Which Bible Tells Me so?

In the course of the past 2 Sunday morning services we have seen that The Bible is indeed the Word of God and that it can be trusted. Two weeks ago we looked at the nature of the Word, that the words of Scripture are “God-breathed,” and this sets them apart from any other work of literature. No other holy books contain the very words of God Himself. (Note: the Koran makes this claim, but it does not measure up)

Last week, we looked at Tests for Truth, or evidences that support the claim of the Bible. We started with the Self-affirmation of Scripture and examined the claim in light of circular reasoning (If we could not test for truth, then it would be circular).

The 6 supporting lines of evidence were laid out and briefly addressed: Internal Coherence, Fulfilled Prophecies, NT written by Eyewitness accounts, Multiple Lines of Transmission, Manuscript Evidence, and Changed Lives.

Confidence Level for believing that what was written is what we now have

This morning we are going to examine the process of how God preserved the text over time and the manner of translation from one language to another. This is important for several reasons, chief among them is that no original manuscripts exist today, and what we have are copies of the copies of copies.

“The Words of the LORD are pure words; as silver tried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven times.” ()

“Your Word is very pure, therefore your servant loves it” ()

The Question is stated like this: “Well, okay, the Word was pure in the autograph, but we don’t have it. How can we know that it is still pure?

The Process of Transmission & Preservation

Under the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Apostle Paul writes a letter to the church at Ephesus. The very words are God-breathed and they have authority in themselves.

The Church at Ephesus recognizes the stamp of God upon this letter and the members understand it is the very Word of God at that point. (No church council, no vote). Because of its nature, the letter is hand-copied on papyrus (plant matter turned into paper) and sent to other churches.

This process is repeated for each of the 27 NT letters, and multiple copies of the letters are being hand-copied as the papyri manuscripts degrade. The copyists of the NT are not professional scribes. For the most part they are farmers, fishermen, and merchants. They can and do make mistakes in the hand-copying of the letters. These mistakes are not intentional, and they are primarily found in the areas of spelling and punctuation. The technical term for any changes, however small or insignificant, is a textual variant

As the Christian church grows, it also comes under persecution. At first the persecution is from the Jews (as seen in the book of Acts) but the Empire begins to take note of the movement and they also begin to persecute the Christians. While the Roman persecution of Christianity was not always empire wide, the first 300 years were not easy. And one form of persecution was destruction and burning of the Scriptures. This made the copying and preservation of the text even more difficult

Church History and the Bible

A turning point occurred in 313 with the reign of Constantine. During his years as Emperor, Christianity became the “state” religion and the persecution ceased. in the year 325 Constantine authorized 50 copies of the Scriptures to be written and made available to the churches. These were written on vellum and in Greek. Some of these still exist today and they form the earliest witnesses to the original text.

As the period progressed, the language of Greece had given way to the language of Rome and Latin was the common language of the Western Empire. Given such changes, Jerome was commissioned by the Pope in the late 300’s to produce a Latin translation of the Bible from the Greek. Jerome finished his work in 405 and it is known as the Latin Vulgate. It was the Bible of the Church for over a 1,000 years.

Jerome was commissioned by the Pope in the late 300’s to produce a Latin translation of the Bible from the Greek. Jerome finished his work in 405 and it is known as the Latin Vulgate. It was the Bible of the Church for over a 1,000 years.

In the period of time just prior to the Reformation, the humanists of the Renaissance period were

During this period the Bible was still hand-copied, and would continue to be so until the 1450’s with the invention of the printing press. During the 1,400 + years of hand copying, (1,000 years for the Vulgate), many textual variants were produced due to human error. A scribe might put an explanatory note in the margin next to a difficult passage just for clarification. It is possible 50 or 60 years passed before that same passage is copied in that specific manuscript, and the next scribe might not be sure if the marginal note was part of the original text, so he might include it as the text in his copy. Once a textual variant appeared in a text, it was never taken out.

In the early 1500’s, a biblical scholar by the name of Erasmus produced what became the first published Greek text of the NT. (1517). This was a significant achievement, and part of the reason it was needed was to correct the textual variants that had crept into the Vulgate. It is also important to know that Erasmus only had 7 or 8 Greek manuscripts to pull from. It was at this time that the text of the NT was stabilized. Shortly after this time period there would be no further textual variants produced.

Only a few years later, Martin Luther produced a German NT(1522); he is followed by Tyndale who produces an English NT (1525). Other English Bibles are the Coverdale Bible (1535), the Matthews Bible (1537), the Great Bible (1539), The Geneva Bible (1560), and the Bishop’s Bible (1568). These were followed by the KJV of 1611. (All of these English Bibles used the Greek NT of Erasmus for their translation into English)

Discovery of Older Greek MSS and the production of New Bible Translations

Beginning in the mid 1600’s older Greek manuscripts were discovered, and they continued to be found throughout the 1700 and 1800’s. It is important to remember the DSS were not found until 1948. During this time period an amazing wealth of Greek and Latin manuscripts have been found. Today, scholars have access to over 5,800 Greek Manuscripts and over 24,000 Latin manuscripts. While all of these manuscripts produce more variant readings (approximately 400,000), not one bible teaching is affected or altered! In simple terms, these discoveries give us even greater confidence in the Word of God! What we have today is what was written almost 2,000 years ago because God has supernaturally preserved His Word!

The discoveries of the manuscripts has led to the production and publishing of additional, or modern versions of the Bible. While several of these updated versions were published in the early 1900’s, the majority of the new translations came in the 1970’s through the early 2,000’s. These included the NIV, NASB, NKJV, NLT, HCSB, ESV, and others. Aside from the NKJV, these other versions use text families that include the older and more reliable Greek manuscripts. Only the KJV & the NKJV use the TR (Erasmus’ Greek NT with slight modifications).

Explaining the differences between Bible versions

As previously mentioned, even with all of the manuscript discoveries with all of the textual variants, it is worth repeating that not one Bible teaching has been altered in any of the modern versions. And very much worth emphasizing is that each of these versions are the Word of God. The principles of translation remain the same. Just as the Vulgate was produced so people could read the Bible in the common tongue (Latin), and just as the KJV was produced so people could read in the common tongue (Old English), these other modern versions were produced so people could read the Bible in our common tongue (modern English). The principles of translation are the same. Each of these Bibles (the Vulgate and the KJV) “corrected” the textual variants from the underlying manuscripts. The modern versions do the same thing, and the result is a Bible that is even closer to the autographs, without scribal additions. (See Figure #1)

Because the modern versions are not based on the same textual family as the KJV, the word order will be different. And there are passages where the wording differs. We are going to look at as an example. If you read the KJV or the NKJV you will simply read the account of the angel that troubles the waters. If you have a NKJV with cross-reference, there may be a note at the bottom that states the NU does not contain 5:3b or v. 4. The NIV, NLT, ESV, CSB will go directly from v. 3 to v. 5, and v. 3 only contains the first part of the verse. The NASB sets v. 3b-4 in brackets.

The reason for these readings is that the earliest and most reliable Greek manuscripts do not contain these words. They were most likely added to some mss in an effort to more effectively (at least by human thought) explain v. 7. As previously mentioned, once a scribal addition made it into a text it was not taken out. This addition made it into the Vulgate and was in the 7 mss that Erasmus had at his disposal.

At this point you will ask one of 2 questions. If the KJV is your tradition you will ask. “why did they take this out?” If, however, you use a modern version AND you have a basic understanding of textual criticism, your question will be, “why did a scribe feel it was necessary to add this?”

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