PERFECT ORIGINALS, IMPERFECT COPIES
We believe the Scriptures … to be … without error in the original writings…
This final point of our statement of faith regarding the Bible – inerrancy, the belief that there are no errors in the Bible – has been a point of contention in Christianity throughout the last half of the 20th century. Traditional conservative Christianity concluded that the Bible doesn’t have any “errors” in it because:
The logic makes sense, but tough questions arise when you look at the Bible itself, which certainly appears to contain several different kinds of ‘errors’. The issue is complicated, so let me take it one step at a time.
When we talk about the Bible being ‘inspired’ (i.e. breathed out by God through the writers), we are talking about the way the Bible originated (see my previous blog). The only text “breathed out by God” was the first text originally written by the author of each book. The book of Genesis originally written by Moses himself was inspired, as was the gospel John originally penned, and the original letter that Paul sent to the Colossians. Every original (first) version of each biblical book from the hand of its writer was inspired.
When those originals wore out, scribes copied them, threw the original inspired text away, and circulated the copy. Technically speaking, the copies were created by copying, NOT by inspiration. The copies are copies of the inspired original writings.
This is where questions arise. If the copies are not produced by inspiration, but copied by men, are they free of error? Could a copyist possibly copy something incorrectly? Would God allow His inspired Word to be copied incorrectly? And if a copyist changes something, is his copy still God’s Word?
Perfect copies are pretty in theory, but copyists clearly made changes, some accidental and some intentional, when they copied the manuscripts. We don’t have any of the originals, but we have many copies –over 5,000 manuscripts and manuscript fragments – and no two are exactly alike. The changes are minor and insignificant and don’t affect the bulk of the text. One scholar I read said the text is 99.98% intact and confirmed. Nor do they change the biblical message or subvert any Christian truth.
We have all the manuscripts and can compare them and see where they differ. We can even figure out how the differences arose. This simple fact is why we don’t claim that the copies (or any translations!) are ‘inspired’ or without error. We only believe this to be true of the original writings.
Some Christians refuse to accept this. In my youth a few even told me I couldn’t trust the Greek manuscripts, that they were of the devil and changed God’s truth! Forget the Greek texts, they said, and trust the King James Version in English! They insisted you can’t trust imperfectly copied Greek manuscripts.
At first their arguments scared me. Could I trust my Bible? But my concerns melted away when I learned Greek and compared manuscripts. The fearmongers were making mountains of molehills. My Greek professors were telling the truth: the copyist changes were insignificant and didn’t change any important Christian truth.
If 99.98% of the text is certain, it only takes a faith much smaller than a mustard seed to cover the .02% of uncertainty.
More in the next blog…
This final point of our statement of faith regarding the Bible – inerrancy, the belief that there are no errors in the Bible – has been a point of contention in Christianity throughout the last half of the 20th century. Traditional conservative Christianity concluded that the Bible doesn’t have any “errors” in it because:
- What the writers wrote was God’s word (i.e. God inspired or breathed it out).
- God doesn’t lie.
- Therefore, the Bible can’t contain errors (or God’s Word would be lying).
The logic makes sense, but tough questions arise when you look at the Bible itself, which certainly appears to contain several different kinds of ‘errors’. The issue is complicated, so let me take it one step at a time.
When we talk about the Bible being ‘inspired’ (i.e. breathed out by God through the writers), we are talking about the way the Bible originated (see my previous blog). The only text “breathed out by God” was the first text originally written by the author of each book. The book of Genesis originally written by Moses himself was inspired, as was the gospel John originally penned, and the original letter that Paul sent to the Colossians. Every original (first) version of each biblical book from the hand of its writer was inspired.
When those originals wore out, scribes copied them, threw the original inspired text away, and circulated the copy. Technically speaking, the copies were created by copying, NOT by inspiration. The copies are copies of the inspired original writings.
This is where questions arise. If the copies are not produced by inspiration, but copied by men, are they free of error? Could a copyist possibly copy something incorrectly? Would God allow His inspired Word to be copied incorrectly? And if a copyist changes something, is his copy still God’s Word?
Perfect copies are pretty in theory, but copyists clearly made changes, some accidental and some intentional, when they copied the manuscripts. We don’t have any of the originals, but we have many copies –over 5,000 manuscripts and manuscript fragments – and no two are exactly alike. The changes are minor and insignificant and don’t affect the bulk of the text. One scholar I read said the text is 99.98% intact and confirmed. Nor do they change the biblical message or subvert any Christian truth.
We have all the manuscripts and can compare them and see where they differ. We can even figure out how the differences arose. This simple fact is why we don’t claim that the copies (or any translations!) are ‘inspired’ or without error. We only believe this to be true of the original writings.
Some Christians refuse to accept this. In my youth a few even told me I couldn’t trust the Greek manuscripts, that they were of the devil and changed God’s truth! Forget the Greek texts, they said, and trust the King James Version in English! They insisted you can’t trust imperfectly copied Greek manuscripts.
At first their arguments scared me. Could I trust my Bible? But my concerns melted away when I learned Greek and compared manuscripts. The fearmongers were making mountains of molehills. My Greek professors were telling the truth: the copyist changes were insignificant and didn’t change any important Christian truth.
If 99.98% of the text is certain, it only takes a faith much smaller than a mustard seed to cover the .02% of uncertainty.
More in the next blog…