I found it needful to write this essay on the inerrancy of scripture as many individuals who identify themselves as Christians are being taken captive by “empty deception” (Colossians 2:8). Clearly one of the most important things these individuals don’t believe is the inerrancy of the Bible, or they are truly ignorant to the Bible’s teachings.
First and foremost, if you take away the doctrine of inerrancy from the Bible all you get are some fantastic stories and some morals that give you good ethics in a world that doesn’t practice good ethics.
If you just want to learn good ethics, you can read the teaching of Confucius. If you want to read a good story, read some classic work of fiction. In other words, if you take away the inerrancy of the Bible, there really is no point in reading it, to believe in it, or to teach it to anyone else. Without the doctrine of inerrancy, the Bible just becomes a museum piece. The doctrine of inerrancy may be the most important doctrine to keep within the Christian faith; without it how can we believe anything else that the Bible says?
If we can’t trust anything the Bible says, we don’t need to take the commands within the Bible seriously. When our society doesn’t have morals to adhere to, evil runs rampant. Here are just three examples of what happens in a society without morals:
1. What is considered as truth is now relative to the situation we find ourselves in, there is no absolute truth to guide our decisions by.
2. The devaluing of human life resulting in the murder of millions of unborn children in America alone.
3. And the proliferation of sex in our society, causing family break ups, addictions, and has made millions of American to be afflicted with sexually transmitted diseases.
These three major problems in our society, and many more, can be linked directly and indirectly to not taking the Bible as the holy, inspired, word of God. I think it is high time to make a case for believing in the inerrancy of the Bible.
First things first, in order for there to be holy, inspired, words of God there first has to be a God. Genesis 1:1 says that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God thus proves his existence by creating our existence. John further substances this in his gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” (John 1:1-3) The “Word” described by John is Jesus, who is the word of God incarnate. Paul also makes this argument in Romans 1:20: “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” God reveals his existence through his creation, so much so that Paul says that no one is without excuse for not accepting God’s existence.
The Bible firmly shows that God exists, but how can we take what the Bible says as fact? That is an excellent question and one that must be answered, for the foundation of the Bible’s inerrancy rests upon the holiness of God.
Before we go to substantiate God’s holiness in the Bible, we must first know what the word means in the original Hebrew.
The Hebrew word for holiness comes from a root meaning “to separate or cut off.” (1) This separation means separation from all sin and evil. Noah Webster defines holiness “Applied to the Supreme Being” as denoting “perfect purity or integrity of moral character, one of his essential attributes.” (2)
The King James Study Bible from Thomas Nelson Publishers further adds, “The Primary meaning of holiness implies God’s positive quality of self-affirming purity; the secondary meaning implies separation, particularly separation from sin. The holiness of God means He is absolutely pure and absolutely separate from (and above) all His creatures, and also separate from sin and evil.” (3) God also states His holiness within the Bible (Leviticus 11:44-45, 19:2, 20:26, 1 Peter 1:16).
Since God is holy and absolutely pure, for Him to lie is completely and utterly incompatible with His nature; thus we can trust what God says in His holy word.
Now the argument that the scripture verses quoted two paragraphs ago applies only to God the Father and not to the other two members of the Trinity could come up. This argument must be answered in order to build a case for the inerrancy of the words of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit-inspired writings of the prophets, disciples, Apostle Paul, etc…
The best way to prove the infallibility of Jesus Christ’s words is to show that He is, and is equal to, God the Father.
Jesus states rather plainly that He and God the Father are one several times within the Bible (John 10:38, 14:11, 20). The most blunt and straightforward declaration Jesus makes is in John 10:30: “I and the Father are one.”
Also by calling God the Father as His father, Jesus is claiming equality with God the Father. Jesus calls God the Father His father twenty times alone in Matthew: 7:21, 10:32-33, 11:25-27, 12:50, 15:13, 16:17, 27, 18:10, 19, 35, 20:23, 24:36, 25:34, 26:29, 39, 42, 53. Jesus seems fairly confident that God the Father is His father (of course if you are God and perfect then I think you can be completely confident in anything you say).
