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Appendix Two

The Greek text of the Book of Revelation

A BRIEF EXPLANATION OF MY COMMENTS ON THE GREEK TEXT OF THE APOCALYPSE.
In my textual comments I have omitted the minor textual variations, which do not effect the meaning of the text or prophecies; but have considered in greater detail the major textual variations that effect or alter the meaning of the text and prophecies. The Authorised Version text is referred to as A.V., and it is based on Stephens 1550 Greek text, known as the Received Text or Textus Receptus, or T.R. in our evidence. In the Apocalypse the Textus Receptus often does not follow the Majority Text. Where it is necessary, I have referred to the evidence of the major early translations from the Greek into other languages, and quotations from the “Church Fathers.”

“The Critical Texts,” are the 26th. edition of the Nestle-Aland Greek Testament, and the Third Edition of the Greek Testament by the United Bible Societies, called the NU-Text in some Bibles. These Critical Texts, unfortunately, rely too much on the evidence from a small number of manuscripts, which are mainly from an Egyptian source, in the New Testament these vary from the Majority Text in three percent or more of their readings. Aland says 90% of the minuscules have the Majority Text, that is about 2,480 out of about 2770; and at least half of the most significant uncials have the Majority Text. Many authorities are now saying that it is wrong to rely largely upon a small number of ancient manuscripts from one part of the world, particularly when they differ from almost all of the rest of the Textual evidence from all over the world. It is a fact that the Egyptian manuscripts variant readings often disagree with the vast majority of the Greek manuscripts from many parts of the world, and from the major early Versions in other languages, and also from the majority of the early Church fathers. Having said this, the Critical Texts have great value, because of the information they contain in their critical notes. We must thank God for all those who have preserved the Scriptures, and laboured in the field of textual criticism, we owe them an incalculable debt of gratitude for giving to us in our own language, the Word of God as spoken through His prophets and apostles.

Hodges and Farstad base their Majority Greek Text on the broad mass of manuscript evidence; their manuscript stemma (family tree) of the apocalypse is very helpful, and is based on the work done by H. C. Hoskier and Joseph Schmid, we owe a great deal to the work of all of these textual scholars. The Mabcde readings are adapted from the work of Hodges and Farstad. In the Apocalypse the Majority Text of Hodges and Farstad often agrees with the Critical Texts against the readings of the Authorised Version and Received Text. In the rest of the New Testament the Majority Text of Hodges and Farstad usually agrees with the Authorised Version and Received Text readings against the Egyptian readings of the Critical Texts. There are one or two places in the Apocalypse where I feel that the Majority Text is not the best reading, like “emas,” “us,” in Rev.5v9., which is unacceptable on the grounds of prophetic facts, and on the evidence of the “them” and “they” in v10, and so “emas,” is quite rightly omitted by Codex A, and the Critical Texts.

The Authorised Version Text of Revelation is not as accurate as in the rest of the Scriptures.
The Authorised Version of the New Testament faithfully follows the majority of the Greek manuscripts except in The Book of Revelation; as Bishop C. Wordsworth states; “The English Version of the Apocalypse does not rest upon the same sound basis of manuscript authority as the Authorised Translation of the other books of the New Testament. It stands in a place by itself, and ought to be regarded accordingly.”

Erasmus published the first printed edition of the Greek New Testament, but in the Apocalypse he had only a single incomplete late cursive manuscript of the twelfth or thirteenth century; all except v20 of the last six verses were missing, so Erasmus supplied them by translating the Latin Vulgate into the Greek. The first edition of Erasmus is dedicated to Pope Leo the 10th., and is dated Feb. 1st. 1516. Scrivener said in respect of typographical errors it was the most faulty book he knew. A large number of these misprints, and some readings, were corrected in four later editions, the fourth and fifth editions came out in 1527 and 1535. Erasmus died in 1536.

The Complutensian Polyglott was finished on Jan. 10th 1514, two years before the first edition of Erasmus, but was not given licence to print by Pope Leo until March 22nd. 1520. Wetstein says it was based on only one document in the Apocalypse.

Robert Stephens published four editions of the Greek New Testament, which were highly regarded for their “exquisite beauty;” these were published in 1546, 1549, 1550, and 1551. Wetstein stated that Stephens only had two Greek manuscripts on the Apocalypse and that these were not accurately collated. The 1550 edition is looked upon by many as the Received or Standard Text, and it formed the basis of the four editions of Theodore Beza at Geneva in 1565, 1576, 1589, and 1598, and the Elzevir editions of 1624 and 1633. Beza's 1598 edition formed the basis of the text behind the English Authorised Version of the New Testament, which was published in 1611.

