Slide 2 of 22
Notes:
This task of reconstruction of the text is made necessary by two basic realities:
1) no original or autograph version of any New Testament document any longer exists, and
2) all of the surviving “manuscripts” available to us differ from one another because of the necessity before the invention of printing of copying all books hand.
Reconstruction of the text seeks through comparison of all the manuscripts in our possession to make an educated decision in each instance where the manuscripts differ as to which of the readings seems most likely to have been the original reading of the document in question. Over the last several hundred years the science and skills involved in this task have been practiced and honed by numerous scholars who have applied themselves to the reconstruction of all sorts of ancient texts.
Whether aware or not those who make use of a standard Greek text of the New Testament (e.g. either that of Nestle-Aland, or the United Bible Societies Greek New Testament) or of any modern translation that has been based on the original languages (which includes almost all of them) are making use of the results of Textual Criticism which have reached some consensus about what the Greek text should read
