From: Defending
Biblical Inerrancy Return to Home
By Roland H. Worth, Jr. © 2016
Chapter Two:
Objections from the Preservation of
Scripture
I. The Existence of Textual Variants
A.
The numbers are large—but vastly inflated by the method used
At first glance, the 250,000-300,000 New
Testament variants resemble a
With justice we can
rightly argue that the total is arbitrarily inflated by the way the
“variants” are calculated. Raymond
F. Surburg reminds us (4-68f) that if a given word is
misspelled the identical/same way 5,000 times this does NOT count as
just one variant (which is all there really is) but as 5,000! Even though there is only one real difference
envolved, the appearance is of something far more
vast and alarming. It takes no great
amount of meditation to recognize that using this approach will rapidly result
in an awesome (and misleading) total number of differences!
Furthermore, when the
name of individuals is involved (which is often the case), the spelling
variations are often correlated with distinct historical periods of time (cf.
4-69): In other words, specific word
spellings tend to dominate in certain chronological periods. In the modern age, we can see this pattern
continuing when we compare certain King James Version words with the
twenty-first century variant of the same words.
Even in my own
lifetime there have been clear-cut and annoying changes. Two paragraphs above I wrote “there is only
one real difference envolved.” That is how I was taught to spell it only a
half-century ago. Now spell check has a hissy fit but has absolutely no problem with
“involved.” A number of other words fall
into that category and all within one person’s lifetime.
New Testament copyists
wanted to copy things right. And if the
old manuscript had “misspelled” it, why not change it to the right and proper
spelling? Or, rather,
the one that in their era was regarded as the correct one? Weren’t they intending to preserve
accuracy rather than to make any genuine change at all?
Nor have we even
raised the matter of how in the same period there may be varied
spellings of the identical name being equally accepted as quite valid. In our own era, think of the varying ways to
spell potential names of our children.
In fact, one lady facing that question, asked others to suggest which
seemed better of a wide range of choices, such as these (53):
Catherine or Katherine?
Chelsea or Chelsie
or Chelsey or Chelsee?
Ashlee or Ashley or Ashlie
or Ashleigh? . . .
Jesse or Jessie or Jessey?
Katie or Katee
or Katy? . . .
Caitlin or Katelyn or Caitlyn or Katelin?
Rylee or Rilee or Riley?
Must we assume that the ancient world was insistent on absolute
identicalness of spelling on a regional basis within any country? In other words, would not variants be
accepted as normal without anyone thinking of raising the charge of “error” or
“alteration”?
B.
The differences are rarely significant
Even when readings rise above mere spelling
variants, they often still alter nothing of importance. Can even the shrewdest mind—unless he be an advocate of mystical numerological interpretation—find
any difference between the readings “the Lord Jesus Christ” and “Christ Jesus
the Lord”? When the conceptual content
is identical the conclusions exegesis can reach will match. They don’t alter the interpretation in the
least.
That example is a
theoretical that doesn’t actually exist, but it serves as a useful illustration
to introduce those that do: It simply sounds
like the kind of error that would pop up over a long period of time. Now let’s turn to readings that exist,
starting from the most blatantly irrelevant to those that deserve a little more
thought.
In discussing the
matter, there are three basic Greek texts to choose from:
The Textus Receptus (TR), the basis
of the King James Version. A fine text
for its day but with a very limited basis in number of manuscripts worked from.
The
Majority Text (MT) a/k/a the Byzantine Majority Text. Working from bulk of numbers envolved, this is the text most documented the most times. (Conservatives sometimes act as if the TR and
the MT are identical. They aren’t.)
The Critical Text, a
modern composite of what scholars think the text originally was. It does not follow any specific
manuscript or even “type” of manuscript, but attempts to deduce what has the
highest probability by the criteria they
themselves establish.
In what follows we
will limit ourselves to Gary F. Zeolla’s Analytical-Literal
Translation and how utilizing various texts would have resulted in a change
in his translation. Since we have
limited space, we can only provide a cross section of many items of a similar
type and we will work from the gospel of Matthew in particular. (47)
We gave a hypothetical
illustration of two ways of saying the exact same thing. Now let’s look at some “real life” ones from
Matthew:
1:6
David the king fathered vs David
fathered (CT)
(MT/TR)
3:6
8:32a the herd of the pigs (MT/TR) vs the
pigs (CT)
8:32b the whole herd of the pigs vs the whole herd (CT)
(MT/TR)
11:8 “royal houses” (MT) vs “houses of the kings”
(TR/CT)
13:4 the birds came and vs having come, the birds devoured (MT/TR) devoured
(CT)
15:1 scribes and Pharisees vs Pharisees
and scribes (CT)
(MT/TR)
We also mentioned spelling errors, so here
are some from Matthew:
1:7: Asa
(MT/TR) vs Asaph
(CT)
1:8 Asa (MT/TR) vs Asaph
(CT)
Then there are cases where the
change/alteration is mere grammatical and nothing more (some overlap with the
first category of differences):
4:5 sets (MT/TR) vs set (CT)
4:9 says (MT/TR) vs said (CT)
[In context the “He”
clearly being Jesus]
[In
context, again the “He” clearly being Jesus]
“His disciples woke” (CT)
[Again,
contextually the same group of “disciples”]
[What
would “the present age” be BUT “this age”?]
