Mashahidi Wenyewe: Ukumbi wa Nakala za MkonoThe Witnesses Themselves: The Manuscript Gallery

Katika sehemu iliyopita tuliwakuta mashahidi kama umati tu — idadi ya takriban elfu tano. Idadi hiyo ilimjibu mwenye shaka, lakini idadi inaweza kuonekana kuwa jambo la kinadharia. Kwa hiyo sasa hebu tutembee katika ukumbi na kuwakuta mashahidi mmoja mmoja: nakala zenyewe za mkono, baadhi zisizo kubwa kuliko kadi ya benki, baadhi zikiwa vitabu vikubwa vya ngozi nzuri iliyotayarishwa, na mkusanyiko mmoja wa magombo uliofichwa katika pango la jangwani kwa karibu miaka elfu mbili. Kumbuka ni ushahidi wa aina gani wanaotoa. Kama Sehemu ya 1 ilivyofundisha, hawatoi uthibitisho kwa maana kamili, wala hawawezi kutupa uvuvio; wanachotoa ni uthibitishaji wa ziada (corroboration) — kuthibitisha kwa uaminifu dai fulani — nao wanautoa kwa nguvu. Kila mmoja wa mashahidi hawa hufanya mambo mawili. Huthibitisha kwamba maandishi tuliyo nayo yalirithishwa kwa uaminifu na tangu wakati wa mapema. Na hujibu, kwa utulivu na kwa namna halisi, shtaka fulani mahususi ambalo wenye shaka wamelitoa dhidi ya Biblia. Tutatembea kwanza kati ya mashahidi wa Agano Jipya — mafunjo ya mwanzo, kisha kodeksi mbili kuu za karne ya nne — kisha tuvuke kwenda Agano la Kale na uthibitisho wake mmoja wa kushangaza zaidi, Magombo ya Bahari ya Chumvi. Hebu mashahidi wajisemee wenyewe.In the last unit we met the witnesses only as a crowd — a number, five thousand strong. That number answered the skeptic, but numbers can feel abstract. So let us now walk the gallery and meet the witnesses one by one: the actual manuscripts, some no larger than a bank card, some great volumes of fine parchment, and one collection of scrolls hidden in a desert cave for nearly two thousand years. Remember what kind of evidence they give. As Unit 1 taught, they do not offer proof in the strict sense, and they cannot hand us inspiration; what they offer is corroboration — the honest confirming of a claim — and they offer it powerfully. Each of these witnesses does two things. It confirms that the text we hold was carried down faithfully and from an early date. And it answers, quietly and concretely, some specific charge that skeptics have made against the Bible. We will walk first among the New Testament witnesses — the early papyri, then the two great codices of the fourth century — and then cross to the Old Testament and its single most dramatic confirmation, the Dead Sea Scrolls. Let the witnesses speak for themselves.

Shahidi wetu wa kwanza pia ndiye mdogo kuliko wote: kipande cha mafunjo kisicho kikubwa kuliko kiganja cha mkono wako, kinachojulikana kama P52 au kipande cha Rylands, ambacho sasa kinatunzwa Manchester. Juu yake kuna mistari michache ya Injili ya Yohana, kutoka katika kesi mbele ya Pilato. Kimekadiriwa tarehe yake kwa umbo la herufi zake kuwa takriban nusu ya kwanza ya karne ya pili — na kilipatikana Misri, mbali na mahali Yohana alipoandika. Jambo hilo dogo lina uzito mkubwa. Kundi la wenye shaka lilikuwa limefundisha kwa muda mrefu kwamba Injili ya Yohana iliandikwa kwa kuchelewa, ndani sana ya karne ya pili, kwa kuchelewa mno kuweza kutegemea ushuhuda wa mtume mwenyewe. Lakini ikiwa nakala ya Yohana ilikuwa tayari ikisomwa Misri kufikia takriban mwaka 125 B.K., maandishi ya asili hayawezi kuwa yaliandikwa katika miaka ya 160; lazima yarudi nyuma hadi karne ya kwanza, ndani ya kumbukumbu ya watu walioyashuhudia matukio. Tarehe ya kipande hicho ni ya makadirio, na wasomi bado wanajadili muongo kamili. Lakini hoja inasimama: nakala ndogo kuliko zote katika ukumbi inajibu mojawapo ya madai makubwa kuliko yote yaliyowahi kutolewa dhidi ya Injili.Our first witness is also our smallest: a fragment of papyrus no larger than the palm of your hand, known as P52 or the Rylands fragment, now kept in Manchester. On it are a few verses of the Gospel of John, from the trial before Pilate. It is dated by the shape of its letters to about the first half of the second century — and it was found in Egypt, far from where John wrote. That small fact carries great weight. A school of skeptics had long taught that the Gospel of John was written late, well into the second century, too late to rest on the apostle's own testimony. But if a copy of John was already being read in Egypt by around AD 125, the original cannot have been written in the 160s; it must go back into the first century, within living memory of the events. The dating of the fragment is approximate, and scholars still debate the exact decade. But the point stands: the smallest manuscript in the gallery answers one of the largest claims ever made against the Gospels.

