Michlaude Discipleship Project

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Stop 1 · The roots: copies all the way down

Building the Bible · Stop 1 of 9

Stop 1. The roots: copies all the way down

Nobody alive has seen the original pages of the Bible. The ink dried thousands of years ago. What we have are copies, and copies of copies, all made by hand.

Look at the roots of the tree. On the left are the Old Testament roots. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew. On the right are the New Testament roots. The New Testament was written in Greek. Each root tip is a group of old copies. The deeper the root, the older the copy.

On the Old Testament side, the Dead Sea Scrolls go deepest. They are Hebrew scrolls from about 250 BC to AD 68. The Septuagint is the Old Testament translated into Greek about 2,100 to 2,300 years ago. The Masoretic Text is the standard Hebrew text. Jewish scribes copied it with great care. A scribe is a person whose job was copying books by hand. The oldest complete copy of this text is from about AD 1008.

On the New Testament side, the oldest pieces are the earliest papyri, from about AD 125 to 250. Papyrus is an ancient kind of paper made from a plant. Next come the great codices, which are big books from the 300s. Last are the later Greek copies. Most of what survives is in that group.

After thousands of copies, you would expect small differences, and that is what we find. Most are tiny, like spelling. A few matter. Scholars treat them like detectives. They ask which copy is oldest, and which change makes sense. A scribe might write a helpful note in the margin. The next scribe might copy that note into the text. So the longer wording is often the later one.

The tree as text

Title and subtitle

  • The Bible Tree. Every Bible on the shelf grows from the same roots. The Old Testament is where the branches split, most sharply in the 1500s.

Roots (below ground: no original survives, the deeper the root the older the copy)

Old Testament roots, Hebrew and Aramaic:

  • Dead Sea Scrolls, 250 BC to AD 68. Checked by modern Bibles at hard spots.
  • Septuagint, Greek, 3rd to 2nd century BC. Main text of the Orthodox and Ethiopian Bibles.
  • Masoretic Text, Hebrew, AD 9th to 11th century. Main text of the KJV line and most Protestant Bibles.

New Testament roots, Greek:

  • Later Greek copies, most of what survives. Main text of the KJV line and the Orthodox Bibles.
  • Great codices, 4th century. Weighed by modern Bibles, not the KJV.
  • Earliest papyri, about AD 125 to 250. Weighed by modern Bibles, not the KJV.

Trunk, the 4th century

  • 27 New Testament books named (AD 367).
  • Jerome's Latin Bible written (c. 383 to 405).

Four branches

Ethiopian, 81 books (by tradition; Geʿez, from the Greek):

  • Geʿez Bible, 4th to 6th century
  • Amharic Bible

Orthodox, about 76 to 77 books (Greek Old Testament):

  • Brenton, 1800s
  • NETS, 2007
  • Orthodox Study Bible, 2008

Catholic, 73 books (Latin Bible, longer Old Testament). Jerome's Latin Bible, itself translated from Hebrew and Greek, stands two steps from the roots:

  • Douay-Rheims *
  • NABRE, 2011
  • Catholic American, 2027

Protestant, 66 books (1500s: back to Hebrew and Greek). It splits into three twigs:

Received Text line (KJV tradition):

  • King James, 1611
  • NKJV, 1982
  • Reina-Valera, 1960

Revised line (from the ASV, 1901):

  • Living Bible
  • RSV, 1952
  • AMP, 1965
  • NASB, 1971
  • NRSV, 1989
  • ESV, 2001

Fresh translations (from the originals):

  • NET, 2005 (the project's text)
  • CSB, 2017
  • CEB, 2011
  • NLT, 1996
  • NIV, 1978
  • CEV, 1995
  • The Message, 2002
  • Good News
  • NIV Reader's

The box on the picture, "Where each branch gets its text" (v101: redrawn and checked; explained in Stop 4)

  • Received Text line (KJV, NKJV, Reina-Valera): Old Testament from the Masoretic Text, the standard Hebrew text; New Testament from later Greek copies, the 1516 Erasmus text.
  • Revised and fresh Bibles (ESV, NIV, NET, NLT and others): Old Testament from the Masoretic Text, with the Scrolls and Greek checked at hard spots; New Testament from papyri, codices and later copies weighed against each other.
  • The NET (this project's text): Old Testament from Biblia Hebraica (Masoretic), with corrections from other witnesses; New Testament from a Greek text weighing all copies, departing in places from NA27.
  • Older Catholic Bibles (Douay-Rheims): both Testaments from Jerome's Latin Bible, itself a translation.
  • Modern Catholic Bibles (NABRE): Old Testament from the Hebrew, with Scrolls and Greek checked; New Testament from Greek copies, weighed.
  • Orthodox Bibles: Old Testament from the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint); New Testament from later Greek (Byzantine) copies.
  • Ethiopian Bible: Old Testament from the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint); New Testament from Greek.
  • Under the box: The KJV never saw the Scrolls (found 1947) or the oldest Greek codices (1844 and later).

Notes at the foot of the picture

  • * The Douay-Rheims is English made from the Latin Bible, which was itself translated from Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. That is two steps from the roots, and each step can lose fidelity. Modern Catholic Bibles go to the roots.
  • Leaves are translations; years are first publication, and 2027 is an expected date. Orthodox and Ethiopian branches are shown from the Greek Old Testament (Asale 2016; Orthodox Study Bible introduction).
  • Canon counts: Bible Gateway (2026); the Ethiopian 81 is a tradition (Asale 2016). Roots and trunk: project sources and Bible Gateway. Lines checked 2026-10-27; see the sources page. Not shown: Syriac, Coptic and Armenian Bibles.

How to read the leaves (the box at the right of the trunk)

  • A revision grows from an older English Bible: KJV, 1611 leads to NKJV, 1982.
  • A fresh translation goes straight to the roots: Hebrew roots and Greek roots lead to the NET. No English Bible stands between them.
  • Leaves on one twig share roots. They are not copies of each other, and their order on the twig means nothing.

Boxes on the picture

  • 1. One trunk: by the 4th century the church had named the same 27 New Testament books. The Old Testament list is where the branches differ.
  • 2. The Scrolls changed the roots: found from 1947, they show the Hebrew text in more than one form. Some Bibles follow them where the Masoretic Text differs.
  • 3. The NET is a fresh leaf: made from Hebrew and Greek, not from an older English Bible. Its notes show where the roots disagree. A gold star and the words "The NET is here" mark its leaf.