25:7 their lamps (MT/TR) vs. their
own lamps (CT)
[What
would “their lamps” be but “their OWN lamps”?]
Now that we have given a fair amount of space
showing the type of examples that are so common, let us consider some that are
more significant. (Not as significant as
hostile critics might think but ones deserving respectful attention.)
Our source sums up our first example this
way, “
(The reader may find quite interesting Philip
W. Comfort’s New Testament Text and Translation Commentary: Commentary on the Variant Readings of the
Ancient New Testament Manuscripts and How They Relate to the Major English
Translations, a work that goes into detail on the evidence for varying
readings throughout the New Testament.
For this particular text see 48-40f.)
Zeolla deals with our second case with this
summary, “
Nor is his case
encouraged by his candid admission that there is something like a psychological
compulsion to utilize the words because they seem so overwhelmingly fitting and appropriate, “Why do people feel
compelled to end with this assertive doxology?
Probably for the same reason that motivated some early
scribes to add it. This profound
prayer invites a glorious , uplifting conclusion—especially
in oral reading” (48-16).
And in passing it
should be remembered that the attribution of “the kingdom and the power and the
glory” to Christ through succeeding ages is a claim few would think to deny was
made. (Accepting it personally might be
a different matter for many of them.)
Hence we have a conclusion fully consistent with other teaching
of Scripture and, even if not originally found in the current text, does
faithfully represent the teaching of the Bible.
The one example given by Zeolla that does appear to have genuine doctrinal
significance is the exception clause:
19:9
MT/ CT: [but] not for – TR: except for
If you believe that Jesus could not have ever authorized divorce for
anyone for any reason you are either going to deny the existence of the
exception clause in these two passages or put a significantly different meaning
on it than it appears to have. When
Philip W. Comfort (48-12) deals with
When we turn to 19:9,
Comfort accepts the textual genuineness in both passages, “The
only way for the man not to be held culpable [of adultery, RW] is if the woman
was unchaste, which is what nearly all
the manuscripts say and which is affirmed in
That does not deny that the passages create
a series of difficulties in interpretation that were likely never intended in
the first place. But we have two
thousand years of exegesis and not all of that exegesis has had fidelity to the
text as its main basis but development, instead, of what it “must” be
teaching.
Even without what comes after the exception
clause about the invalidity of remarriage without
adultery being the cause of the divorce, in the absence of the exception clause
reason being present in a given case those consequences would still seem to be
logically inevitable: implicit
condemnation. At most those adding words
make explicit what would always have been implicit in the first place. It would become a matter of whether we get
there because the text directly asserts it or because it clearly implies
it.
Our conclusion on
variant readings is a simple one: vastly
overstated in significance. Rarely
important in application to doctrine and real life for other passages will deal
with the same or closely related matters.
Will those having an emotional spasm in horror please take their xanax. We may not
have all the fancy—and often irrelevant—degrees that you have to hide your
hostility to God behind, but we are still quite capable of telling a good
argument from a bad one.
C.
The New Testament stands above all other ancient works in textual
integrity
Jona Bendering—from
whose work the next three paragraphs draw their reasoning--effectively argues
that for any ancient work to survive it had to be considered of major
significance to a substantial body of people.
Otherwise there was no particular reason for it to be regarded as worthy
of preservation. Furthermore, it had to
have users able to handle the significant cost of obtaining papyri and paying a
skilled copyist. A papyri volume had to
be copied once a century in order to assure it remained in circulation;
parchment could be delayed longer but not indefinitely. Books would be far more likely to drop out of
existence because of the lack of such an audience than any intentional
destruction. .
Little or no
readership automatically translated into the ultimate disappearance of a
work. Gnostic style works which tended
to appeal only to a narrow spiritually “elite” folk (or, at least, were
regarded as such in their own minds) would be easy to meet such a fate.
