was finished around AD 62. Others think Luke simply chose to end the story with Paul preaching in Rome. Luke wrote his Gospel before Acts, Acts 1:1, and if he used Mark, then Mark is earlier still.
THE ANSWER TO 3 Paul's letters, which almost everyone dates to the 50s and early 60s, already call Jesus Lord and treat Him as God, Philippians 2:6 to 11. And Paul passes on a creed about Jesus' death and resurrection that he received within a few years of the cross, 1 Corinthians 15:3 to 7. The big ideas were there from the start.
A SURPRISE WITNESS In 1976, a liberal English bishop and scholar named John A. T. Robinson wrote Redating the New Testament. He argued that every book of the New Testament was written before AD 70, mostly because none of them talks about the temple's fall as something that already happened. Most scholars did not agree with him, but some conservative scholars did, and his questions are still asked.
WHAT ABOUT JOHN Papyrus 52, a scrap of John 18 bought in Egypt in 1920, is usually dated to about AD 125 to 175. John's Gospel had to be written, copied and carried to Egypt before then. This rules out the very late dates some scholars once gave John, around AD 160.
WHY IT MATTERS Even the later dates put Mark about 40 years after Jesus, and all four Gospels within about 60 to 80 years. People who saw Jesus were still alive when the first ones were written. The best sources we have for Alexander the Great, like Arrian and Plutarch, were written more than 400 years after he died, and historians still trust them.
THIS BIBLE'S RULE Each book intro gives the traditional date first, then the critical view in one honest line. HOW THE BOOKS ARE ARRANGED Why the Books Are Not in Time Order
SORTED BY TYPE Like the Old Testament, the New Testament is sorted by type, not by date. It has five shelves: the Gospels, Acts, Paul's letters, the general letters and Revelation.
THE GOSPELS Matthew comes first because the early church believed it was written first, and because its family tree ties Jesus to Abraham and David. That makes it a bridge from the Old Testament. Most scholars today think Mark was written first.
PAUL'S LETTERS, LONGEST FIRST Paul's letters are not in the order he wrote them. Letters to churches come first, Romans to 2 Thessalonians. Then come letters to people, 1 Timothy to Philemon. Each set runs roughly from longest to shortest. Romans is first because it is the longest, not because it was written first. Galatians or 1 Thessalonians was likely his first.
THE GENERAL LETTERS James to Jude are called general letters because most were written to the church at large, not to one city. They are named for who wrote them, not who got them. Hebrews sits with them because no one knows for sure who wrote it.
WHAT CAME FIRST James, Galatians and 1 Thessalonians were written about AD 45 to 51, likely before any of the Gospels. The first Christians had the Old Testament, the stories of the apostles and a few letters.
WHAT CAME LAST John's Gospel, his three letters and Revelation came last, about AD 85 to 95. John was likely the last apostle still alive.
WHY A PERFECT ORDER IS IMPOSSIBLE Many books overlap. Paul wrote most of his letters during the years of Acts 13 to 28. Four Gospels tell the same three years. And scholars argue about the dates of many books, so any list is a best guess. The next page shows them all on one timeline.
SHELF BY SHELF Gospels: the story runs about 6 BC to AD 30, written about AD 50 to 95. Acts: the story runs AD 30 to 62. Paul's letters: about AD 48 to 67. General letters: about AD 45 to 95. Revelation: about AD 95. These are the dates in each book's introduction.
THE ORDER WAS NOT ALWAYS THE SAME Old Bibles did not all agree. Codex Sinaiticus puts Paul's letters right after the Gospels. Codex Vaticanus puts James to Jude right after Acts. Our order comes mostly from the Latin Bibles of the Middle Ages, which the first printed Bibles followed. The order was never part of the inspired text. The books are. Start reading Matthew 1
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