Textual Traditions
The Bibles that are printed today come from a variety of source materials. Although these sources largely agree with one another, sometimes there are differences. When we choose a copy of the Scriptures to study, it is beneficial to know what type or textual tradition the translation was made from.
For many years, the Hebrew Masoretic Text has been the source for translations of the Old Testament. However, we see that the Dead Sea Scroll fragments found a few decades ago agree much more with the Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament text than they do the Masoretic Text.
The New Testament has many variations to be found. The Greek Alexandrian traditon of texts was used for translations over a long period of time. However, recent research shows that it does contain numerous irregularites and that the Greek Byzantine Text is becoming regarded as more accurate. There are also texts from many other languages including Aramaic and Hebrew which add many subtle nuances not found in the Greek texts but which may be more accurate since they are older than surviving Greek copies.
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