Last week I was the subject of a post on Alexander The Atheist blog about my comments on the Trinity. It seems that one of the biggest issues that non-believers have is that they feel the Bible can't be trusted, be true, be inerrant, or be accurate. As soon as people discredit the Bible, they can believe whatever they want to, bash Christians for their faith, and hold themselves up to be more enlightened because they don't have "blind faith" in God. My question today is why is it that the Bible is being discredited? Some would say it's full of errors, typos, editing problems, etc. and that statement is somewhat true. There are some grammatical errors and such in the copies we have today! If you are a reader of the Bible you would know this because most Bibles will "warn" you of these issues when you come to them. For example look at Mark 16:9-20. This passage should be in [brackets] since it indicates that some early manuscripts do not contain these verses. Answer this before you start saying that people have added things to the Bible we have today...does this passage contradict anything in scripture? No! Is the subject, events, stories found in other parts of the Bible? Yes! The other Gospels contain accounts of the risen Lord, the Great Commission, and The Ascension. Need more proof?
Doubter's Question: Hasn't the Bible been copied and copied over and over again? How can we trust it to be accurate today?
Answers: Yes the Bible we have today is what it is, copies of copies of copies. I believe that the Word of God is inerrant in its "autographed" original copies. As mentioned above, most scholars will conclude that there are some minor textual problems with the copies we have today. Scholars like Ravi Zacharias, R.C. Sproul, Norman Geisler, and Bruce Metzger point out that no "error" contradicts any, yes ANY theology or doctrine! This shows the infallibilty of the Bible in that what we read today is still truth. Let's get back to the whole copying issue. The Bible has more copies than any other literary work ever. There are over 5,600 early copies and manuscripts of the Greek New Testament. When compared to Homer's Iliad there are only about 650 copies. Homer wrote the Iliad around 800 B.C. and the earliest copies we have date from the 2nd and 3rd century A.D. That's a long time. How come there isn't such a big stink over the copying of the Iliad? What's the earliest manuscript we have of the Bible? We have parts of John's Gospel that date from A.D. 100-150! This is not very long after the life of Christ! In addition to the Greek copies, there are about 8,000 Latin Vulgate translation, copies in Ethiopic, Slavic, and Armenian. The total amount of copies is about 24,000 in existence. This is overwhelming when you compare the Bible to other ancient writings. Since the Bible has more copies of copies than any other writing...what's the problem? If anything else this helps support the Bible's accuracy. For those who have made the claim that the Bible is inaccurate...please tell me which part. I'd be glad to discuss those parts here with you.
6 comments:
Greetings Bill,
You might want to investigate the background of Mark 16:9-20 a little more carefully before casually agreeing with the claim that the passage is a later addition to the New Testament.
It is true that two important Greek manuscripts lack Mark 16:9-20. But the earliest manuscripts are not always the earliest *evidence.* The two Greek mauscripts that do not have Mark 16:9-20 are Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, from the 300's. In the 100's, however, material from Mark 16:9-20 was used as Scripture by Justin Martyr (160), Tatian (172), and Irenaeus (184), and two other second-century texts ("Epistula Apostolorum" and "Acts of John") provide strong evidence that their authors were familiar with the passage.
If you have encountered commentaries that say something like, "Origen and Clement of ALexandria state that Mark ends at 16:8," or, "Eusebius and Jerome say that Mark 16:9-20 was lacking in all manuscripts known to them," then you are being seriously misled. Unfortunately such statements are common in commentaries.
A multi-part presentation about Mark 16:9-20 is online at www.curtisvillechristian.org/MarkOne.html . If you have further questions, feel free to contact me for more information about this passage and the evidence pertaining to it.
Yours in Christ,
James E. Snapp, Jr.
Minister, Curtisville Christian Church
Tipton, Indiana
Thanks for the post Bill,
My research is showing an alarming number of believers don't trust the Bible. I consider the move away from the primacy of Scripture as a crisis facing the western church. Numerous studies display that the number of believers regularly engaging with the Bible is small. At first I thought it was due to the busy life style, or the way the Bible was presented. Now I consider it to be about the lack of respect for the Bible. People simply either forget or don't realise that the Bible isn't about information, but transformation.
In the next month a major denomination in the UK is going to debate at their big national meeting whether copies of the Bible should be in church! The tag line from this reads: there are more Bibles in hotel rooms than churches!
And even Bill Hybels recently admitting they made a mistake in not encouraging self-feeders.. what he is pointing to is the move away from personal reading of the Bible; which I see all around the western church.
If we aren't immersed in the Bible - what is informing our world view?
Mark Brown
http://brownblog.info/
thanks for commenting guys! James - thanks for the correction...my main point was still that even though there might be discrepancy among that passage and others...they don't affect the Doctrine of Bible.
Mark- Welcome to my blog and you are right on with Bible reading being essential to our worldview
Bill: You have still failed to defend the Holy Trinity. All you have done is shift the discussion to the Bible, which individuals such as myself dismiss altogether. I also never mentioned the Bible in the post you are referring too.
Though as far as the Holy Bible goes, you don't know who wrote it and you don't know when (much like you don't know when Jesus was born and when he died... but he existed?). It is completely unreliable as a source of anything. And to say that we have to trust the Bible because is says so in the Bible (as it claims it is the word of God) is the very definition of blind faith in religion and the supernatural (it is also circular reasoning). Add to this the fact that the earliest books of the New Testament were written no less than 30-40 years after the supposed death of this Jesus figure you believe in, and we simply add more absurdity into the mix (it is not a contemporary source from the time of Jesus).
Quite simply, to an objective individual the Bible discredits itself and was certainly not inspired by a divine source, but by ignorant men with little knowledge of the natural world around them. And once you try to "prove" the Bible you are in trouble. You miss the point of having religious faith, as you are not supposed to prove it, because you aleady know it is unsubstantiated (so you should just say so when things like the Holy Trinity are challenged). And that is the problem.
Your whole "copying of the Bible" argument is way off base and a phony issue. And people do not complain about the Iliad being copied because it does not try to tell people how to live their lives or burn in hell. That is some benevolent god you have there.
Now please do not misunderstand, I am not trying to insult or attack you personally. This is simply how I like to exchange ideas. We must be very cutting in our discussions or nothing will be accomplished. I am not here to "persecute" you, but to show you why there are very serious challenges to your religious beliefs. I look forward to your response.
mark brown: Your personal opinion and experiences are huge factors in determining your worldview. Don't give the Bible undue credit. It is a poor source of anything, much less morality and a worldview (so you hate homosexuals because the Bible says so? And do not give me the "I hate the sin, not the sinner" copout). You can and should think on your own, with the best interests of humanity in mind. And as far as I am concerned, a book that damns a vast majority of humanity for being human does not do this.
AC - I apologize on my tardyness in responding as I have been extremely busy and sick lately. I posted about this topic in response to one of your commenters objections to biblical soundness in translation and preservation through the years. I know the Iliad isn't a controversial book as the Bible may be but I was simply comparing it to make my point.
I believe that the lack of trust in the bible stems from the fact that there is no corroborating historical evidence that Jesus actually existed outside of the gospels. Combine that with the history of immorality in the stewardship of the Roman Catholic Church and the immorality and ostentatious lifestyle of the evangelical preachers on television. Add in the idiotic assertion that Creationism is science and you create enough confusion for the average human mind to conclude that it is all BS.
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