Newer work would tend to replace older
work: if a newer and allegedly better
volume appeared—and the ancients weren’t without a mentality like ours that
“newer” virtually must equate to better—then the earlier compositions were that
much more likely to be abandoned by sponsors from their reproduction
favorites. Also most folk simply had no
practical use for a voluminous analysis of a “narrow” subject and found these
newer summaries / compilations far easier use for the bulk of their own
purposes. Why take the time to preserve
the earlier material unless they were the favorite of a family or group with
the funds to produce a new copy? (49)
Even works of famous men—some with amusing
(to us) titles have disappeared. From
the historian Suetonius, for example, we are lacking
his Lives of Famous Prostitutes and Dictionary of Invectives (49)
along with a significant number of other works.
For the historian Tacitus’
“Annals are
preserved in two copies, but as the copies are partial and do not overlap at
all, for any given passage there is only one manuscript). Indeed, there are instances where all manuscripts are lost and we
must reconstruct the work from excerpts (Manetho; the
non-Homeric portions of the Epic Cycle; most of Polybius,
etc.)” (50).
Take a relatively relatively
modern but well known work—Beowulf.
It survives in one burned copy; two centuries old transcripts make its
publication possible, but both of them have their own problems (50).
Then we have volumes where we have much of
the entire work—but. (Ah the eternal “but!”)
Consider the famous ancient Gilgamesh Epic. As one scholar writes (one can almost see tears
flowing), “This exists in multiple pieces, recensionally
different, in multiple languages, from multiple eras, with some of the later
versions incorporating material originally separate, and not one of the major recensions is complete. Here one has to step back from the problem of
deciding how to reconstruct and first settle what to reconstruct” (50). In comparison to the Bible, the scriptures
are a textual non-Buddhist nirvana (“the state of perfect happiness and peace”).
As a historian I find
all this quite interesting, but it serves well as an introduction to our next
point: Unlike such cases where our
problem is scarcity of resources, here we have a vast variety of
resources to work from. The Bible
leaves behind it a well documented, extensive “paper trail” spreading deep into
the past. In other words it provides us with
far greater resources to work from.
The simple fact that we have many
manuscripts to argue from tells us something else of vital importance: the scriptures were thought of as of such
great importance to be copied—and copied generation after generation, yet
again. Taking into consideration such
factors as these we can understand why the New Testament is, textually, the
most extensively and accurately preserved book of antiquity.
The amount of significant textual
variance in real dispute is minimal.
Norman L. Geisler has summarized various
scholars’ conclusions on this matter:
1. Westcott-Hort
estimated that only one-eighth of all variants had any weight and only one sixteenth
rise above “trivialities” and can be called
“substantial variations.” This would
leave the text over 98 percent pure.
2. Ezra Abbot estimated that nineteen-twentieths
(95 percent) of the variants were “various” rather than “rival” readings and
nineteen-twentieths (95 percent) of the “rival” readings make little difference
in the sense of the passage.
3. Philip Schaff
calculated that of the 150,000 variants known in his day only 400 affected the
sense, only 50 were of real significance, and not one of these affected any
article of faith.
4. A. T. Robertson said that the real concern is
about one-one thousandth of the text (i.e., the text is 99.9 percent pure of
significant variations).
When
this is compared with Homer’s Iliad where 5 percent of the text is in
doubt, or the Mahabharata which has 10 percent corruption, it may be
safely concluded that the Bible is the most accurately translated major work
from the ancient world. (5-257. Paragraphs numbered
differently in original source; final two paragraphs are one in the original.)
D.
The question of the Old Testament
Although there is a great deal of talk
about the “textual corruption” of the Old Testament as well, the
“numbers argument” against its textual accuracy is not as developed as in
regard to the accusations against the Second Testament. In a different work Geisler
(in conjunction with Nix) suggest three reasons for the lack of textual
discrepancies among the Hebrew manuscripts as contrast with the Greek
New Testament (6-360):
First, there “are
fewer manuscript copies;” therefore we would expect fewer
discrepancies. Second, the Masoretes who preserved the text “labored under strict
rules” to guarantee the preservation of a consistent, unvarying text from one
generation of manuscripts to the next.
Third, “it is believed” that they “systematically destroyed all copies”
that contained detected “ ‘mistaken’ and/or variant
readings.”
It should be noted
that the savaging of the concept of Divine revelation and inspiration began
with the Old Testament. Only after it
was well developed, did similar hatchet jobs on the New Testament emerge as
proof that one was on the cutting edge of semi-believing “scholarship.” Yet if the argument from an imperfect text of
the New Testament is to be taken as seriously as these folk would have us, then
the existence of a far more consistent Old Testament text should have them
speak far kinder words of that Testament.
Of course, they
don’t. The real problem is Divine
revelation and inspiration is simply not permitted—period. Regardless of the
degree of textual stability.