Shahidi wetu anayefuata ni kitabu cha Paulo. P46, sehemu ya mkusanyiko wa Chester Beatty, ni wa takriban mwaka 200, na ndiyo nakala kubwa ya mwanzo kabisa tuliyo nayo ya nyaraka za Paulo zilizokusanywa pamoja. Katika kurasa zake zilizosalia ina sehemu kubwa ya maandishi ya Paulo — Warumi, nyaraka kwa Wakorintho, Wagalatia, Waefeso, Wafilipi, Wakolosai, Wathesalonike — na Waebrania pamoja nazo. Fikiri maana yake. Ndani ya takriban miaka mia moja na hamsini tangu mkono wa Paulo mwenyewe, nyaraka zake hazikuwa zimetawanyika na kusahaulika nusu; zilikuwa zimekusanywa kuwa mkusanyiko mmoja, zikanakiliwa kama seti, na zilikuwa zikizunguka kati ya makanisa kama mwili wa Maandiko uliothaminiwa. Maneno ambayo mtume aliyaandikia Rumi na Korintho yalithaminiwa, yakalindwa, na yakapitishwa mapema, si kutungwa wala kuharibiwa katika zama fulani za baadaye. P46 inatuwezesha kushika, kwa namna fulani, nakala ya kazi ya kanisa lenyewe ya maandishi ya Paulo kutoka wakati ulio karibu na chanzo.Our next witness is a book of Paul. P46, part of the Chester Beatty collection, dates from about the year 200, and it is the earliest substantial copy we have of the letters of Paul gathered together. In its surviving leaves it carries most of the Pauline corpus — Romans, the Corinthian letters, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians — and Hebrews among them. Think about what that means. Within roughly a hundred and fifty years of Paul's own hand, his letters were not scattered and half-forgotten; they had been gathered into a collection, copied as a set, and were circulating among the churches as a treasured body of Scripture. The words the apostle wrote to Rome and Corinth were valued and guarded and passed on early, not composed or corrupted in some later age. P46 lets us hold, in effect, the church's own working copy of Paul from a time close to the source.

Mafunjo mengine mawili, kutoka mkusanyiko wa Bodmer, yanabeba pengine somo muhimu kuliko yote katika ukumbi. P66, ya takriban mwaka 200, inahifadhi karibu Injili yote ya Yohana. P75, ya mapema kidogo, inahifadhi sehemu kubwa za Luka na Yohana. Na hili ndilo jambo la kushangaza kuhusu P75: wasomi walipolinganisha maandishi yake na yale ya Kodeksi Vatikanus (Codex Vaticanus), mojawapo ya nakala kuu za karne ya nne, waliona hizo mbili zinakaribiana mno. Kabla ya ugunduzi huu, baadhi walikuwa wamekisia kwamba maandishi makini ya Vatikanus yalikuwa kazi iliyosafishwa ya karne ya nne, toleo la kitaaluma lililotengenezwa muda mrefu baadaye. P75 iliivunja nadharia hiyo. Maandishi yale yale yalikuwa tayari pale katika karne ya pili, yakifika hadi karne ya nne karibu bila kubadilika. Hii ndiyo hoja ya Sehemu ya 4 iliyofanywa kuwa halisi na kuonekana: katika miaka mia moja na hamsini ya kunakili, maandishi hayakupotoka. Kile mnakili wa karne ya nne aliandika, mnakili wa karne ya pili alikuwa ameandika kabla yake. Neno lilikuwa likihifadhiwa, na hapa tunaweza kulitazama likitokea.Two more papyri, from the Bodmer collection, carry perhaps the most important lesson in the gallery. P66, from about the year 200, preserves nearly the whole Gospel of John. P75, a little earlier, preserves large portions of Luke and John. And here is the striking thing about P75: when scholars compared its text with that of Codex Vaticanus, one of the great manuscripts of the fourth century, they found the two remarkably close. Before this discovery, some had theorized that the careful text of Vaticanus was a polished creation of the fourth century, a scholarly edition made long after the fact. P75 dissolved that theory. The very same text was already there in the second century, reaching down to the fourth almost unchanged. This is the argument of Unit 4 made concrete and visible: across a hundred and fifty years of copying, the text did not drift. What a fourth-century scribe wrote, a second-century scribe had written before him. The Word was being preserved, and here we can watch it happen.

