VERITAS: Do We Have the Right Text?

One of the teaching techniques I employ is to role play with the students. It helps to create a more realistic encounter with a skeptic, and it creates insecurity within the students and thus a better learning environment.

For example, I ask, “Do you believe the Bible you hold is the inspired, infallible and inerrant word of God?” Invariably everyone responds affirmatively.

But then I point out that there are many different Bible versions available. These include the King James Version, the New King James Version, the English Standard Version, the New American Standard, the New Living Translation, the New International Version, and the list goes on and on.

These translations are generally in agreement but there are some significant differences. In addition to some differing interpretations, I point out some obvious errors in the text. For example, in the King James Version, 1 John 5:7 reads, “For there are three that bear witness in heaven – the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.”

This would be a great verse to support the doctrine of the Trinity but every other translation does not contain that passage. Actually verse 7 in all other translations is verse 8 in the King James Version.

Back to the role play. I then point out two of several discrepancies (errors) in passages. In 2 Samuel 8:4, David captured 1,700 horsemen from Hadadezer’s army, yet in 1 Chronicles 18:4 David captured 7000 horsemen. In 1 Kings 4:26 Solomon had 40,000 stalls of horses while 2 Chronicles 9:25 says he had only 4000 stalls of horses.

Valid responses to these challenges to inerrancy are that 1.) Translations depend on the expertise and perspective of the translators; 2.) That the later the texts used for translation, the more probable errors or traditions would creep into the text. The latter response answers the King James Version 1 John 5:7 issue, [1] and the copyist errors regarding the discrepancies in numbers. [2]

We have covered the other challenges to the authority of the Bible in previous journals which you are encouraged to obtain (“The Breath of God”, “Do We Have the Right Books”, and “Does the Bible Err?”). While interrelated to these other issues and challenges, there is till another challenge.

Back to the role play. Remember the original question, “Do you believe the Bible you hold is the inspired, infallible and inerrant word of God?”. After bringing real challenges and resulting doubt, I tell the students, “You need to be more accurate and affirm what major Evangelical scholarly societies have affirmed, that the Bible is inerrant in the original texts (autographs).”

Everyone nods their heads, some with a sigh of relief. But I don’t stop there. I then ask, “But do we have the originals?” the answer in no. So I ask, “Is that an honest or valid claim then? So how can we say we know for sure what the original text says? Is that not just a blind faith assumption or wishful thinking?”

This issue of Areopagus Journal addresses the issue of how can we know we have what the Biblical writers originally wrote, which is the title of the first article by Dr. Paul Wegner. Most Christians have never thought much about the issue because they are unaware of the sophisticated academic work done in determining which texts are reflective of the originals.

This field of academic scholarship is called the science of textural criticism. The science is the process used to determine the original of any ancient writing. Most Christians are unaware that there are over 5000 ancient New Testament manuscripts and fragments discovered through archeology.

Within those 5000 plus sources, we find over 200,000 wording differences, called variants. Depending on how those variants are presented, it can be made to look like a hopeless mess to figure out which word or phrase is correct.

For example one of the largest variants is the ending of Mark 16 (verses 9-20). You may have noticed in newer scholarly translations like the New American Standard (NASV), English Standard Version (ESV) and New International Version (NIV), there is a footnote to this section noting that verses 9-20 are not found in the earliest manuscripts. But the overwhelming majority of manuscripts include these verses. So are they inspired and inerrant or not? Snake handling sects in Sand Mountain, Alabama sure believe they are God’s authoritative word (vs. 17-18), as do cults that insist on the need to be baptized in order to be saved (vs. 16).

We have included in this journal the article “Subtracting from God’s Word? The Longer Ending of Mark, written by Dr. Matt Aernie, Bible & Theology professor at Southeaster Bible College. Dr. Aernie deals with the inclusion or exclusion process of Mark 16: 9-20, which is also instructional on the process of textual criticism.

