The Word of God in Washington?

In October, while vacationing in our Nation's Capital City, Washington, D.C., my family accidentally happened upon one of the richest blessings we have experienced in recent memory. While walking along the mall, we were trying to decide which Smithsonian building to visit first. The first one we came to was the Freer Gallery. In all of my visits to Washington, I have never been inside this museum. A sign out front caught our attention because it mentioned ancient Egyptian artifacts. We are currently homeschooling our son in the classical tradition, and on this approach to education, studies of history progress chronologically from the ancient to modern times. We have spent many Fridays discussing the wonders of ancient Egypt. So we decided to go in and have a look. Let me not underestimate the impressiveness of Freer's artifacts. We were astounded at the collection of items from Egypt and Asia, as well as the many Whistler pieces, not least of which the enigmatic Peacock Room. However, what blew us away was the exhibit advertised on a small paper fan handed to our children as we entered the museum. The exhibit was called "In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000." We were pointed down stairways and corridors to the subterranean Sackler annex to the Freer Gallery. There we encountered the most impressive display I have ever seen in my life. The exhibit is on display until January 7, 2007, and if you have the opportunity to get to D.C. to see it, you will not regret it. What follows is my account of some of the most impressive pieces, with a debt of gratitude to several sources cited at the end of the column.

Walking into the exhibit, the first item on display is a tea-chest containing unconserved fragments from the Cairo Genizah. A life size enlargement of the famous picture of Solomon Schechter combing over manuscripts found in they Ben Ezra Synagogue serves as the backdrop for what appears to the naked eye to be a box of rags and scraps. But those who have studied textual criticism understand the significance of the finds at the Cairo Genizah. A genizah is a storage chamber for old, corrupted, damaged, or otherwise unused or unusable manuscripts where they are kept until they can be disposed of properly. Jewish law prohibited texts bearing the name of God from being destoryed, even if they were corrupted. The Cairo Genizah had been walled off for many years prior to its rediscovery near the end of the nineteenth century. There, Solomon Schechter found nearly 200,000 text fragments (some 10,000 of which are biblical), including manuscripts in Hebrew and Aramaic dating to the fifth century A.D. These fragments have helped to shed light on work of the Masoretes who began to standardize the Hebrew Bible in around the seventh century A. D. Here in the Cairo Genizah, we have a pre-Masoretic witness to the ancient Hebrew Scriptures. Perhaps apart from only the Dead Sea Scrolls, the manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah are the most significant Old Testament discovery of modern times. Cambridge houses 137,000 conserved documents from the Genizah; Jewish Theological Seminary in New York holds 40,000 of them, and the Freer Gallery is home to about 52. The unconserved fragments on display in this exhibit are on loan from Cambridge, and consist mostly of fragments of paper, parchment, and vellum with no visible text or nearly illegible text.

Also on display is a sizeable fragment of a sixth or seventh century A.D. Genesis scroll (T-S NS 4.3) from the Genizah. The Hebrew text lacks Masoretic pointing (vowels, punctuation, etc.). It contains portions of three columns of text from Genesis 4:14-17, 5:10-18, and 5:32-6:7. If this fragment is from a complete Pentateuch, it would be the earliest manuscript of such by several centuries. Another Genesis fragment is also on display from the Cairo Genizah, dating from a similar time period. It contains portions of Genesis 13-17. Both Genesis fragments are parchment. A Nehemiah fragment from the Genizah collection is also on display, the colophon of which bears reference to a date of 903-904 AD. This makes the fragment the oldest dated medieval Hebrew manuscript.

Turning 180 degrees from the unconserved Genizah fragments, a tattered, time-darkened vellum fragment comes into view. But don't let looks deceive you -- this is one of the most impressive pieces of the collection. It is an Isaiah fragment (IQIsa b) from the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran in 1946-1947. It dates to no later than 73 A.D., but many scholars believe it to date prior to the time of Christ. This piece contains portions of four columns of unpointed Hebrew text from Isaiah 52:7 to 61:2. A complete copy of Isaiah was found at Qumran (IQIsa a), but this one demonstrates a more remarkable similarity to the Masoretic text. The Isaiah portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls have been a remarkable witness to the careful transmission of the Biblical text over the history of Christianity, assuring us that the Bibles we hold in our hands today reflect the Word of God as it was originally recorded many centuries ago.

