Eventually, however, Greek manuscripts began to come into the hands of western scholars, and an interest arose in getting back to the original text. Such a situation maintained the status quo for some time. A professor in Germany could correspond with another in England or France without having to learn one another’s native language because they both wrote in Latin. Even as Latin itself became alien to many of the poorer masses, it was still the language of scholarship and of the educated, literate class. In Western Europe, where Latin was the dominant language, Greek was all but forgotten for many centuries as churches began to rely fully on the Bible translation known as the Latin Vulgate. Thus, translations became more and more central to Christian life. In time, however, as Christianity spread and cultures changed, a smaller and smaller percentage of Christians understood Greek, and in many regions, none did at all. Even the Old Testament was read in the Greek Translation called the Septuagint. Early on, most Christians spoke Greek (even if as a second language). The New Testament documents were originally written in Greek. A brief hstory of the Modern Critical Text This is the reason for some of the minor differences between modern translations. Thus, while modern translations are almost all based on the critical text, the translation committees will in some places deviate from from that text when they are convinced one of the marginal readings is more likely to be original. Thus, while the publishers choose which readings they think are most likely and place them in the main body of the text, the student or scholar using the volume is given all the other options in the notes so that they can understand the publisher’s decision and decide whether or not they agree with it. Editions of the modern critical text of the Greek New Testament are not only the result of Textual criticism, they also contain tools to aid in textual criticism, such as a “textual apparatus” or a list of all the other major variants in a given verse and which witnesses attest to each option. It is called “critical” because it is the result of a process known as “textual criticism,” which is the science of comparing the different manuscripts and other witnesses to an ancient text of which we lack the original copy in an effort to determine the precise wording of the original. The text is not called “critical” in the sense of “criticizing” or being “critical of” the text (i.e., challenging, insulting, or questioning the text). The “critical text” of the Greek New Testament is the term often used (especially in King James Only literature) for the Greek text found in most modern printed editions of the Greek New Testament, such as the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament or that of the United Bible Society.
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