Another issue connected to the topic of how can we know what the original text is for our translations responding to 6the group of Christians who insist that the original King James Version is the only correct version because it is translated from the providentially protected, Textus Receptus, which they claim is identical to the original. ARC’s Kansas City Director Keith Gibson contributes an article, “The King James Only Movement: Fighting the Right Battle in the Wrong Place”, which addresses this well intentioned but misguided movement.

Again, these issues have been circulated normally in academic circles, and they are significant. But the results of good evangelical scholarship answering these issues are not normally studied by the average Christian.

But times have changed. There has been a measured shift that has taken place both in the church and the culture. The impact of Social Darwinism, which began in the late nineteenth century, with its view that religion evolved humanistically, has had its deadening effect in mainline seminaries.

One result is that many of our young pe9ople have gone to many mainline denominational church related colleges and have been taught that the Bible was not infallible or inerrant, and was humanly contrived. Many have left the faith.

The culture has shifted to scientism on one en of the spectrum to postmodern relativism on the other end (predominately), and the result is a consumerist and hedonistic culture. Unfortunately too many evangelical or “traditional” churches have shifted to a consumeristic “seeker sensitive” model to try and reach these people. Doctrine, theology and biblical relevance are trumped by compromised pragmatism.

Now we are seeing a much greater impact of the liberal theologians, popular writers, and atheists along with this measured decline of professing Christians and church population. Thus the increased need for apologetics both to the believer (to better know why (s)he believes), and to those mislead by the attacks on the Christian faith, especially the reliability of the Bible.

A popular writer whose books and appearances receive much coverage from the dominant liberal media is Bart Ehrman, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina. Ehrman is a poster boy for liberals as he began as a conservative, graduating from Moody Bible Institute, and earning a Master’s at Wheaton College. But when he went to the very liberal Princeton Theological Seminary, his views began to change.

He began to question, “Do you mean that for all those centuries before the King James translators got the work, Christians did not have access to God’s word? What was God thinking…what does one do with the fact that we don’t have the original Hebrew and Greek texts of any of the books of the Bible, but only later copies of these texts, all of which have mistakes?”

Ehrman goes on to prove his reasons for apostasy, “At moody I had been taught that the inspired words were the words of the originals, the so-called autographs…eventually this view came to be problematic to me. Why would God have inspired the words of the Bible if he chose not to preserve these words for posterity?” (Jesus Interrupted, Bart Ehrman, Harper Collins, NY, NY, 2009, pp. 181-182).

In Ehrman’s book, Misquoting Jesus, he claims that we only have error ridden copies and the vast majority of these are centuries removed from the originals with thousands of differences. He notes that when a scribe alters the text, either accidentally or intentionally, those changes are permanent. Future scribes just add on to these mistakes and the problems are compounded for centuries.

These charges are not new. They have been repeatedly and thoroughly responded to and corrected by academic scholars. I encourage you to acquire or read the recommended books listed at the end of Veritas. Especially thorough is the work, The Text of the New Testament by respected scholar and ironically Emeritus Professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, Dr. Bruce Metzger.

Let me point you to the introductory article, “How Do We Know That We Have What the Biblical Writers Originally Wrote?” by Dr. Paul Wegner, Old Testament Professor at Phoenix Seminary. Dr. Wegner wrote two wonderful books, The Journey from Texts to Translation: The Origin and Development of the Bible, and A Students Guide to Textural Criticism of the Bible.

Dr. Wegner presents a good summary of the process of textural accumulation and analysis and how we can be certain that what we have today is virtually the inerrant word of God.

An excellent summary statement of the church’s view of inerrancy is found here in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy:

The Truth of Scripture Bundle (order online)

Order our bundle of Areopagus Journals which cover the ground on why we believe the Bible is true and answering the objections.

The Breath of God – The Inspiration and Inerrancy of Scripture
Do We Have the Right Books? – Canonicity
Biblical Interpretation – The Science of Hermeneutics
Does the Bible Err? – Responding to Attacks on the Bible

Normally these four editions are $24, they are available in the Scripture Bundle for $15. Everyone needs this foundational series. “Always be ready to give an answer” (1 Pet 3:15)

Recommended Reading

Craig Branch is director of the Apologetics Resource Center, Birmingham, Alabama.