Much later, the apostle John was told to write, at the command of Christ, to warn against sects, mentioning especially the sect of Nicolaus and speaking of false prophets like Balaam, and of the woman Jezebel who called herself a prophetess.—Rev. 2:6, 14, 15, 20.

At work in apostles’ days

The apostle Paul said that the mystery “is already at work.” (2 Thess. 2:7) There were those trying to teach false doctrine, some of these even disturbing the Thessalonian congregation, prompting, in part, the writing of his second letter to them. There were antichrists when John wrote his letters, and doubtless before that. John spoke of the “last hour” of the apostolic period, and said: “Just as you have heard that antichrist is coming, even now there have come to be many antichrists . . . They went out from us, but they were not of our sort; for if they had been of our sort, they would have remained with us. But they went out that it might be shown up that not all are of our sort.”—1 John 2:18, 19.

Revealed

Following the apostles’ death the “man of lawlessness” came out into the open with his religious hypocrisy and false teachings. According to Paul’s words, this “man” would gain great power, operating under Satan’s control, performing “every powerful work and lying signs and portents.” Those engaging in the operations of the “man of lawlessness,” those making up this composite “man,” are to perish [literally, be “destroying themselves”] “as a retribution because they did not accept the love of the truth that they might be saved.” The apostle shows that they “get to believing the lie” and they will all “be judged because they did not believe the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2 Thess. 2:9-12; see Kingdom Interlinear Translation.) The judgment is therefore a condemnatory one.

Destroyed

This composite, hypocritical “man of lawlessness” is to be done away with by the Lord Jesus “by the spirit of his mouth” and brought to nothing “by the manifestation of his presence.” The annihilation of this wicked opposer of God will be visible, concrete proof that the Lord Jesus Christ is sitting and acting as Judge. He will not judge according to his own standards, hence the destruction “by the spirit of his mouth” evidently means in expression of Jehovah’s judgment against this wicked class of persons.—2 Thess. 2:8; compare Revelation 19:21, as to “the long sword . . . which sword proceeded out of his mouth.”

MANSLAYER

See CITIES OF REFUGE; MURDER.

MANTLE

See DRESS.

MANUSCRIPTS OF THE BIBLE

The Holy Scriptures have a superhuman origin as to content, but a human history as to their writing and preservation. Moses began compiling them under divine inspiration in 1513 B.C.E. and the apostle John wrote the final portion thereof more than 1,600 years later. Since the Bible was not originally one book, its canon grew as time passed and a demand arose for copies of its various books. This was so, for instance, after the Babylonian exile, for not all released Jews returned to Palestine. Instead, many settled elsewhere and synagogues sprang up throughout the vast territory of the resultant Jewish Dispersion. Scribes prepared copies of the Scriptures needed for these synagogues where the Jews gathered to hear the reading of God’s Word. (Acts 15:21) In later times, among Christ’s followers, conscientious copyists labored to reproduce the inspired writings for the benefit of the multiplying Christian congregations so that there might be an interchange and general circulation of these.—Col. 4:16.

Before printing from movable type became common (from the fifteenth century C.E. onward), the original Biblical writings and also copies of them were handwritten. Hence, they are called “manuscripts” (Latin, manu scriptus, written by hand). A Bible manuscript is a handwritten copy of the Scriptures, in whole or in part, as distinguished from one that is printed. Biblical manuscripts were produced principally in the form of rolls and codices.

MATERIALS

There are leather, papyrus and vellum manuscripts of the Scriptures, as well as palimpsests. The noted Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah, for instance, is a leather roll. Papyrus, a type of paper made from the fibers of a water plant, was used for Biblical manuscripts in the original languages and for translations thereof until about the fourth century C.E. At that time its use for Bible manuscripts began to be superseded by the use of vellum, a fine grade of parchment generally made from calf, lamb, or goat skins, a further development of the earlier use of animal skins as writing material. Such manuscripts as the renowned Codex Sinaiticus (Sinaitic Manuscript) and the Codex Vaticanus (Vatican Manuscript No. 1209) of the fourth century C.E. are parchment, or vellum, codices. A palimpsest (Latin, palimpsestus; Gr., pa·limʹpse·stos, meaning “scraped again”) is a manuscript from which earlier writing was removed or scraped off to make room for later writing. A noted Biblical palimpsest is the Codex Ephraemi Syri rescriptus of the fifth century C.E. If the earlier writing (the writing scraped off) is the important one on the palimpsest, scholars can often read this erased writing by employing technical means that include the use of chemical reagents, and photography. Some manuscripts of the Christian Greek Scriptures are lectionaries, selected Biblical readings for use at religious services.