Truth be told, the Old Testament—probably due to a far greater time span
for speculation to play games in—is subject to even savager
disrespect not merely as to inspiration but even the basic moral integrity of
the writers.
For example: Moses did not write the Torah (Genesis to
Deuteronomy) or, if he did, precious little of it. It is “really” composed of the J, E, D, and P
document streams. We say “streams”
because each of these underwent varied stages of expansion and elaboration
before all of these were united in the Torah we have today. The scenario requires multiple generations of
religious but unscrupulous hypocrites who were willing to make a lifestyle of
lies (pretending that Moses had written it) while
reinventing the document streams over centuries while pretending it had always been the way it was in its
latest incarnation. (Now they weren’t
going to admit it was all a pile of lies, would they? They had to pretend nothing had
changed or the basis of their own authority would have been undermined.)
Laying aside these annoying claims that
virtually make “prophets” and “priests” synonymous with “liars,” it would still
be good for us to examine the degree of textual changes that did occur
by examining the Hebrew text in comparison with that rendered into other
languages. Because they exaggerate the
significance, doesn’t eliminate the propriety and need to examine the degree
that variances did occur.
It is when the Hebrew is compared with the
Greek Septuagint and the Samaritan Pentateuch, that significant disagreements
are found. Although there are about
6,000 differences between the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Hebrew Masoretic Pentateuch, some are clearly theological in intent—such
as substituting
Although it would be wonderful—due to the
c. first century dating or earlier of the Dead Sea Scrolls--to have even an
even larger number of partial or full Hebrew texts that are a millennium older
than the Masoretic Hebrew to work from, we
unquestionably have still been blessed with a significant body of material from
that source:
The
greatest scroll is Isaiah, preserved completely and in good condition. Apparently it can be dated at about 125
B.C. Some fragments are older. Portions of Job, Jeremiah, Samuel, and Psalms
can be dated to 200 B.C. or earlier. One
portion of Psalms is unofficially dated at about 300 B.C. A copy of Ecclesiastes dating from 150 B.C.
is of special interest because some extreme critics have insisted that
Ecclesiastes was written at a much later date.
Copies of Daniel dating from the second century B.C. are significant
because they are so close to the crucial date of 165 B.C. when critics claim
the book was written. (51-66)
What is specially
significant is not differences with the Masoretic,
but how much it reflects the same textual tradition. Humans might miscopy, but deliberate changes
to alter intent were clearly frowned upon or it would have happened far more
often.
Although we have a quite defensible text,
it was the accurate preservation of the New Testament that is most
essential to the maintaining of a Christ-centered faith. If we were still under the Mosaical Law—where even minute items of life and temple
worship were precisely regulated—we would have been faced with a significantly
different problem, not due to having a “debased” text but because it
would be the Testament where our interests were most centered. Even if that had been the case, we would still
have a text quite adequate to ground our practices and behavior in—just not the
volume of evidence we would ideally prefer.
II. The Lack of the Original Autographs
A.
Is it inherently improbable that revelation would be protected down to
the words and yet the preservation of the original manuscripts (“autographs”)
not be provided for?
Why did God protect the substance and
content of these writings down to assuring that appropriate words were used and
then let them perish? If they were that
imbued and endowed with Divine guidance, why did He not arrange for them to be
miraculously preserved so that 100% accurate copies could be reproduced from
them in all generations thereafter?
Although we’ll deal
with this more a bit later, here let us stress that such reasoning confuses revelation
and preservation. They are two
very different things. The need for one
does not require the need for the other.
If the originals were not fully accurate in all ways, their preservation
in unblemished form would not make them one iota more useful. On the other hand, if the originals were
closely guided even in regard to their verbal expressions, modest “damage” of
the type that has occurred will not interfere with the text’s ability to
communicate God’s will.
Those who advocate
mere “thought” inspiration are not profited in the least by this argument for
they are faced with the same question:
Why did God not arrange for the record to be preserved perfectly so that
all future generations would be sure to get the “thought” intended?
Indeed, in “verbal inspiration” we have a perfect
communication of the Divine will; in “thought inspiration,” by its very
nature, we have an IMperfect
communication of the Divine will. In
such a case, surely mistakes in transmission can do hideous damage—potentially
compromising the very SUBSTANCE of
the message since it is only “buried” somewhere
within it. In contrast, when
Divine guidance even assured that only the right words were selected, errors in
transmission (at most) can only eat away at the edges, leaving the substance
little harmed (or, in our judgment), not harmed at all.
If God had indeed done something alone the
line of what semibelievers say He “should” or even
“would” have done if scripture’s inspiration was as deep rooted as the Bible
teaches—if He had, for example, chosen to carve the entire Bible on Mount
Rushmore and a few other mountains the way He had carved the Ten Commandments
on tablets for Moses on Sinai--would that convert them into evangelicals? Would it convert them into that much despised
(and often misrepresented) category called Fundamentalists?