Now if you think that no one got Jesus’ not so subtle hints, you are wrong. Jesus is called “Son of God” (a title that confirms Jesus’ deity) by: the people in the ship when Jesus walks on water to (Matthew 14:33), demons (Matthew 8:29, Mark 3:11, Luke 4:41, 8:28), the angel Gabriel (Luke 1:35), Nathaniel the disciple (John 1:49), and Martha (John 11:27). Peter confessed that Jesus was the messiah (Mark 8:29). The Pharisees and scribes also recognized that Jesus claimed equality with God the Father, otherwise they wouldn’t have had such a strong desire to stone (John 5:18) and crucify (John 19:17) Jesus.
The Jews at the Temple in Jerusalem understood Jesus’ claim well enough to desire to stone him, to which Jesus asks for what good work is He going to get stoned for. The Jews respond in John 10:33: “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.”
However anyone can call themselves anything, ranging from the ‘son of god’ to ‘mashed potatoes’, so it must be established that God the Father calls Jesus His son.
God the Father does call Jesus His son on two occasions, during Jesus’ baptism and during Jesus’ transfiguration.
Matthew 3:16-17 speaks of God the Father’s affirmation of Jesus’ divine sonship: “After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him, and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, ‘This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased’”
The Greek for ‘voice’ (phone) in that passage denotes that an audible voice, noise, or sound could be heard. In Strong Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible it says that the word ‘voice’ we are looking at is “probably akin to” a Greek word (phaino) that means to “to lighten (shine), i.e. show (transitive or intransitive, literally or figuratively):- appear, seem, be seen, shine, think.” Strong’s Concordance also says that phaino has a base in it (phos) which means “to shine or make manifest.” (4)
So clearly God the Father’s voice was audible enough for everyone present at Jesus’ baptism could hear Him. There were also things that were visible at Jesus’ baptism, e.g. the sky opening up and the dove descending upon Jesus. These events made manifest that Jesus was the Son of God.
Likewise during Jesus’ Transfiguration (Luke 9:28-36), God the Father calls Jesus His son in the presence of three of Jesus’ disciple, Peter, John, and James. “While he (Peter) was saying this, a cloud formed and began to overshadow them (Peter, John, and James); and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. Then a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to Him!’” (Luke 9:34-35, notes added)
Again the same Greek word, phone, is used to describe God the Father’s voice when He speaks to Peter, John, and James during the Transfiguration of Jesus.
God the Father thus calls Jesus His son on two occasions, and during both occasions there were witnesses to the Father’s voice. By calling Jesus His son, God the Father is saying that Jesus is equal to Him; thus the attributes of holiness and complete perfection are inherent in Jesus, and we can trust His word just as completely as God the Father’s words.
We are now left with the last member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. Jesus shows the equality, and thus perfection, of the Holy Spirit to God the Father and God the Son in chapters 15 and 16 of the Gospel of John.
Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit in John 15:26 “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:” (KJV).
The King James Study Bible by Thomas Nelson Publishers explains this verse excellently. “The action of the word translated ‘proceedeth’ is ‘in the process’ — ‘continually proceeds.’ The eternal procession of the Spirit means that He continually proceeds from beside, not out of, the Father. If the Holy Spirit came out of God, He would be less than God. To be more specific, the Holy Spirit not only proceeds from the Father, but also from the Son. This means the Father and the Son continually send the Holy Spirit. This in no way suggests the [Holy] Spirit is less in deity than are the Father or Son. Instead it explains the relationship among the three eternal persons of the Trinity.” (Note added) (5) Since the Holy Spirit proceeds beside God, this also proves that the Holy Spirit is equal to God the Father and Jesus.
