The most common objection that I face in putting my trust in God’s revealed word in the Bible comes primarily from my Mormon and Muslim friends, who will insist that, sure, the Bible WAS given to us perfectly by God, but since then Men have changed it. They have edited, added to, deleted, and otherwise altered God’s intended words so that the Bible can no longer be trusted. Now, much of the evidence we have looked at so far is already based on the text as we have it today, but there is far more that can be said on this subject! As this is a blog and not a text book, I will give you the highlights. First, let’s look at what evidence we have of what the early Bible looked like. We have copies of the bible as a whole that go back within only a few hundred years of the original, and fragments that go back even to within DECADES of the original. I’m not talking just a few, either. The manuscript evidence for the Bible is very rich! It is wide spread in area, copies being found on multiple continents and very early even translated into many other languages. We also have many early Christian writers quoting the Bible often in their writings, allowing us to compare their quotes to the copies we have and see how they match up. Now, when we compare all of this, what do we see? Do we see differences between all these copies and translations and quotes? Honestly, yes. There are some differences. But let’s talk about that for a moment. When you have mostly lower class converts rather than professional scribes, and they are persecuted and so must copy their scriptures secretly, and they are doing so in a hurry because they want to get it out to as many people as possible, and don’t forget they are writing by hand, and not exactly with modern pens, there are bound to be some typos! This should be expected. Now, add to that the fact that they are writing on papyrus, which is basically large leaves stuck together into sheets to use as paper, and thus has natural lines on it, and it can be hard to tell certain letters apart, which can make copying correctly even harder. So, yes, we see errors and variations, but when you examine the large number of copies and translations and quotes, and compare them, it is most often not very difficult to figure out where such a mistake happened. Also, since in the ancient Greek language of the New Testament, word order in a sentence has little effect on the meaning, most of these variations have literally NO impact on what the text actually MEANS, since many of the variations are simply transposing words. One of the most common variations that will be seen, for example, will be that some copies might say “Christ Jesus” and other copies “Jesus Christ”. Even if we don’t know which way the original said it…does that matter? Does it effect how we understand the author’s message? Of course not! And so, if anyone tries to throw at you all the “thousands of errors” in the New Testament manuscripts, don’t let it fret you. Most of these so called “errors” are variations that have zero impact on what the text is saying, and in almost every case, by comparing everything we have, we can easily be confident in what the original said. Even scholars very critical of the Bible have admitted that with all the evidence we have today, the original copies of the books of the bible looked pretty much like they do today. Now, my critics would point out that I have used qualifiers “pretty much”, “most of these”, “In almost every case”. Why use these phrases? Well, because I am honest! There are a few passages that it is more complicated knowing for sure if they were in the original. But even if you take all of these, and liberally assume that they all do NOT belong (which is a leap of faith, but here is the point) they do not actually change ANY belief or doctrine of the Christian faith! No matter where you fall on these questions, the fact remains that the message of the Bible, even in all its finer details, is unchallenged by manuscript variation! We can be quite sure, if archeology can be trusted at all, that the Bible is today what it was 2,000 years ago in every way that matters! In other words, if you say the Bible is corrupt and untrustworthy, than to be consistent, you also must say that we can no NOTHING about history at all, because NOTHING is trustworthy!
So, the Bible is trustworthy. It is the very word of God. It is truly a firm foundation on which to build our worldview. So, what about the final challenge, “if the Bible is such a great foundation, why are there SO many different churches? How come no one can agree on what it teaches?” This sounds like a powerful argument, until you really look at the evidence. Most churches that teach and practice a belief that the Scriptures themselves are truly the ultimate authority do NOT disagree on many things. Most of the variation comes in where other sources come in. Some churches add in church authority of tradition, or modern spiritual experience to their foundation, saying that things can be known fully based on these things, or that scripture should be read in light of these things, rather than these things understood completely in light of what scripture says about them. Now, I am NOT saying that such churches are not true Christians (Some are not, others are. Such things must be dealt with on a case by case basis, depending on the Gospel that is taught and the God that is believed in. We can do this by comparing their core beliefs to…you guessed it, what it taught in the Bible!). What I am saying is, when you change the foundation, you change the conclusions. Many churches may know the core truth, but let a mixed foundation distort many of the details. And of course, we are all fallible humans, and even the most Biblically devoted follower of Christ will get some things wrong and need to learn more throughout their life. None of us have PERFECT understanding, but the core of Biblical teaching is clear, no matter what name the church has on the sign.
Luke
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