God’s Preservation of His Word

Can We Trust the Bible? God’s Preservation of His Word Review: God’s Commitment to His Word • God speaks His Word. • God confirms His Word. • God preserves His Word. Preview: God’s Preservation of His Word • Copying • Criticism Copying: People, Tools, and Methods • Who? Scribes (some professional, some casual) R. Ishmael…said to me, “My son, what is your vocation?” I told him, “I am a scribe,” and he said to me, “Be meticulous in your vocation because your vocation is a task of heaven; should you by chance omit or add one letter you would thereby destroy all the universe.” Talmudic text around AD 450–550 reporting a conversation between two scribes, Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Ishmael Copying: People, Tools, and Methods • Who? Scribes (some professional, some casual) • What? Scribes copied using a variety of writing tools. • Surface: Stone, clay, papyrus, parchment, vellum. • Instrument: chisel and reed pen Copying: People, Tools, and Methods • Who? Scribes (some professional, some casual) • What? Scribes copied using a variety of writing tools. • How did they copy? • Text-to-text: physically copied side-by-side texts. • Auditory copying: listened to a text read and copied it. Copying: the Problem and the Providence • The Problem: • We have no original manuscripts (called autographs). • We have no two copies that completely agree. • The Providence: • We have 5800+ (NT) manuscripts/fragments… • …spread throughout the ancient world. AUTHOR WORK WRITTEN TOTAL MSS TIME GAP Homer Iliad 800 BC 1800+ 400 YRS Herodotus History 480–425 BC 109 1350 YRS Sophocles Plays 496–406 BC 193 100–200 YRS Plato Tetralogies 400 BC 210 1300 YRS Ceasar Gallic Wars 100–44 BC 251 950 YRS Livy History of Rome 59–17 AD 150 400 YRS GREEK NT 50–100 AD 5838 50 YRS NT TRANSLATIONS — 18,524 — HEBREW OT — 42,000+ 300–350 YRS Criticism: The science of finding the original • Textual criticism: science of recovering the original of a document by examining its remaining copies. • What types of differences do we find? • Spelling: 77% • Synonyms: 19% • Meaningful, but not likely: 6% • Meaningful and likely: 1% That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us 1 John 1:1–2 *That which was from the beginning, which we have * * * From begening we from being - THAT WHICH … wich beging wich heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we wich we wich looked upon and have touched with our hands, we tuched look apond have touch apone half-thutched concerning the word of Life — the life was made life life life the life was made to life consorning with … way which/the has been/was conserning life manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and manefest to us maneveset and testive manufest testafied proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the The eteral proclamed wich Father and was made manifest to us. father manefest father father manisfed with/to manafest Criticism: The science of finding the original • Common manuscript errors • Single letter when two should be written (“writen”) • Writing something twice (“John ate ate bread”) • Mixing up letters or words (“John aet bread”) • Combining words (“John atebread”) • Separating words (“John played base ball”) • Switching similar sounding words (“John was write”) Criticism: The science of finding the original • Common manuscript errors • Misreading similar letters ("John ptayed ball") • Leaving out a section or phrase ("John ... and eat food") • Missing word or letter ("Jhn ws sd”) • Seeing a vowel as consonant (in Hebrew) • Misreading an accent as a vowel (in Hebrew) Criticism: The science of finding the original • Prefer the text that… • is older • is more difficult • is shorter • best explains other options • is found around the Middle East • sounds like the author • has no doctrinal bias Takeaways • God preserved His Word by non-spectacular means. • God protected His Word from corruption. • We have the very words of God, so read them! Can We Trust the Bible? God’s Preservation of His Word