The Aleppo Codex dates to the 900s A.D. The Hebrew text is written by Solomon Ben-Buya'a (also spelled Shelomo ben-Baya'a or Shlomo …). A colophon in the text indicates that the vowel pointings were penned by the famed Moses ben Asher (Aaron ben Moshe ben Ahser). He is without question the most famed Masorete. The Aleppo Codex was not permitted to be copied for a long time, and has been the subject of much mystery. Early in its lifetime, it was reported to have been destroyed, it has been stolen and smuggled on more than one occasion, and in 1947, it was lost in the midst of a riot. It resurfaced in 1958 bearing the wounds of battle. Only 193 of 487 pages survived. The leaf on exhibit is from 2 Chronicles 35-36, and it is on loan from the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem. It is parchment. Among Masoretic manuscipts, the Aleppo is considered premier. Maimonides (1138-1204) regarded it as authoritative. Surviving portions have been photographed and have become the foundation for a new scholarly edition of the Hebrew Bible. A portion of the St. Petersburg Pentateuch dating to the same time period and written by the same scribe is also on display, on loan from the National Library of Russia. It is believed to have been found in the Cairo Genizah.

Charles Lang Freer, the namesake of the Freer Gallery, personally owned several important manuscripts which are on display as well. One of the most impressive pieces is a Greek codex on papyrus containing the text of the Minor Prophets dating to the second half of the third century A.D. It is one of the oldest Greek copies of the Minor Prophets. Hosea is incomplete, but every page of the remaining Minor Prophets survives in part or whole. Indications in the text and margins indicate that it was directly translated from Hebrew, making it a witness to a Hebrew Vorlage (an underlying source) which predates any extant Hebrew manuscripts. Coptic glosses on the manuscript indicate the rapid spread of Christianity in its earliest centuries. A portion of the Psalms dating to the fifth century, also owned by Freer, is on display. Dating from the same time period are Freer's manuscript portions of the Pauline Epistles, the Gospels, Deuteronomy and Joshua on display.

What appeared to me as a rather insignificant piece on my first visit to the exhibit has, upon further reflection, become a true highlight. Three tiny portions of Matthew 26 date to no later than 200 A.D., and likely earlier. This makes them one of the oldest witnesses to the Synoptic Gospels. What makes them more precious to me is that these tiny fragments survived two widespread efforts on the part of Decius and Diocletian to destroy biblical manuscripts.

The Chester Beatty Papyri are well known to New Testament scholars. Eleven codices comprise the largest single collection of early Christian manuscripts. They are very early and contain portions of most of the New Testament. A portion of P45 is on display which contains a section from Mark 8-9. The museum dates it to 250 A.D., but many scholars estimate its date to be perhaps a hundred years older, to the middle of the second century. A portion of Beatty's Greek Codex from Numbers and Deuteronomy is also on exhibit, dating to perhaps 150 A.D. The portion contains Deuteronomy 4:6-23. Prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, this Codex was regarded as the oldest extant manuscript of any biblical literature. Internal evidence points to a Christian origin for this Codex, making it an early witness to the Christian esteem of the Old Testament writings.