Or would they simply find some other way to
avoid the personal commitment that flows from adopting the premises we are
advocating? Could it be that the will
to DISbelieve
is so strong that it seeks out scholarly “substantiation” rather than being
produced by it?
You see the root problem is not whether the
text is an immaculate match with the original.
It’s the belief that God would (could?) ever give a law binding upon the
human race. Especially one that branded
some (much?) of the critics’ preferred modes of thought and behavior not as
avant-garde but morally reprobate?
B.
Since the “autographs” no longer exist, is the controversy a needless
and useless one?
Although the autograph does not exist, what
is virtually the identical text does.
This is especially true of the New Testament, as already seen. Many who casually embrace assaults on
inspiration of the Biblical text do so without recognizing that—consistently
applied—it even undermines credibility in salvation by faith: As Theodore Engelder
noted many years ago, by their logic you could never prove the universal truth
and application of John 3:16 “because the original which is supposed to have
contained these words is no longer in existence” (7-193). This would, of course, hinder only some of
the critics and not all.
As to the accurate
preservation of the text, we should always remember that there were inherent
and ongoing pressures pushing Biblical scribes to preserve full fidelity to
the texts they were working from. For
example, those books that explicitly claimed to be the voice of God speaking, obviously would be treated with the respect due if
God were verbally addressing the copyist.
Since he would hardly dare (or feel it proper) to challenge the words
personally spoken by God to himself, he would naturally be inhibited against
altering God’s discourse when given to the writer he is copying. It would seemingly require a brazingly hard-hearted individual to act otherwise.
A second factor lay in
the moral strictures of both testaments against lying and in favor of
truthfulness. Both of these would be
involved in creating a consciously different reading than that of the
manuscript being copied.
A third force in favor
of preserving maximum accuracy in transmission surely lay in the Biblical
text’s demands for faithful preservation of what had been recorded and
altering it in no manner. These
admonitions are given so broadly that they include altering the religious
practice being described and
altering the text itself. Either way
the original provisions would have been changed and the Scriptures vigorously
weighed in against ever doing such:
Deuteronomy
4:2 “You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that
you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.”
Deuteronomy
Revelation
22:18 For I testify to everyone
who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these
things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; 19 and if anyone takes away from the
words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book
of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this
book.
When a manuscript was copied it was to be
done so accurately, that the copier could follow its teaching without any doubt
that he was doing the Lord’s will as recorded in the original:
Deuteronomy
17:18
“Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom,
that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one
before the priests, the Levites. 19 And it shall be with him, and he
shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord
his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these
statutes, 20 that his heart
may not be lifted above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the
commandment to the right hand or to the left, and that he may prolong his days
in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel.”
These kind of
admonitions surely rule out any intentional changing of the text to alter its
doctrine or teachings!
Any tendency of the
Christian to play games with the text would be further hindered by his
recognition of the gospel system as irrevocable and unchangeable, so
much so that even an angelic messenger would be under the curse of God if he
attempted to change any of its precepts:
Galatians
1:8 But
even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what
we have preached to you, let him be accursed.
9 As
we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to
you than what you have received, let him be accursed. 10 For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men,
I would not be a bondservant of Christ.
Or if you wish a rendering a bit more
colloquial, try this one from Today’s English Bible:
Galatians
1:8 But
even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel that is
different from the one we preached to you, may he be condemned to hell! 9 We
have said it before, and now I say it again:
if anyone preaches to you a gospel that is different from the one you
accepted, may he be condemned to hell! 10 Does this sound as if I am trying
to win man's approval? No indeed! What I want is God's approval! Am I trying to be popular with men? If I were still trying to do so, I would not
be a servant of Christ.
In light of these perpetual, ongoing
underlying pressures, it is not surprising that the Biblical text has been
preserved with amazing faithfulness. To
its scribes and copiers, it amounted to a virtual sacred duty.
Some critics insist
that upholding perfect autographs for the Bible books but conceding that what
we have falls short of that level is nothing but a mere “apologetic
device.” It is dismissed as an
intellectual cop-out: It is argued that
by creating an “inerrant” original—which we don’t have access to—that we have
created a situation in which the Bible can never be fairly tested. Contradictions can never be proven real
because they can all be dismissed as “textual corruptions” rather than problems
originating in the original texts.
Go back and quickly
review our short discussion of purported contradictions. You will observe that for most points
of controversy there is no reason to invoke the originals. They are just as likely to have been found
there as well! So the argument might
eliminate some “differences” from consideration, but still leave many
others open to contest. Most of them are
resolvable by common sense and a careful consideration of what the existing
text has to say.