Jesus further clarifies the equality of the Holy Spirit in John 16:13-15. “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak on his own authority; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive what is mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father has are mine: therefore said I, that he (the Holy Spirit) shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you.” (KJV, note added)
Jesus says that “All things that the Father has are Mine.” (John 16:15a) The verse further establishes the equality of Jesus Christ and God the Father as well as builds the foundation for the equality of the Holy Spirit.
In verse 14 Jesus says that the Holy Spirit, “shall receive what is mine,” thus implying that everything of God the Father’s and Jesus Christ’s is also the Holy Spirit’s. If the Holy Spirit has everything that God the Father and Jesus Christ have, then that includes their perfection and holiness.
It is of the utmost importance that we established the Holy Spirit’s equality and holiness as the Holy Spirit is responsible for the formation of the Bible. As Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary says of the classical (read: Biblical/Orthodox) interpretation of the inspiration of the Bible, “The Bible is divinely inspired because God concurrently worked with human authors to produce the very written message He desired. This classical view teaches the Holy Spirit superintended more than 40 authors from widely divergent backgrounds (shepherds, kings, prophets, fishermen, etc.), spanning a period of approximately a millennium and a half, to produce with supernatural congruity not just the thoughts but the very words of God to mankind.” (6)
Now you may not completely understand the importance of the previous statement, so let me clarify it for you. You see the Holy Spirit is directly responsible for every word within the Bible. Even in the cases when God the Father and Jesus Christ were speaking directly to people, the Holy Spirit is responsible for the writers of the Bible being able to remember, and thus enabling them to write, the words spoken to them.
It was import to show that all the members of the Triune Godhead are holy and to show that for any member of the Trinity to lie is completely against their nature. Restating what has already been mentioned, we can completely trust what is said within the Bible as true and infallible.
However another issue needs to be addressed: Since the original writings of both the New and Old Testament are now either lost or destroyed, can we trust that the scribes who copied the originals copied them correctly, without any alteration to the original meaning of the text?
Most of the heat in this question has been directed towards the New, rather than the Old, Testament; however we shall look at both of the Testaments to see if the integrity of the original writings have been preserved. For simplicities sake we shall start with the New Testament.
While the question on the integrity of the New Testament is something that needs to be answered, it must be realized that most who raise this question are seeking to debunk Biblical Christianity and not to see if the meaning of the original writings have been preserved in the copies we presently possess.
Bart Ehrman, a textual critic, says in his book Misquoting Jesus, “We could go on nearly forever talking about specific places in which the texts of the New Testament came to be changed, either accidentally or intentionally…The examples are not just in the hundreds but in the thousands.” (7)
That is a very intriguing statement and one that carries significant implications with it; however let’s look at what the evidence indicates.
If one looks at the copies of the New Testament, it can be rather easily discerned that there are thousands of different textual variations in the copies because there are thousands of copies. (8) The real question then is if the changes in the copies have implications on Christian doctrine?
Bart Ehrman asserts so. “It would be wrong…to say—as people sometimes do—that the changes in our text have no real bearing on what the texts mean or on the theological conclusions that one draws form them…In some instances, the very meaning of the text is at stake, depending on how one resolves a textual problem.” (9) However, the truth is quite the opposite of what Mr. Ehrman says.
Darrell L. Bock and Daniel B. Wallace show in their excellent book, Misquoting Jesus, that most textual variations in the copies are due to spelling differences, synonyms, and meaningful but not viable differences. They show that less than one percent of all textual variations fall under the category of “meaningful and viable differences.” (10) Mr. Bock and Mr. Wallace further show that no core/central/Salvational doctrine in Christianity is questioned or negated by such passages. (11) It is therefore established that the copied manuscripts of the New Testament do indeed retain the original writings’ meaning. (If you wish to find out more about the subject, read “claim one” [e.g. chapter one] of Dethroning Jesus: Exposing Popular Culture’s Quest to Unseat the Biblical Christ.)
With the textual correctness of the New Testament established, it is easy to determine if the integrity of the Old Testament has been preserved.
Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary says of Scripture, “Historic Judeo-Christian name for the specific literature that the church receives as divine instruction. Scripture means ‘a writing,’ rendering the Latin scriptura and the Greek graphe. The term is used some 50 times in the NT for some or all of the OT.” (Italics in original) (12)
The New Testament writers use approximately 250 complete verses from the Old Testament, and if you include indirect and partial quotations, the number is raised to over 1,000. (13)
Jesus also calls the Old Testament ‘scripture’ (Mark 12:10, Luke 4:21, John 7:38, 42, 10:35, 13:18, 17:12).
Since the New Testament has been established to still possess the meaning of the original writings, and if Jesus and the writers of the New Testament call the Old Testament ‘scripture’, we can be certain that the original meaning of the Old Testament has been preserved in the copies we posses.
In summary, if one studies the evidence with a mind willing to accept the possibility of the Trinity creating everything, it is almost assured that they will be convinced of the accuracy of the Bible. One needs to look no further than the cases of C.S. Lewis and Lee Strobel to see that the above statement is true. When given a fair chance God’s truth, the ONLY truth, will always win out.
Be not conformed,
OutcastWriter.
First and foremost, if you take away the doctrine of inerrancy from the Bible all you get are some fantastic stories and some morals that give you good ethics in a world that doesn’t practice good ethics.
If you just want to learn good ethics, you can read the teaching of Confucius. If you want to read a good story, read some classic work of fiction. In other words, if you take away the inerrancy of the Bible, there really is no point in reading it, to believe in it, or to teach it to anyone else. Without the doctrine of inerrancy, the Bible just becomes a museum piece. The doctrine of inerrancy may be the most important doctrine to keep within the Christian faith; without it how can we believe anything else that the Bible says?
If we can’t trust anything the Bible says, we don’t need to take the commands within the Bible seriously. When our society doesn’t have morals to adhere to, evil runs rampant. Here are just three examples of what happens in a society without morals:
1. What is considered as truth is now relative to the situation we find ourselves in, there is no absolute truth to guide our decisions by.
2. The devaluing of human life resulting in the murder of millions of unborn children in America alone.
3. And the proliferation of sex in our society, causing family break ups, addictions, and has made millions of American to be afflicted with sexually transmitted diseases.
These three major problems in our society, and many more, can be linked directly and indirectly to not taking the Bible as the holy, inspired, word of God. I think it is high time to make a case for believing in the inerrancy of the Bible.
First things first, in order for there to be holy, inspired, words of God there first has to be a God. Genesis 1:1 says that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God thus proves his existence by creating our existence. John further substances this in his gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” (John 1:1-3) The “Word” described by John is Jesus, who is the word of God incarnate. Paul also makes this argument in Romans 1:20: “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” God reveals his existence through his creation, so much so that Paul says that no one is without excuse for not accepting God’s existence.
The Bible firmly shows that God exists, but how can we take what the Bible says as fact? That is an excellent question and one that must be answered, for the foundation of the Bible’s inerrancy rests upon the holiness of God.
Before we go to substantiate God’s holiness in the Bible, we must first know what the word means in the original Hebrew.
The Hebrew word for holiness comes from a root meaning “to separate or cut off.” (1) This separation means separation from all sin and evil. Noah Webster defines holiness “Applied to the Supreme Being” as denoting “perfect purity or integrity of moral character, one of his essential attributes.” (2)
The King James Study Bible from Thomas Nelson Publishers further adds, “The Primary meaning of holiness implies God’s positive quality of self-affirming purity; the secondary meaning implies separation, particularly separation from sin. The holiness of God means He is absolutely pure and absolutely separate from (and above) all His creatures, and also separate from sin and evil.” (3) God also states His holiness within the Bible (Leviticus 11:44-45, 19:2, 20:26, 1 Peter 1:16).
Since God is holy and absolutely pure, for Him to lie is completely and utterly incompatible with His nature; thus we can trust what God says in His holy word.