THE GREEK MANUSCRIPTS OF THE APOCALYPSE.
THE PAPYRI. Made from the papyrus reed. It is not known if the earliest documents were made of scroll or codex book type manuscripts. Of these P47 is the earliest, most of the papyri contain only very small fragments. P18, 3rd. to 4th. century, only has Rev.1v4-7.. P24, 4th. century, only has Rev.5v5-8. and 6v5-8.. P43, 6th. or 7th. century, only has Rev.2v12,13. and 15v8 to 16v2.. P47, 3rd. century only contains Rev.9v10 to 11v3., 11v5 to 16v15., and 16v17 to 17v2.. P85, 4th. to 5th. century, only has Rev.9v19 to 10v2. and 10v5-9..

THE UNCIALS. These manuscripts approximately correspond to our English printed capital letters. The New Testament translators from the 2nd. century onwards used the very durable parchment manuscripts made from the skins of animals in preference to the more fragile papyrus manuscripts. The oldest manuscripts of the New Testament are in codex book form.

Aleph. 01. Sinaiticus. From the 4th. century. The manuscript brought from Mount Sinai by Tischendorf in 1846, it is now in London. It contains all the Apocalypse.

A. 02. Alexandrinus. The Alexandrine manuscript from the 4th. or 5th. century, now in the British Museum in London. It contains all of the Apocalypse. In the Apocalypse A and C are considered by many authorities, including Nestle and Aland and Schmid, to be far superior in textual value than P47 and Aleph.

C. 04. Ephraemi Rescriptus. The most valuable of the palimpsest manuscripts, which had certain works of Ephraim the Syrian written over a Greek New Testament from the 4th. century; the original text has been restored by a chemical process so that almost every letter is now discernible. It omits; Rev.1v1,2. 3v20-5v14. 7v14-17. 8v9-9v16. 10v10-11v3. 16v13-18v2. 19v5 to 22v21. The manuscript is now in Paris. (About 50 palimpsest erased uncial New Testament manuscripts are known.)

P. 025. A ninth century palimpsest, which is now in Leningrad. It follows Andreas.

B2. The Basilian. Vatican manuscript 2066. 6th. to 8th. century. It often confirms Aleph, A, C, but less than Codex P, it often follows the later cursives. Manuscript B2 must NOT be confused with Vaticanus, Codex B, 03, which ends at Heb.9v13. and omits all the Apocalypse.

Codex Kosinitsanus. Written in the tenth century by Sabbas, a monk.

046. A tenth century manuscript, which contains all of the Apocalypse.

THE MINUSCULES. These were developed from about the 9th. century from the earlier cursive long hand style, they produced attractive documents, which could be written much quicker than the uncial style capital manuscripts, and by the end of the 10th. century it had completely displaced the uncial writing. The earliest minuscule is dated A.D. 835. Farstad says of the 256 minuscules that Hoskier lists, 204 are valuable, and uses 149 in his stemma of the Apocalypse, see the next page.

N.B. Like Codex B. 03 Vaticanus, (which ends at Heb.9v13.), the Lectionaries, dated tenth to fifteenth centuries; the Peshitta, dated by Scrivener at 170 A.D.; and the Gothic Bible of Ulfilas, dated 310 A.D., do not contain the Apocalypse.

Victorinus. Bishop of Petabium, or Petavium, Pettau in Pannonia, he was martyred in A.D. 303, in the Diocletian persecution. He wrote his commentary about A.D. 270; it was revised and modified by Jerome.

Auctor Anonymus. Some think Tichonius, the Donatist Expositor, a contemporary of Augustine, wrote this in about A.D. 390.

Primasius. Bishop of Adrumetum in Africa, “flourished A.D. 550.”

Cassiodorus Aurelius Magnus. Wrote a commentary about A.D. 556. He speaks of Primasius being contemporary with him.

Andreas, or Andrew. Archbishop of Crete, and later Bishop of Ceasarea. Probably in the sixth or seventh centuries. Arethas and Oecumenius derived their materials mainly from Andreas.

Arethas. Bishop of Ceasarea, in Cappodicia, he died about A.D. 914. A Latin translation of his work has survived.

Oecumenius. Bishop of Tricca in Thessaly. Opinions vary from 6th. to 10th. century.

Bede. Born in the county of Durham in A.D. 672, and died A.D. 735.

Haymo. Had a reputation of being a good expositor; he died A.D. 841.

THE STEMMA OF THE GREEK TEXTS OF THE APOCALYPSE WITH THE PRINCIPAL ROUTES OF MIXTURE.
Adapted from H. C. Hoskier, J. Schmid, and the Majority Text Greek Testament by Zane Hodges and Arthur L. Farstad.