Sasa kwa taji mbili za ukumbi, kodeksi kuu za karne ya nne, zilizoandikwa si juu ya mafunjo dhaifu bali juu ya ngozi nzuri iliyotayarishwa, kila moja wakati fulani ikiwa na Biblia nzima kwa Kigiriki. Kodeksi Vatikanus imetunzwa kwa karne nyingi katika maktaba ya Vatikani, ambako imepata jina lake; ni mojawapo ya nakala zilizoandikwa kwa uangalifu zaidi tulizo nazo. Kodeksi Sinaitikus (Codex Sinaiticus) ina hadithi inayostahili riwaya: ilipatikana katika miaka ya 1800 na msomi Constantin von Tischendorf katika nyumba ya watawa ya kale ya Mtakatifu Katarina, chini ya Mlima Sinai, kurasa zake zikiwa karibu kupotea kabla hajatambua thamani yake. Kwa pamoja hizi mbili ni mashahidi kamili, wa mapema, na wa fahari kwa Agano Jipya lote na kwa Agano la Kale la Kigiriki. Jambo moja la uaminifu linafaa hapa. Nakala hizi za mwanzo wakati mwingine zinatofautiana, kwa namna ndogo, na Maandishi Yaliyopokelewa (Received Text) ya baadaye yaliyo nyuma ya toleo la King James na Reina-Valera. Jinsi ya kupima tofauti hiyo ni swali halisi na linalostahili — na ndilo hasa swali la sehemu yetu inayofuata. Hapa tunawaacha tu mashahidi hawa wakuu wasimame na waonekane jinsi walivyo.Now to the two crowns of the gallery, the great codices of the fourth century, written not on fragile papyrus but on fine treated parchment, each once containing a whole Bible in Greek. Codex Vaticanus has been housed for centuries in the library of the Vatican, from which it takes its name; it is among the most carefully written manuscripts we possess. Codex Sinaiticus has a story worthy of a novel: it was found in the eighteen-hundreds by the scholar Constantin von Tischendorf at the ancient monastery of Saint Catherine, at the foot of Mount Sinai, its leaves nearly lost before he recognized their worth. Together these two are complete, early, and magnificent witnesses to the whole New Testament and to the Greek Old Testament. One honest note belongs here. These early manuscripts sometimes differ, in small ways, from the later Received Text that stands behind the King James Version and the Reina-Valera. How to weigh that difference is a real and worthy question — and it is precisely the question of our next unit. Here we simply let these great witnesses stand and be seen for what they are.

Sasa tunavuka kwenda Agano la Kale, na kwenye uthibitisho wa kushangaza zaidi katika ukumbi wote. Mwaka 1947 mchungaji Mbedui, akimtafuta mbuzi aliyepotea kati ya majabali karibu na Bahari ya Chumvi mahali panapoitwa Kumrani (Qumran), aliingia kwa bahati katika pango lenye mitungi ya udongo — na ndani yake, magombo yaliyokuwa yamefichwa tangu karne ya kwanza. Mapango zaidi na magombo zaidi yalifuata. Kati yake kulikuwa na sehemu za kila kitabu cha Agano la Kale isipokuwa kimoja, kitabu cha Esta. Na nakala hizi zilikuwa za zamani kwa takriban miaka elfu moja kuliko nakala za Kiebrania za zamani kabisa ambazo mtu yeyote alikuwa nazo hapo awali. Kito chake kikuu ni Gombo Kuu la Isaya, nakala kamili ya Isaya ya takriban miaka 125 kabla ya Kristo. Sasa likaja jaribio ambalo hakuna mtu angeweza kulipanga: weka Isaya hiyo kando ya Isaya ya Kimasoreti, iliyonakiliwa miaka elfu moja baadaye, na uzilinganishe mstari kwa mstari. Matokeo yaliushangaza ulimwengu. Kimsingi zinafanana kabisa. Miaka elfu moja ya kunakili kwa mkono ilikuwa imepita, na maandishi yalisimama imara. Wanakili wa Sehemu ya 4 walikuwa wamefanya kazi yao.We cross now to the Old Testament, and to the most dramatic confirmation in the whole gallery. In 1947 a Bedouin shepherd, searching for a lost goat among the cliffs near the Dead Sea at a place called Qumran, stumbled into a cave of clay jars — and inside them, scrolls that had lain hidden since the first century. More caves and more scrolls followed. Among them were portions of every book of the Old Testament but one, the book of Esther. And these copies were roughly a thousand years older than the oldest Hebrew manuscripts anyone had possessed before. The showpiece is the Great Isaiah Scroll, a complete copy of Isaiah from about 125 years before Christ. Now came the test that no one could have arranged: set that Isaiah beside the Masoretic Isaiah, copied a thousand years later, and compare them line by line. The result astonished the world. They are substantially identical. A thousand years of hand-copying had passed, and the text had held. The scribes of Unit 4 had done their work.