Now the argument that the scripture verses quoted two paragraphs ago applies only to God the Father and not to the other two members of the Trinity could come up. This argument must be answered in order to build a case for the inerrancy of the words of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit-inspired writings of the prophets, disciples, Apostle Paul, etc…
The best way to prove the infallibility of Jesus Christ’s words is to show that He is, and is equal to, God the Father.
Jesus states rather plainly that He and God the Father are one several times within the Bible (John 10:38, 14:11, 20). The most blunt and straightforward declaration Jesus makes is in John 10:30: “I and the Father are one.”
Also by calling God the Father as His father, Jesus is claiming equality with God the Father. Jesus calls God the Father His father twenty times alone in Matthew: 7:21, 10:32-33, 11:25-27, 12:50, 15:13, 16:17, 27, 18:10, 19, 35, 20:23, 24:36, 25:34, 26:29, 39, 42, 53. Jesus seems fairly confident that God the Father is His father (of course if you are God and perfect then I think you can be completely confident in anything you say).
Now if you think that no one got Jesus’ not so subtle hints, you are wrong. Jesus is called “Son of God” (a title that confirms Jesus’ deity) by: the people in the ship when Jesus walks on water to (Matthew 14:33), demons (Matthew 8:29, Mark 3:11, Luke 4:41, 8:28), the angel Gabriel (Luke 1:35), Nathaniel the disciple (John 1:49), and Martha (John 11:27). Peter confessed that Jesus was the messiah (Mark 8:29). The Pharisees and scribes also recognized that Jesus claimed equality with God the Father, otherwise they wouldn’t have had such a strong desire to stone (John 5:18) and crucify (John 19:17) Jesus.
The Jews at the Temple in Jerusalem understood Jesus’ claim well enough to desire to stone him, to which Jesus asks for what good work is He going to get stoned for. The Jews respond in John 10:33: “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.”
However anyone can call themselves anything, ranging from the ‘son of god’ to ‘mashed potatoes’, so it must be established that God the Father calls Jesus His son.
God the Father does call Jesus His son on two occasions, during Jesus’ baptism and during Jesus’ transfiguration.
Matthew 3:16-17 speaks of God the Father’s affirmation of Jesus’ divine sonship: “After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him, and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, ‘This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased’”
The Greek for ‘voice’ (phone) in that passage denotes that an audible voice, noise, or sound could be heard. In Strong Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible it says that the word ‘voice’ we are looking at is “probably akin to” a Greek word (phaino) that means to “to lighten (shine), i.e. show (transitive or intransitive, literally or figuratively):- appear, seem, be seen, shine, think.” Strong’s Concordance also says that phaino has a base in it (phos) which means “to shine or make manifest.” (4)
So clearly God the Father’s voice was audible enough for everyone present at Jesus’ baptism could hear Him. There were also things that were visible at Jesus’ baptism, e.g. the sky opening up and the dove descending upon Jesus. These events made manifest that Jesus was the Son of God.
Likewise during Jesus’ Transfiguration (Luke 9:28-36), God the Father calls Jesus His son in the presence of three of Jesus’ disciple, Peter, John, and James. “While he (Peter) was saying this, a cloud formed and began to overshadow them (Peter, John, and James); and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. Then a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to Him!’” (Luke 9:34-35, notes added)
Again the same Greek word, phone, is used to describe God the Father’s voice when He speaks to Peter, John, and James during the Transfiguration of Jesus.
God the Father thus calls Jesus His son on two occasions, and during both occasions there were witnesses to the Father’s voice. By calling Jesus His son, God the Father is saying that Jesus is equal to Him; thus the attributes of holiness and complete perfection are inherent in Jesus, and we can trust His word just as completely as God the Father’s words.
We are now left with the last member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. Jesus shows the equality, and thus perfection, of the Holy Spirit to God the Father and God the Son in chapters 15 and 16 of the Gospel of John.
Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit in John 15:26 “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:” (KJV).