Around 170 AD, a disciple of Justin Martyr named Tatian composed the first "harmony of the gospels" which Eusebius refers to as the Diatessaron. Drawing from the four Canonical Gospels (and ONLY those four), Tatian composed one flowing narrative of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. This became widely popular, and was used in many communities and churches as a substitute for the four gospels. Eventually, Tatian came to be regarded as a heretic when, after Justin's death, he founded an ascetic movement known as the Encratites. By the fifth century, the Diatessaron was suppressed and copies were destroyed. Rabbula, fifth century bishop of Edessa, ordered that the Diatessaron be replaced by the complete text of the four gospels in every church. Today there is no surviving copy of the Diatessaron, but it is alluded to or cited in numerous early Christian texts. One of the most important is a commentary written in the fourth century by Ephrem of Edessa. Approximately 80 percent of a late fifth century Syriac copy of Ephrem's commentary has come into the possession of the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin (home also to the Beatty Papyri). One portion of it is on display in Washington. For all of his faults that we may point to, Tatian provides Christian orthodoxy with a very early witness to the canonicity of the four gospels.

The Syriac Peshitta was the official translation of the Scriptures in Syriac churches. A portion of the Pentateuch from a fifth century Peshitta codex (the oldest dated biblical codex) is on display. It is believed that the New Testament of this same codex was written by Rabbula. This portion of the Pentateuch was written by the deacon John at Amida. This Syriac Pentateuch is on loan from the British Library, along with a page from the Syriac Pauline Epistles dating to the seventh century.

For me, there are two crown jewels in this exhibit. The first is the Dead Sea Isaiah fragment, and the second is the portion of Codex Sinaiticus on loan from the St. Catherine Monastery at Sinai. What is on display are the two best-preserved leaves of the dozen still held there. It would be hard to overestimate the importance of Codex Sinaiticus for biblical scholarship. Because of its age, accuracy, and completeness, it is considered the most important extant manuscript for Bible translation. It is a fourth-century parchment codex that originally contained the entire Bible plus the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas, all in Greek. Portions of the Old Testament have been lost, but the entire New Testament is extant. Interstingly, it lacks Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11. It is the oldest surviving complete Greek New Testament by five centuries, and the only complete uncial (uppercase, square-type Greek letters characteristic of manuscripts from third to ninth centuries) New Testament manuscript. The page on display features Numbers 20:2-13.

I will mention one final exhibited manuscript, though I could go on to describe dozens more. A leaf from the Old English Genesis, known also as the Junius or Caedmon manuscript, is on loan from the Bodleian at Oxford dating to c. 1000 A.D. Its significance lies in the fact that it is a copy of the first Biblical text to appear in English (late seventh century A.D.). Originally, it contained portions of paraphrased passages from both testaments. The chronology of the English Bible begins with Caedmon, and this illustrated manuscript dating three to four centuries later is a remarkable testimony to the debt we English speakers owe to him.

Well, I have chronicled but a few of the seventy-four exhibits on display. If you have the opportunity to visit the Freer-Sackler gallery before January 7, 2007, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It truly is a once in a lifetime (or twice in my case thanks to a providential accident in October) opportunity to see priceless treasures of scriptural heritage. Seeing the texts reinforces our gratitude to God for inspiring His word and preserving it through centuries of transmission. We have full confidence that when we open our Bibles today, we have an accurate copy of the Word of God, and can trust it as a reliable, inerrant and infallible guide to His nature and will.

Bibliography:

Michelle P. Brown, ed., In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000. Washington: Freer and Sackler Galleries, 2006.

Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible, Revised and Expanded. Chicago: Moody, 1986.

Philip Comfort, ed. The Origin of the Bible. Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale, 2003.

David Alan Black, New Testament Textual Criticism: A Concise Guide. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994.

Arthur G. Patzia and Anthony J. Petrotta, Pocket Dictionary of Biblical Studies. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP, 2002.

F. F. Bruce, The Books and the Parchments. London: Revell, 1955.

Bruce M. Metzger, The Bible in Translation: Ancient and English Versions. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001.

J. D. Douglas and Earle E. Cairns, eds., The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996.

Elmer E. Flack, Bruce M. Metzger, et al., The Text, Canon, and Principle Versions of the Bible. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1956.

Walter C. Kaiser Jr., The Old Testament Documents: Are They Reliable and Relevant? Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP, 2001.

Leland Ryken, The Word of God in English: Criteria for Excellence in Bible Translation. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2002.