STYLES OF WRITING

Biblical manuscripts written in Greek (whether translations of the Hebrew Scriptures, or copies of the Christian Greek Scriptures, or both) can be divided or classified as to writing style, which is also an aid in dating them. The older style (employed especially down to the ninth century C.E.) is the uncial manuscript, written in large, separated capital letters. In it there is generally no word separation, and punctuation and accent marks are lacking. The Codex Sinaiticus is such an uncial manuscript. Changes in writing style began to develop in the sixth century, eventually leading (in the ninth century C.E.) to the cursive or minuscule manuscript, written in smaller letters, many of which were joined in a running or flowing writing style. The majority of extant manuscripts of the Christian Greek Scriptures have a cursive script. Cursive manuscripts remained in vogue until the inception of printing.

COPYISTS

As far as is known today, no handwritten original or autograph manuscripts of the Bible are in existence. Yet the Bible has been preserved in accurate, reliable form because Biblical copyists in general, accepting the Scriptures as being divinely inspired, sought perfection in their arduous labor of producing manuscript copies of God’s Word. The men who copied the Hebrew Scriptures in the days of Jesus Christ’s ministry on earth and for centuries before that time were called “scribes” (Heb., sohph·rimʹ). Among the early scribes was Ezra, spoken of in the Scriptures as a “skilled copyist.” (Ezra 7:6) Later scribes made some deliberate alterations of the Hebrew text. But their scribal successors, the Masoretes, detected these and recorded them in the Masorah, or notes appearing in the margins of the Hebrew Masoretic text they produced. Copyists of the Christian Greek Scriptures made earnest efforts to reproduce faithfully the text of the Scriptures.

REFINED TEXTS OF THE SCRIPTURES

Despite the care exercised by copyists of Biblical manuscripts, nevertheless, a, number of small scribal errors and alterations crept into the text. On the whole, these are insignificant and have no bearing on the Bible’s general integrity. They have been detected and corrected by means of careful scholastic collation or critical comparison of the many extant manuscripts and ancient versions. Critical study of the Hebrew text of the Scriptures commenced toward the end of the eighteenth century. Benjamin Kennicott published at Oxford (in 1776-1780) the readings of over 600 Masoretic Hebrew manuscripts and the Italian scholar Giovanni de Rossi published comparisons of 731 manuscripts in 1784-1788. Master texts of the Hebrew Scriptures were also produced, as by the German scholar Baer and, more recently, by C. D. Ginsburg. Hebrew scholar Rudolf Kittel released in 1906 the first edition of his Biblia Hebraica (“The Hebrew Bible”), providing therein a textual study through a footnote service, comparing many Hebrew manuscripts of the Masoretic text. The basic text he used was the Ben Chayyim text. But, when the older and superior Ben Asher Masoretic texts became available, Kittel undertook the production of an entirely new third edition, which was completed by his colleagues after his death. The 7th, 8th and 9th editions of this work (1951-1955) furnished the basic text used to render the Hebrew Scriptures into English in the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures.

The first printed edition of the Christian Greek Scriptures was that appearing in the Complutensian Polyglott (in Greek and Latin), completed in January 1514. Then in 1516 the Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus published his first edition of a master Greek text of the Christian Greek Scriptures. It contained many errors, but an improved text thereof was made available through four succeeding editions from 1519 to 1535. Later, Paris printer and editor Robert Estienne, or Stephanus, issued several editions of the Greek “New Testament,” based principally on Erasmus’ text, but having corrections according to the Complutensian Polyglott (of 1522) and fifteen late manuscripts. The third edition of Stephanus’ Greek text (issued in 1550) became, in effect, the “received text” (called textus receptus in Latin), which was used for many early English versions, including the Authorized Version of 1611.

