Test Yourself
The Manuscripts Quiz
Choose a level below and see how well you know the world of biblical manuscripts and textual criticism — from the basics to the scholar's bench.
What is a "manuscript," in the sense scholars use the word?
A handwritten copy of a text, made before printing existed
Any document written before the invention of paper
A copy of a text formally approved by a church council
A rough draft an author never meant anyone to see
From the Latin manu scriptus — "written by hand." A manuscript is any handwritten copy of a text, from a tiny fragment to a complete book.
What material were many of the earliest New Testament manuscripts written on?
Papyrus, made from a reed-like plant
Parchment, made from treated animal skin
Vellum, an especially fine calfskin parchment
Whatever scrap material the scribe had on hand
Papyrus was the common, relatively affordable writing material for the earliest manuscripts; parchment and vellum became more standard later on.
What's the difference between a "scroll" and a "codex"?
A codex is bound like a modern book with pages; a scroll is a single rolled sheet
A codex is written in Greek; a scroll is always written in Hebrew
A scroll holds a complete book; a codex holds only fragments
A scroll is just a codex that never got the memo
The codex format — separate pages bound together — was adopted early by Christian scribes and eventually replaced the scroll for most purposes.
In "recto" and "verso," what do these terms refer to?
The front and back of a single manuscript leaf
The first and last pages of an entire manuscript
Two separate manuscripts that preserve the very same passage
Latin for "right side up" and "upside down"
Recto is the front (right-hand) side of a leaf, verso the back — standard terms in manuscript description.
What does the "P" stand for in a designation like "P52"?
Papyrus
Parchment
Publication, as in its publication order
Whoever catalogued it just really liked the letter P
"P" identifies the manuscript as a papyrus; the number places it within the standard cataloging system for Greek New Testament papyri.
What are the Dead Sea Scrolls?
A collection of ancient Jewish manuscripts discovered in caves near the Dead Sea
A cache of medieval Torah scrolls found in a synagogue attic
Early Christian manuscripts discovered in the catacombs of Rome
Ancient scrolls that were, fittingly, found near a very large sea
Discovered starting in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls include biblical and non-biblical Jewish manuscripts and are among the most significant manuscript finds of the 20th century.
What is the Septuagint (LXX)?
An ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures
The oldest surviving Hebrew manuscript of the Old Testament
A Latin translation of the Bible commissioned by Jerome
A very long word for "the Old Testament, basically"
"Septuagint" comes from the Latin for "seventy," referring to the traditional number of translators; it's a key witness to the Old Testament text — not to be confused with Jerome's later Latin Vulgate.
Why don't we have the original manuscripts (autographs) of the biblical books?
They were written on perishable materials, and every copy has worn out or been lost over the centuries since
Ancient scribes were required to destroy a source text once a copy was verified
They were written in a script no scholar today is able to read
They're still out there somewhere; nobody's simply gotten around to finding them
Ancient writing materials like papyrus and parchment are fragile — what survives are copies of copies, which is exactly the evidence textual criticism works with.
What are "nomina sacra"?
Special abbreviated forms of sacred names like God, Lord, Jesus, and Christ found in early Christian manuscripts
Latin titles scholars use to help date a manuscript
Marginal notes a scribe added to correct an earlier mistake
Whatever a scribe wrote when running low on space
Nomina sacra ("sacred names") are a distinctive scribal convention found widely across early Christian manuscripts.
What is "textual criticism"?
The scholarly study of manuscript evidence to recover a text's earliest determinable wording
The theological evaluation of a text's doctrinal accuracy
The process of translating a manuscript into a modern language
What happens when a manuscript gets a bad review
Textual criticism compares surviving witnesses to understand a text's transmission history and reconstruct its earliest recoverable form.
What is a "variant reading"?
A place where manuscripts differ from one another in wording
A manuscript copied in an unusual regional dialect
An official alternate translation approved by a church council
Whatever the scribe felt was close enough
Because texts were copied by hand, differences — variants — naturally entered the manuscript tradition over time.
Which of these is NOT actually used to help date a manuscript?
The scribe's favorite color
Paleography — the style of handwriting
Scientific analysis of the writing material
The type of material used, such as papyrus or parchment
Manuscripts are dated using evidence like handwriting style, material analysis, and historical context — not, alas, the scribe's aesthetic preferences.
What script style uses all capital letters, seen in early manuscripts like Codex Sinaiticus?
Uncial (majuscule) script
Minuscule script
Cursive script
All-caps, because the scribe was shouting
Uncial (or majuscule) script — rounded capital letters — was standard in Greek manuscripts through roughly the 9th century, after which minuscule script became common.
