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From the ministries of Greg & Jean Allison
Through Their
Ministries of Grace
The oldest known and other text of the first 100 years AD.
 The oldest known text of 100 AD and before, have been available to scholars for centuries. Most significant are the New Testament manuscripts
dating from the first century AD.
In the past these have only been available to a select few. Today, many of the privet libraries that have had in their possession much of this text are now releasing for publication, these historical readings to many scholars and educators for publication.
Sadly, many of these codices are in a poor state of preservation and
some of the text has been lost to the ages. Even still there is enough
textual content remaining allowing for an excellent comparison to the
Textus Receptus or Received Text making it possible to sort out much
of what has been believed to be either corrupt or the result of scribal
error. The authenticity of these older text is well documented though
the specific dates of their origin is sometimes in question.
It is our hope that during your visit to these pages we can clarify in
some way any confusion you may have over the various different
readings of the Bible.
Our modern Bible is the culmination of centuries of translating, copying,
transliterating, retranslating, copying again, arguments amongst
scholars and translators, then republishing. Through all of this, the
Bible, specifically the New Testament has become more and more
suspect as to it's adherence to content and meaning as set down by
the original authors. Textual criticisms seem to be well founded
whenever multiple readings of the same chapter and verse are found
in several different of our modern yet theologically accepted Bibles.
Once again my favorite little saying. Somewhere in the gray we will
find the truth.
It's almost impossible for anyone, not to interject some bias or
personal slant whenever they are trying to get a point across. If it
seems that some of what is said here has some particular bias,
I apologize. Just remember that regardless of the viewpoint there is
always something to be gained no matter how slanted the material.
We tend to read from our own perspective and follow those who
would support our point of view.
A few years ago I had purchased some reference material from CBD
(Christian Book Distributors). Inside my Box of treasures was a little
94 page book entitled The CBD Guide to Bible References
Resources. I knew I hadn't ordered the book and the author, David M.
Fowler was unfamiliar to me. I checked my CBD invoice and found
to my surprise the little book was a free gift thanking me for my
patronage. I sat down and read the book cover to cover not once but
three times, the second and third time marking with a yellow highlighter
all of things that struck my interest and there were quite a few. This little
book has become one of my most treasured reference books even
though it has a definite bias toward selling reference material stocked
by CBD. It is still available from CBD for around $5 and is a very good
book for the beginning Bible student.
It is through this book, and other references that we begin to under
stand the scripture. Knowing the history of the people, how they lived,
how they dressed, their barter system and the languages that were
spoken that gives us insight into the written word. We must still look
at what we are reading as holy scripture subjectively with respect to
the writers of the New Testament. Commentaries help us better
understand history but in this writers opinion do little in helping
us sort out which of the New testament text is corrupt. Authors such
as Bruce m. Metzger in his book The Text of the New Testament, it's
transmission corruption, and restoration gives us a much clearer
prospective through it's textual criticisms.
Still, More to Come
But do we know
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