![]() scribal copies of the original autographs). Daniel Wallace (Greek New Testament Expert) points out that the absence of dictionaries meant there were various types of spellings for the same word – anything went, which is one reason why you get spelling variations in New Testament manuscripts (i.e. Lower case letters (miniscules) were developed around the 9th Century.Īccording to Porter et al (2010), New Testament Greek punctuation wasn’t found in any consistent form before the 6th Century. Koine Greek originally had an alphabet of only capital letters (uncials), without any spacing between words. If true, this means that when the apostles wrote the letters and books which were later compiled into the New Testament, they wrote without any spaces or punctuation. ![]() Available at: Īll sources I come across state that the Greek language had no punctuation until the Second Century AD. A vertical bar | was written between words when it was felt necessary to clarify where one ended and another began (inter-word spaces were not regularly used), and stress markers were inserted.” ()įrom an Article titled: “The Masoretes and the Punctuation of Biblical Hebrew”. Before the Talmud was completed the rabbis had emended these for consistency and had added other marks to clarify the text. Full stops were inserted to divide the text into sentences or verses, possibly as early as the second century BCE, and most verses were marked to indicate the most important pause to make when reading aloud. Cases where a vowel could readily be mistaken were to some extent catered for at an early period by inserting consonants to help the reader: h for an a sound, y for e or i and w for u (although many ambiguities remained). Neither of these omissions was important as long as Hebrew was a spoken language. “The earliest Hebrew manuscripts, in common with many ancient languages, had no punctuation system (except for starting a new line to indicate a new topic) and Hebrew had no vowels in its alphabet. It indicated what we would call a new paragraph. In Aristotle’s day, the only known punctuation was a line to indicate when a new topic would follow. ![]() ![]() In general they state that ancient languages were not punctuated. Here’s a link to an interesting, 26 page, PDF file published by the British and Foreign Bible Society which gives an outline of how punctuation developed and evolved in Masoretic Hebrew texts: The following information might provide a useful starting point for further study: the Latin Vulgate? What do you mean when you say ‘written’? Do you mean what type of paper/parchment were they written on? Were they written in uncials or miniscules? Were they in scroll or codex form?Īnyway, your additional question identifies only punctuation, spaces and paragraphs … so in a nutshell, the experts tell us that the original Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament, the Koine Greek, the language of the Septuagint (the Old Testament translated into Greek) and the New Testament - generally speaking - didn’t have any kind of punctuation or spaces. Your Title question doesn’t make clear which manuscripts you’re referring to – Masoretic texts, Septuagint ones, Koine Greek, original autographs, copies, translated ones, e.g.
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