What is "scriptio continua"?
Writing without spaces or punctuation between words
One continuous scroll with no breaks between separate books
The practice of abbreviating every sacred name in a text
A scribe's way of saying "to be continued..."
Many ancient Greek manuscripts were written in scriptio continua — an unbroken stream of letters — part of why transcribing them takes real expertise.
What is the Masoretic Text?
The standardized Hebrew text of the Old Testament preserved by Jewish scribes known as the Masoretes
The oldest complete Greek manuscript of the New Testament
A body of rabbinic commentary written alongside the Torah
The Bible as recited from memory by a very confident monk
The Masoretes, working roughly the 7th–10th centuries AD, added vowel pointing and preserved the consonantal Hebrew text with remarkable care.
What is an "apparatus criticus" (critical apparatus)?
The notes beneath a printed critical text listing manuscript variants
A separate reference volume cataloguing every known manuscript
The introduction explaining a text's transmission history
A fancy Latin name for a bookshelf
The critical apparatus records where manuscripts disagree and which witnesses support each reading — essential for textual criticism.
What's the difference between "lower criticism" and "higher criticism"?
Lower criticism examines the text itself to establish its original wording; higher criticism studies authorship, sources, and composition
Lower criticism is for beginners; higher criticism is for experts
Lower criticism studies the Old Testament; higher criticism studies the New Testament
Lower criticism happens in the basement of the library
"Lower" and "higher" describe the level of analysis, not difficulty — lower criticism concerns wording, higher criticism concerns authorship and composition.
The principle "lectio difficilior potior" means textual critics generally give weight to:
The more difficult or unusual reading, since scribes tended to smooth over hard readings rather than invent them
The reading found in the greatest number of surviving manuscripts
The reading that is easiest to translate
Whichever reading rhymes best in the original language
Scribes were more likely to simplify a difficult reading than to invent a harder one — one of several criteria weighed alongside manuscript support (external evidence).
What is "homoioteleuton," a common source of scribal error?
A scribe's eye skipping from one word or phrase to a similar-ending word or phrase later on, accidentally omitting the text in between
A scribe's deliberate merging of two different variant readings into one
The deliberate repetition of a phrase for emphasis
A scribe's nickname for a particularly boring afternoon
Similar endings ("homoio-teleuton") can trick a scribe's eye into skipping ahead, dropping the intervening text — a well-documented type of copying error, distinct from conflation (option B).
In evaluating variants, what is "external evidence"?
The age, geographical distribution, and quality of the manuscripts supporting a reading
The internal consistency, style, and likely origin of the reading itself
Whether a reading matches a particular tradition's later doctrine
Whatever a burning bush might have to say about it
External evidence weighs which manuscripts support a reading and how early, widespread, and reliable they are — as opposed to internal evidence (option B), which considers the reading's own intrinsic likelihood.
The Textus Receptus, compiled by Erasmus in the 16th century, was based primarily on:
A small handful of relatively late Greek minuscule manuscripts
The complete set of all known Greek New Testament manuscripts
One recently rediscovered 4th-century uncial manuscript
A single manuscript Erasmus found under his bed
Erasmus worked from just a handful of late medieval manuscripts available to him in Basel; modern critical editions draw on a vastly larger and older base of evidence.
What is a "palimpsest"?
A manuscript whose original text was scraped or washed off so the material could be reused for new writing
A manuscript written in two languages side by side
A manuscript bound together with pages from several unrelated texts
A manuscript that's just extremely wrinkly
Because writing materials were costly, older text was sometimes erased and overwritten — the earlier "under-text" can sometimes still be recovered, as with Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus.
Which of these is one of the great uncial codices scholars cite alongside Vaticanus and Alexandrinus as key witnesses to the Greek New Testament?
Codex Sinaiticus
Codex da Vinci
Codex Rosetta
Codex Justinianus
Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Alexandrinus are among the most important 4th–5th century uncial manuscripts of the Greek Bible. Codex Justinianus is real, too — but it's a 6th-century Roman legal code, not a biblical manuscript.
What does an "eclectic text" mean, in textual criticism?
An editor chooses, verse by verse, the reading judged most likely original from among the surviving manuscripts, rather than following one manuscript throughout
The reading preserved in the single oldest surviving manuscript, followed consistently throughout
A modern paraphrase written for easier reading
A manuscript that just can't decide what language it wants to be written in
Rather than reprinting a single manuscript (option B, a "diplomatic" text), an eclectic edition weighs the evidence reading-by-reading — the dominant method behind modern critical Greek New Testaments.