Hebu sasa tuwe waaminifu kuhusu kile ukumbi umeonyesha na kile ambacho haujaonyesha, tukishika nidhamu ya Sehemu ya 1. Kile ambacho nakala hizi hazifanyi: hazitupi maandishi ya asili (autographs), yaani nakala za asili zilizopotea zenyewe, wala hazithibitishi kwamba Biblia ni Neno la Mungu lenye uvuvio. Uvuvio unakiriwa kwa misingi mingine; haufukuliwi kutoka mchangani. Kudai kwamba nakala hizi zinathibitisha zaidi ya zinavyothibitisha kungekuwa kuchuja mbu na kuahidi kile tusichoweza kutimiza. Lakini ona zinachofanya, nacho ni kikubwa sana. Zinathibitisha kwa ziada, kwa uzito wa ushahidi halisi, kwamba maandishi tuliyo nayo ni ya mapema na yalihifadhiwa kwa uaminifu. Zinajibu mashtaka mahususi na mashuhuri — kwamba Yohana iliandikwa kwa kuchelewa mno, kwamba maandishi ya karne ya nne yalikuwa ubunifu wa baadaye, kwamba Agano la Kale lilipotoka kwa karne nyingi — nazo zinajibu kila moja. Na zinageuza idadi ya Sehemu ya 4 kuwa nyuso tunazoweza kuzitaja kwa majina. Tunakataa ngamia wa mwenye shaka, kwamba nakala hizi zinadhoofisha Neno; tunakataa dai la kupita kiasi, kwamba zinathibitisha mambo yote; nasi tunasimama hasa pale zinaposimama.Let us now be honest about what the gallery has and has not shown, holding the discipline of Unit 1. What these manuscripts do not do: they do not hand us the autographs, the lost originals themselves, and they do not prove that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. Inspiration is confessed on other grounds; it is not dug out of the sand. To claim these manuscripts prove more than they do would be to strain a gnat and to promise what we cannot deliver. But see what they do, and it is a very great deal. They corroborate, with the weight of real evidence, that the text we hold is early and was faithfully preserved. They answer specific and famous charges — that John was written too late, that the fourth-century text was a late invention, that the Old Testament drifted across the centuries — and they answer each one. And they turn the number of Unit 4 into faces we can name. We refuse the skeptic's camel, that the manuscripts undermine the Word; we refuse the overclaim, that they prove all things; and we stand exactly where they stand.

Kwa hiyo shahidi wa pili amemaliza ushahidi wake, uliotolewa sasa kwa wingi na pia mmoja mmoja, na ushahidi huo unalingana: maneno unayosoma yalirithishwa kwa uaminifu katika karne ndefu na ni, kwa kiini chake na kwa sehemu kubwa mno katika undani wake, maneno yaliyoandikwa. Hata hivyo njiani tumeona swali moja la uaminifu ambalo halijamalizika. Nakala kuu za mwanzo tulizozikuta hivi punde wakati mwingine zinatofautiana, katika mahali machache, na Maandishi Yaliyopokelewa ya baadaye yaliyo chini ya King James na Reina-Valera. Tofauti hiyo ni halisi, na Wakristo wenye busara na waaminifu wameipima kwa njia tofauti. Katika sehemu inayofuata tutalishughulikia moja kwa moja — Maandishi Yaliyopokelewa na Maandishi ya Kihakiki (Critical Text), kila moja ni nini na jinsi yanavyotofautiana — nasi tutaona kwamba hata mjadala huu wa ndani ya familia unasimama juu ya msingi imara. Swali huko kamwe si kama tunalo Neno la Mungu. Ni tu, katika mahali machache, ni usomaji upi mwaminifu wa kuweka ukurasani.So the second witness has finished its testimony, given now both in the mass and one by one, and the testimony is consistent: the words you read were carried faithfully down the long centuries and are, in substance and in overwhelming detail, the words that were written. Yet along the way we have glimpsed one honest, unfinished question. The great early manuscripts we have just met sometimes differ, in a handful of places, from the later Received Text that underlies the King James and the Reina-Valera. That difference is real, and thoughtful, faithful Christians have weighed it in different ways. In the next unit we take it up directly — the Received Text and the Critical Text, what each is and how they differ — and we will find that even this in-house debate rests on solid ground. The question there is never whether we possess the Word of God. It is only, in a few places, which faithful reading to set upon the page.