The King James Study Bible by Thomas Nelson Publishers explains this verse excellently. “The action of the word translated ‘proceedeth’ is ‘in the process’ — ‘continually proceeds.’ The eternal procession of the Spirit means that He continually proceeds from beside, not out of, the Father. If the Holy Spirit came out of God, He would be less than God. To be more specific, the Holy Spirit not only proceeds from the Father, but also from the Son. This means the Father and the Son continually send the Holy Spirit. This in no way suggests the [Holy] Spirit is less in deity than are the Father or Son. Instead it explains the relationship among the three eternal persons of the Trinity.” (Note added) (5) Since the Holy Spirit proceeds beside God, this also proves that the Holy Spirit is equal to God the Father and Jesus.
Jesus further clarifies the equality of the Holy Spirit in John 16:13-15. “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak on his own authority; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive what is mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father has are mine: therefore said I, that he (the Holy Spirit) shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you.” (KJV, note added)
Jesus says that “All things that the Father has are Mine.” (John 16:15a) The verse further establishes the equality of Jesus Christ and God the Father as well as builds the foundation for the equality of the Holy Spirit.
In verse 14 Jesus says that the Holy Spirit, “shall receive what is mine,” thus implying that everything of God the Father’s and Jesus Christ’s is also the Holy Spirit’s. If the Holy Spirit has everything that God the Father and Jesus Christ have, then that includes their perfection and holiness.
It is of the utmost importance that we established the Holy Spirit’s equality and holiness as the Holy Spirit is responsible for the formation of the Bible. As Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary says of the classical (read: Biblical/Orthodox) interpretation of the inspiration of the Bible, “The Bible is divinely inspired because God concurrently worked with human authors to produce the very written message He desired. This classical view teaches the Holy Spirit superintended more than 40 authors from widely divergent backgrounds (shepherds, kings, prophets, fishermen, etc.), spanning a period of approximately a millennium and a half, to produce with supernatural congruity not just the thoughts but the very words of God to mankind.” (6)
Now you may not completely understand the importance of the previous statement, so let me clarify it for you. You see the Holy Spirit is directly responsible for every word within the Bible. Even in the cases when God the Father and Jesus Christ were speaking directly to people, the Holy Spirit is responsible for the writers of the Bible being able to remember, and thus enabling them to write, the words spoken to them.
It was import to show that all the members of the Triune Godhead are holy and to show that for any member of the Trinity to lie is completely against their nature. Restating what has already been mentioned, we can completely trust what is said within the Bible as true and infallible.
However another issue needs to be addressed: Since the original writings of both the New and Old Testament are now either lost or destroyed, can we trust that the scribes who copied the originals copied them correctly, without any alteration to the original meaning of the text?
Most of the heat in this question has been directed towards the New, rather than the Old, Testament; however we shall look at both of the Testaments to see if the integrity of the original writings have been preserved. For simplicities sake we shall start with the New Testament.
While the question on the integrity of the New Testament is something that needs to be answered, it must be realized that most who raise this question are seeking to debunk Biblical Christianity and not to see if the meaning of the original writings have been preserved in the copies we presently possess.
Bart Ehrman, a textual critic, says in his book Misquoting Jesus, “We could go on nearly forever talking about specific places in which the texts of the New Testament came to be changed, either accidentally or intentionally…The examples are not just in the hundreds but in the thousands.” (7)
That is a very intriguing statement and one that carries significant implications with it; however let’s look at what the evidence indicates.
If one looks at the copies of the New Testament, it can be rather easily discerned that there are thousands of different textual variations in the copies because there are thousands of copies. (8) The real question then is if the changes in the copies have implications on Christian doctrine?
Bart Ehrman asserts so. “It would be wrong…to say—as people sometimes do—that the changes in our text have no real bearing on what the texts mean or on the theological conclusions that one draws form them…In some instances, the very meaning of the text is at stake, depending on how one resolves a textual problem.” (9) However, the truth is quite the opposite of what Mr. Ehrman says.