The problem for semibelievers,
of course, is that reasonableness is not enough for them. They want absolute proof when human history
often does not provide it. Question
that? Read a few books on the hotly
contested issue of “who/what caused
C.
Even in copied form, the Biblical manuscripts are authoritative for
establishing truth.
Like us today, Jesus did not possess the
original manuscripts of the Old Testament. Yet He cited it as authoritative for those
living under it. In the temptations
during the forty days in the wilderness, we find Him citing the text as
reliable and binding no less than three times:
Matthew
4:1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by
the devil. 2 And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward
He was hungry. 3 Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become
bread." 4 But He
answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.' "
5 Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle
of the temple, 6 and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw
Yourself down. For it is written: 'He shall give His angels charge over you,'
and, 'In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you
dash your foot against a stone.' " 7 Jesus said to him, "It is written again, 'You shall not
tempt the Lord your God.' "
8 Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and
showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And
he said to Him, "All these things I will give You
if You will fall down and worship me." 10 Then Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God,
and Him only you shall serve.' " 11 Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and
ministered to Him.
(Aside:
Note that just quoting text was not enough. You had to take all the scriptures
said into consideration. Hence in verses
5-7 when the Devil bends passages in a never intended direction, Jesus rebukes
him by reminding him of what else the scriptures say, texts that would
prohibit Him from doing what Satan wanted.)
If this were not enough, Jesus regarded
the Scriptures as reliably preserved—even though He did not have the originals
to read--or how could He confidently cite it as being fulfilled in His day and
through Him? This time, two
examples:
Luke 4:16 So He came to Nazareth, where He
had been brought up. And as His custom
was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read.
17 And He was handed the
book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He
had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: 18 "The
Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel
to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to
the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who
are oppressed; 19 to proclaim
the acceptable year of the Lord."
20 Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat
down. And the eyes of all who were in
the synagogue were fixed on Him. 21
And He began to say to them, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled
in your hearing."
Matthew
16 "But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they
hear; 17 for assuredly, I say
to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and
did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.
Note here that there was such a thing as predictions
hundreds of years before they were fulfilled and that they had been so
accurately preserved that the people could read the words for themselves in the
prophet Isaiah. Nothing removed that
would change the application. Nothing
added that would prevent the text from being rightly applied. In short, a usable and reliable text to
discover what God intended even though the autographs were missing.
Surely this is
vivid testimony to how accurately the text had been preserved to that time. The fact that the text has continued to be
accurately preserved, therefore, allows us to treat it with the same respect
and authority that Jesus did toward the inherited text available in His
day. (Yes, this is in regard to the Old
Testament and not the New, but does anyone really intend to make an argument
that He was to leave His apostles in a situation where their words would
be less truthfully passed on?)
To supplement what we
have introduced, Greg L. Bahnsen presents an
effective summary of a broader scope of evidence than we introduced above and
it is well worth your attention (8-7.9f):
When
New Testament writers appeal to the authority of the Old Testament they, just
like we today, used the texts and versions which were ready at hand. Jesus preached from the existing scrolls and
treated them as “Scripture” itself (Luke
The
apostles used the scriptures which were in hand for arguing (Acts
This
is illustrated in the present imperative to search the scriptures as testifying
of Christ (John
Treating the Old Testament as authoritative in this manner implied a
conception of its inspiration far beyond that of the mere “thought” hiding
behind the words. If even the
originals were only “inspired” in a vague and elusive sense, people in Jesus’
day could easily have dismissed it as so contaminated by the personality and
psyche of the “revealer-prophet” that the Divine element had been thoroughly
pulverized into tiny fragments . . . if it continued to exist at all. By approaching scripture the way He did Jesus
bore testimony to an implicit doctrine of inspiration far stronger than many
moderns wish to admit.
Transmission errors
did not undermine or cause Jesus to reject a strong inspiration doctrine;
therefore it should not require us today to do so either. To use the example suggested by Bahnsen (8-7.19), even a
Our English translations aren’t inspired
but those that are faithfully and reliably translated come from a text preserving
such a revelation. In short we have
every reason to believe that God holds it as having the same authority for us as
the inspired original and as being the functional
equivalent of the inspired original, i.e., not inspired itself but fully
adequate to convey the inspired message even in salvational
details.
(A limitation: But one must remember that from “modern
speech” and “paraphrases,” we may get useful insights into interpreting the
text, but they fall significantly short
of what we are describing here--versions that are intended to strictly
adhere to the intent and words of the original.