IMPORTANT TRANSLATIONS FROM THE GREEK.
The Old Latin manuscripts, contain sources which date from the 2nd. to 4th. centuries; they have some important manuscripts which contain the apocalypse; like Ardmachanus, (manu. 61 ar) a 9th. century manuscript in Trinity College Dublin; and Gigas, in Stockholm. Some manuscripts of the Vulgate, Jerome's Latin translation from the Greek, contain the Apocalypse, as do the Syrian Philoxenian and Harclean (6th. and 7th. century). The Coptic versions: the Sahidic, Bohairic and Fayyumic, of the 3rd. and 4th. centuries; and the Armenian 5th. century, and the Ethiopic 6th. century versions also contain the Apocalypse.

THE OLD LATIN MANUSCRIPTS. These were written between the second and fourth centuries.

The above manuscripts are regarded as being derived from the original Old Latin manuscripts. Some of these are fragmentary, and some have the Vulgate in parts, like Codex Colbertinus, which is Old Latin in the Gospels, but Jerome's Vulgate elsewhere. Codex Sangermanensis is only Old Latin in Matthew's Gospel; in the rest of the New Testament it has “a Vulgate text with a strong admixture of Old Latin elements.” Codex Gigas Holmiensis has the Old Latin in the Acts and the Apocalypse, and the Vulgate in the rest of the New Testament. The palimpsest Floriacensis contains only fragments of the Apocalypse.

THE VULGATE, THE REVISED LATIN VERSION.
Many variations exist between different copies of the Old Latin version, and some copies had blatant corruptions in them. In 382 A.D., Damascus, the Bishop of Rome, thought it was time to correct this situation and he gave the work of revising the Old Latin versions to Jerome. Jerome was born about A.D. 345, at Stridon on the borders of Dalmatia and Pannonia. He was educated in Rome, and just after his return to Rome from his hermitage at Bethlehem, was given the work of revising the Old Latin manuscripts, a work for which he was well qualified. Jerome made as few changes as possible when he corrected the Latin New Testament text by means of ancient Greek manuscripts. He even avoided making changes which were really necessary for the sake of accuracy and the best grammar; it was a revision and not a re-translation. Jerome completed the Vulgate New Testament about A.D. 385. It was at this time that Jerome also finished a revision of the Psalter, under the same constraint, of making as few changes as possible from the Old Latin. In his commentary on Galatians, Ephesians, Titus, and Philemon, in A.D. 386, Jerome felt more free to make a more accurate translation of the Greek manuscripts, than he had when he revised the Old Latin manuscripts. When Jerome translated the Old Testament he did not base it on the Old Latin, which was a translation from the Greek Septuagint, he translated it directly from the Hebrew, except for the Psalter, which he had done earlier at the same time the New Testament. Jerome finished the Old Testament Vulgate in about A.D. 405. The first edition of a critical textual nature was done by Robert Stephens in 1528 A.D.. In A.D. 1538-40, Stephens produced an even more important edition, founded on 17 manuscripts, which was reprinted in A.D. 1546. This was a major foundation of the modern Vulgate.

In A.D. 1590, Pope Sixtus 5th. brought about the completion of the revision started by Pope Pius 4th., this three volumes edition was similar to that of Robert Stephens. Five Popes later, in 1592 A.D., Pope Clement 8th. called in the Sixtus versions, and had the Vulgate revised to another text, which closely followed the edition of John Hentenius, published in 1547 A.D., rather than that of Robert Stephens. This is called the Clementine Bible, or Vulgate cl. A more modern edition of the Vulgate is that of Bishop Wordsworth and White, it is referred to as ww. Where Vulgate cl and ww agree, it is just referred to as the Vulgate.

MAJOR MANUSCRIPTS OF THE VULGATE.
Codex Amiatinus. This magnificent codex is regarded by many as the best manuscript of the Vulgate; it contains the whole Bible, it was commissioned by order of Ceolfrid, the Abbot of Jarrow and Wearmouth; and he sent it as a gift to Pope Gregory in A.D. 716. It is now in the Laurentian Library in Florence.

Codex Dublinensis. This was written in the eighth or ninth century, and has the insertions and additions which are characteristic of an Irish type of Vulgate text. This contains the whole New Testament, and the apocryphal Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans. It is now in Trinity college in Dublin.

Codex Fuldensis. This was written between A.D. 541 and 546 by order of Victor, the Bishop of Capua, who corrected the work himself. It contains the whole of the New Testament plus the apocryphal epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans. The Gospels are arranged as a single narrative, like Tatian's Diatessaron. The Text is good and similar to Codex Amiatinus.

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The Disastrous Effects Of The Doctrine Of original Sin | By His Stripes We Are Healed | The Book Of Revelation | The Second Coming Of Christ | The Baptism And Gifts Of The Holy Spirit | The Comforter Is Come