Darrell L. Bock and Daniel B. Wallace show in their excellent book, Misquoting Jesus, that most textual variations in the copies are due to spelling differences, synonyms, and meaningful but not viable differences. They show that less than one percent of all textual variations fall under the category of “meaningful and viable differences.” (10) Mr. Bock and Mr. Wallace further show that no core/central/Salvational doctrine in Christianity is questioned or negated by such passages. (11) It is therefore established that the copied manuscripts of the New Testament do indeed retain the original writings’ meaning. (If you wish to find out more about the subject, read “claim one” [e.g. chapter one] of Dethroning Jesus: Exposing Popular Culture’s Quest to Unseat the Biblical Christ.)
With the textual correctness of the New Testament established, it is easy to determine if the integrity of the Old Testament has been preserved.
Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary says of Scripture, “Historic Judeo-Christian name for the specific literature that the church receives as divine instruction. Scripture means ‘a writing,’ rendering the Latin scriptura and the Greek graphe. The term is used some 50 times in the NT for some or all of the OT.” (Italics in original) (12)
The New Testament writers use approximately 250 complete verses from the Old Testament, and if you include indirect and partial quotations, the number is raised to over 1,000. (13)
Jesus also calls the Old Testament ‘scripture’ (Mark 12:10, Luke 4:21, John 7:38, 42, 10:35, 13:18, 17:12).
Since the New Testament has been established to still possess the meaning of the original writings, and if Jesus and the writers of the New Testament call the Old Testament ‘scripture’, we can be certain that the original meaning of the Old Testament has been preserved in the copies we posses.
In summary, if one studies the evidence with a mind willing to accept the possibility of the Trinity creating everything, it is almost assured that they will be convinced of the accuracy of the Bible. One needs to look no further than the cases of C.S. Lewis and Lee Strobel to see that the above statement is true. When given a fair chance God’s truth, the ONLY truth, will always win out.
Be not conformed,
OutcastWriter.
Citations and Notes
1. The King James Study Bible, pg. 203, published by Thomas Nelson Publishers.
2. Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language.
3. The King James Study Bible, pg. 203, published by Thomas Nelson Publishers.
4. To find these Greek words look up G5456 (phone), G5316 (phaino), and G5457 (phos), in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible.
5. The King James Study Bible, pg. 1643, published by Thomas Nelson Publishers.
6. Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary, pg. 825.
7. Bart Ehrman, pg. 98, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why.
8. Darrel L. Bock and Daniel B. Wallace, pgs. 49-52, Dethroning Jesus: Exposing Popular Culture’s Quest to Unseat the Biblical Christ. To further impress on how rock solid a foundation the NT has on its copies here are some numbers: there are about 5700 Greek copies of the NT, the oldest of which are only 50-100 years away from the originals. Including the Greek copies, there are more than 10,000 Latin copies. Including the Latin and Greek copies there are over a million quotations from the NT by the church fathers, so impressive is it that even Bart Ehrman said in The Text of the New Testament: “Besides textual evidence derived from New Testament Greek manuscripts and from early versions, the textual critic compares numerous scriptural quotations used in commentaries, sermons, and other treatises written by early church fathers. Indeed, so extensive are these citations that if all other sources for our knowledge of the text of the New Testament were destroyed, they would be sufficient alone for the reconstruction of practically the entire New Testament.” (pg. 126) One final note is that Homer's works come in second with only 2500 hundred copies, and that for other works of ancient literature there is often hundreds of years between the original and the nearest copy.
9. Bart Ehrman, pg. 208, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why.
10. Darrel L. Bock and Daniel B. Wallace, pgs. 55-58, Dethroning Jesus: Exposing Popular Culture’s Quest to Unseat the Biblical Christ.
11. Ibid, pgs. 57-58 & 60-76.
12. Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary, pgs. 1452-53.
13. Ibid, pg. 1216.