Those that do the latter are faithful to the underlying text in the
original languages and we can embrace it as just as authoritative as Jesus and
Paul utilized the preserved Hebrew and Septuagint in their own day. Some may say this is an overstatement. Perhaps—but if it is, it’s not by much!)
D.
Why did God not miraculously preserve the original manuscripts?
Up to now we have been concerned with the
impact (if any) of the lack of autographs on the authority of the scriptures
and on their original full inspiration.
Having dealt at sufficient length on those matters, it is appropriate to
also offer some suggestions on why God chose to allow the original documents to
perish. Since God has not seen fit to
reveal an explicit answer to this question, all we can offer is speculation—but
reasonable and logical speculation we hope it will be.
There was an obvious danger that the
manuscript would be turned into an idol.
Rather than leading humanity closer to God, the manuscript could easily
become so respected, revered, and even “worshipped” that the text’s contents
would become secondary. If “saints’
relics” could be so abused in the Middle Ages, does any one doubt what would
have happened to a truly original Biblical manuscript?
The opponent of verbal
inspiration commonly hints or alleges “bibli-idolatry”
as an objection to our view, overlooking the fact that his or her own
insistence upon the preservation of the originals—if it had been done--could easily
have produced the very phenomena he so forcefully condemns—worship of the
object . . . rather than reverence for its inspired contents which is what is
actually needed.
Let us think of the apostles in particular. Those who read Paul’s autograph epistles were
unlikely to fall into this trap, being too immediately involved with the actual
man.
But
later, as this faith became less virile, might they not have been tempted to
make of the material document that came from Paul’s hands a sort of relic, even
a fetish? The example of the brazen
serpent which became an object of worship and which was finally destroyed by
Hezekiah should cause us to reflect on such a possibility (Numbers 21:8-9; 2
Kings 18:4). (9-138f)
A second possible reason for non-permanence
lies in the fact that the preservation of the original autographs would have
required not just a one time miracle, but a continuing miracle. The “longest” miracle on record was the
providing of manna for four decades during the Wilderness Wandering (Exodus
16:35)—and that wasn’t really one miracle but, rather, a daily
one, over 12,000 of them to cover the period of time (double manna was provided
one day a week so Sabbath collection would not be necessary.)
That was an aberration
from the normal custom which was when the miracle was a one time event, though
the results (such as in Christ’s healings) were permanent for the person’s
lifetime. For the autographs to have
been preserved would have required what?
A 3,000, 3,500 year or longer continuous
miracle. Something
without precedent.
In fact a series of miracles to
produce that single result of preservation would be required. First would have been to make the physical
manuscript indestructible. Then to guard
it against its suppression—for surely losing accessibility would
accomplish the same result as destruction by aging. Which would mean protecting
it from its overwrought enemies as well as overwrought friends. (Of the latter think of the foolishness from
rival clerics that goes on at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
in
Faced with such, does any reader really
believe that it could have escaped becoming an object of reverence crossing the
line into worship? To protect mankind
from its own excesses the originals had to perish from age. The Scriptures were given to lead us,
instruct us—not to bow down before and treat it as if it—rather than the
God and Messiah it instructs us about—is to be adored
and treated with supernatural respect.
Next we come to the implicit Biblical
assumption that God only does for mankind what it can not do for itself. In spite of all of our many imperfections,
preserving the Bible was amply within our range of abilities. Since there was no pressing need or necessity
for God to act miraculously, He did not do so.
One would think that the semibelievers who wish to minimize the miraculous
element in God’s Biblical-age conduct would find it so odd and incredible that
He abstained from performing a three thousand-plus year miracle of preserving
the Biblical autographs! Here they demand
a miracle but when they read of real ones of healing and raising the
dead at Jesus’ hands, well those are misunderstandings, exaggerations,
distortions, pious legends. “The legs of
the lame are not equal.” An old, old adage. But still true today.
The value of the danger-of-idolatry
argument has been tempered, in part, by those who have noted that though this
may explain the fate of the original manuscripts it does not completely
explain why the text of the original was not immaculately
preserved. The second and third
responses above—it requiring ongoing miracles and how God does not do things
needlessly for us but only legitimate necessities—has great relevance to this
slightly different objection as well.
Indeed, the rebuttal
raises a further problem: How possibly
could the text be preserved without transmission blemish without the original
manuscripts also being preserved to prove that the uniformity was due to
accuracy rather than conspiratorial destruction, at some stage, of all deviant
readings?
Bahnsen
(8-7.27f) suggests an additional reason for the text being allowed to become as
it is: An “imperfect” text serves the
purpose of protecting us from a superstitious approach to the study of its
contents. A verbally perfect text could
easily be abused through a medieval type cabbalistic “interpretation” in which
every letter and word possesses a “mystical” meaning as great as—or greater
than—the significance of the words themselves.