Quite noteworthy in more recent times is the master Greek text prepared by J. J. Griesbach, who availed himself of materials gathered by others but who also gave attention to Biblical quotations made by such early writers as Origen. Further, Griesbach studied the readings of various versions, such as the Armenian, Gothic and Philoxenian. He viewed extant manuscripts as comprising three families, or recensions, the Byzantine, Western and Alexandrian, giving preference to readings in the latter. Editions of his master Greek text were issued between 1774 and 1806, his principal edition of the entire Greek text being published in 1796-1806. Griesbach’s text was used for Sharpe’s English translation of 1840 and is the Greek text printed in The Emphatic Diaglott, by Benjamin Wilson.

The Greek master text of the Christian Greek Scriptures that has attained the highest acceptance is that produced in 1881 by Cambridge University scholars B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort. it was the product of twenty-eight years of independent labor, though they compared notes regularly. Like Griesbach, they divided manuscripts into families and leaned heavily on what they termed the “neutral” text, which included the renowned Sinaitic Manuscript and the Vatican Manuscript No. 1209, both of the fourth century C.E. While Westcott and Hort viewed matters as quite conclusive when these manuscripts agreed and especially when they were supported by other ancient uncial manuscripts, they were not bound to that position. They took every conceivable factor into consideration in endeavoring to solve problems presented by conflicting texts; and when two readings were of equal weight, that, too, was indicated in their master text. The Westcott and Hort text was the one used principally in translating the Christian Greek Scriptures into English in the New World Translation. However, the New World Bible Translation Committee also consulted other excellent Greek texts, among them Nestle’s Greek text (18th ed., 1948).

The extant manuscripts of the Christian Scriptures (in Greek and other languages) show textual variations. Variations are to be expected in view of human imperfection and the copying and recopying of manuscripts, especially by many copyists who were not professionals. If certain manuscripts had a common ancestor manuscript or perhaps came from a particular revision of early texts, or were produced in a particular area, they would probably have at least some variations in common, and hence they are said to belong to the same family or group. On the basis of similarity of such differences, scholars have sought to classify the texts into groups or families, the number of which has increased with the passing of time, till reference is now made to the Alexandrian, Western, Eastern (Syriac and Caesarean), and the Byzantine texts, represented in various manuscripts or in different readings scattered throughout numerous manuscripts. But despite the variations peculiar to different manuscript families (and the variations within each group), the Scriptures have come down to us in essentially the same form as that of the original inspired writings. The variations of reading are of no consequence as to Bible teachings in general. And scholastic collations have corrected errors of any importance, so that we enjoy today an authentic and reliable text.

MANUSCRIPTS OF THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES

There are over 1,700 manuscripts of portions of the Hebrew Scriptures extant today in various libraries. The vast majority contain the Masoretic text and are of the tenth century C.E. or thereafter. The Masoretes (of the second half of the first millennium C.E.) sought to transmit the Hebrew text faithfully and made no changes in the wording of the text itself. However, to preserve the traditional pronunciation of the vowelless consonantal text, they devised systems of vowel pointing and accenting. Additionally, in their Masorah, or marginal notes, they drew attention to textual peculiarities and gave corrected readings they considered necessary. It is the Masoretic text that appears in printed Hebrew Bibles of the present day.

Damaged Hebrew Scripture manuscripts used in Jewish synagogues were replaced by verified copies and the defaced or damaged manuscripts were stored in a “genizah” (a synagogue storeroom or repository). Finally, when it was full, the manuscripts were removed and ceremoniously buried. Doubtless many ancient manuscripts perished in that way. But the contents of the synagogue genizah in Old Cairo were spared, probably because it was walled up and forgotten for centuries. Following the rebuilding of the synagogue in 1890 C.E. the manuscripts in its genizah were reexamined and from there fairly complete Hebrew Scripture manuscripts and fragments (some said to be of the sixth century C.E.) found their way into various libraries.