III. “Missing” Epistles and Books
Although it is reasonable to believe that
God did not ordain for the survival of every book written by His apostles and
prophets, the actual evidence in behalf of their having been such is often exaggerated
and its significance thoroughly misunderstood.
The mysterious epistle to
Why then did “
Assuming the epistle was originally general
rather than city-specific the reference to obtaining the Laodicean
epistle may only mean that the copy Paul sent to them was easier for some
reason for the Colossians to obtain than the identical one sent to
1 Corinthians 5:9 is another text commonly introduced
to prove the lack of survival of some apostolic writings: “I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep
company with sexually immoral people.” Some
take this to be an “epistolary aorist” by which Paul, in effect is saying: You’ve just read my words about excluding the
incestuous couple from the congregation (verses 1-8); you have no business
associating with such “brethren.”
If you wish far more,
and in scholarly detail, please consult my Torah Commentary on First
Corinthians 1-6: Interpreting the Text
in Light of Its Old Testament Roots (part of a four volume in detail
commentary; as of the current date it is still available on line at biblicalresearchresources.com). Let me quote from one particular relevant
paragraph:
If
the lost letter reconstruction is valid, it raises the serious question of why
was it permitted to vanish? The only two
options are that it was either intentionally destroyed or accidentally lost by
the Corinthians. Neither is particularly
appealing. The destruction scenario
seems to imply an astounding lack of moral scruples, far beyond anything Paul
attributes to the Corinthians. (“We
don’t like what you’ve written so we are going to literally wipe it out of
existence.”) The second provides
profound problems for any believer in Divine providence.
Another problem is that the hyper-critics
confuse having a complete revelation of the Divine truth and having every occasion on which each of those truths was written
about. These are actually two
dramatically different things. Hence even
assuming that there are “lost” epistles and “chronicles,” does that have any real
impact on our confidence in the inspiration of the “surviving” works--contents
that were shaped down to the word level?
I think not.
First, let us consider
the Old Testament. A cardinal—and often
overlooked fact—is that the Law of Moses was just that: LAW,
the foundation and bedrock for the entire Jewish system. The prophets did not exist to invent
new law, but to call men and women back to the already existing Mosaical Law. Among
the passages that refer to the essentially conservative rather than innovative
nature of the prophetic ministry are such texts as these:
Isaiah
Jeremiah
9:13 And the Lord said,
"Because they have forsaken My law which I set before them, and have
not obeyed My voice, nor walked according to it, 14 but they have walked according to the dictates of their own
hearts and after the Baals, which their fathers
taught them," 15 therefore
thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:
"Behold, I will feed them, this people, with wormwood, and give
them water of gall to drink. 16 I will scatter them also among
the Gentiles, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. And I will send a sword after them until I
have consumed them."
Daniel
Hosea
4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of
knowledge. Because you have rejected
knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me;
because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your
children.
Such texts are representative of a central
but often overlooked strand of prophetic thought: Restoration to the Mosaical,
pre-existing standard was their goal; not invention of a new system
nor the writing of something new and passing it off as the Lord’s.
Hence the prophets for
all of their importance in moral exhortation and preparing the people for the
Messiah, functioned primarily as advocates for what already was and was being
ignored. That role did not require the preservation of all
their writings. Nor did the
providing of a prophetic foundation for the Lord and the New Testament require
that all their prophecies be preserved—just the ones the Lord had determined
were the most useful and significant.
Now let us consider
the New Testament. Jesus promised a complete
revelation of Divine truth (John
Which
brings us back to another observation I made in my First Corinthians commentary
relevant to the discussion of 1 Corinthians 5:9:
Another
approach to the matter is to concede that the text is lost but not the central
argument: Paul tells us what the
content was in verse 9--don’t associate with the immoral. If we know the content and if we have Paul’s
more elaborate development of the subject matter, was there any need to
preserve the original? Indeed, except in
the most “literalistic” of senses, can we even speak of it being truly “lost?”
Furthermore the doctrine that the
inspiration of the New Testament is Divinely
superintended even down to accurate word choice is not affected in any
way. Every variant in the way a doctrine
was verbally defended and presented did not have to be preserved in
writing for their oral presentation to have been supernaturally overseen. What was vital was that the core doctrines
themselves were preserved.
Why then should we
feel obligated that every written presentation of the same truth
had to have been preserved? Would not
the same reasoning show that we can have a complete and reliable presentation
of God’s intents and purposes without it?
In short, whether all inspired written presentations of New Testament
age prophets and apostles were preserved is, indeed, a fascinating intellectual
issue. But, whichever way we answer the
question has no real impact on the nature and fullness of what has
been preserved for us.