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Bible Study Resource 2a. Important Doctrines on the Bible 1b. The Inspiration of the Bible 1c. Three Views on Inspiration
The Bible is inspired literature in the same way the works of Shakespeare are "inspired." The Bible is like any ordinary book written by man, and subjected to humanistic methods of study, analysis or interpretation. John D Crossan of the so-called Jesus Seminar says the Bible is "a mixture of myth, propaganda, and social convention." To such, the Bible is seen as a glorified Aesop”s Fables.
The Bible is inspired only when it touches on matters of faith and salvation, but in the areas of science, history or geography, it can make mistakes. This is the position adopted by schools such as Fuller Theological Seminary. David Hubbard—former president of Fuller—said, "Where inerrancy refers to what the Holy Spirit is saying to the churches through the biblical writers, we support its use. Where the focus switches to an undue emphasis on matters like chronological details, the precise sequence of events, and numerical allusions, we would consider the term misleading and inappropriate" ("What We Believe and Teach," Fuller Theological Seminary, 1983).
The Bible in its 66 books is the divinely inspired Word of God, absolutely without error in whole and in part. The Constitution of the Life Bible-Presbyterian Church states, "We believe in the divine, verbal and plenary inspiration of the Scriptures in the original languages, their consequent inerrancy and infallibility, and, as the Word of God, the Supreme and final authority in faith and life." 2c. Doctrine of Biblical Inspiration in 2 Tim 3:16
The word "inspired" is the Greek theopneustos which literally means "God breathed." It is thus not "manspiration," but "Godspiration." God used human writers to pen His words. These men were specially chosen by God, and perfectly guided by the Spirit to put on paper the very words of God, and to do so without any error (2 Pet 1:21).
1e. Verbal Inspiration: Every word of the Bible is inspired (Matt 5:18). 2e. Plenary Inspiration: The Bible as a whole is inspired (2 Tim 3:16).
"The Bible is none other than the voice of Him that sitteth upon the throne. Every book of it, every chapter of it, every verse of it, every syllable of it, every letter of it, is direct utterance of the Most High. The Bible is none other than the Word of God, not some part of it more, some part of it less, but all alike the utterance of Him that sitteth upon the throne, faultless, unerring, supreme." 3c. Inspiration and Translation (taken from D A Waite, "The Meaning of Biblical Inspiration," pamphet #2237T [Collingswood NJ: The Bible for Today, nd].)
"Does God ‘breathe out” the words in the Spanish translation? Does He ‘breathe out” the words in the French, or Russian, or English, or Japanese, or Italian, or Chinese? No, He does not. Strictly speaking, the words of the translations are not ‘breathed out” or ‘inspired,” but ‘translated” words. God spoke in Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek words. God ‘breathed out” these Words in Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek. So, strictly speaking, the only Words that were ‘breathed out” or ‘inspired words” were the Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek Words God gave to the writers."
"We have the Words of God in English, or in Spanish, or in Italian, or in Portuguese, or in Russian, etc. This is true only in accurate translations like the King James Bible in the English language. "God gave us His Words by a process of inspiration which will never again be repeated. God wants His Inspired Words of Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek to be accurately translated into all the languages of the world (Rom 16:26, Acts 2:11). God expects us to find the most accurate Bible in our own language (In English, it is the King James Bible), and then read it, study it, preach from it, memorize it, live by it, and practice it the rest of our lives!" 4c. Recommended Reading: Edward F Hills, Believing Bible Study (Des Moines IA: The Christian Research Press, 1977), 1-53. 2b. The Canonicity of the Bible 1c. Meaning of Canon The word "canon" literally means "a straight rod," or "a ruler." When applied to the Scriptures, it means the list of divinely inspired books—the Word of God—which serves as the only basis for faith and practice in the life of the Church. 2c. Identification of the Canon 1d. At Pentecost, God did not present the whole Bible to the Church neatly wrapped with a ribbon. The canon of the OT was already confirmed (cf Luke 24:44, Luke 11:49-51), but not so for the NT. The books of the NT were written one at a time during the course of the first century. Many other books were written at that time. Which were the canonical books? 2d. The canon was arrived at by consensus of God”s people who were indwelt and led by the Holy Spirit (John 16:13). The Council of Carthage (397) after a period of discussion, identified the sacred books by name. There were exactly 27 of them. The list presented was no innovation, but an official statement of what the Church had already accepted as canonical Scripture. It was a grassroot acceptance of the many churches that have been planted worldwide, and not just by a single church or denomination. There was an ecclesiastical consensus. The Westminster Confession states: "We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture. And the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man”s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God: yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts" (I.V) 3c. Books of the Canon The Canon thus consists of a total of 66 books as stated in the Westminster Confession: "Under the name of Holy Scripture, or the Word of God written, are now contained all the books of the Old and New Testaments, which are these: OF THE OLD TESTAMENT—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Songs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi; OF THE NEW TESTAMENT—The Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John; The Acts of the Apostles, Paul”s Epistles: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, The Epistle to the Hebrews, The Epistle of James, The First and Second Epistles of Peter, The First, Second, Third Epistles of John, The Epistle of Jude, The Revelation of John. All which are given by inspiration of God, to be the rule of faith and life" (I.II). 3b. The Transmission of the Bible We have today the 39 books of the OT and 27 books of the NT. The Church accepts them as the inerrant and authoritative Word of God. The question is: Do we have the right text of those books since we do not have the autographs (ie the original books)? The answer is a definite yes. 1c. Transmission of the OT
The OT was written over a period of 1500 years. The Lord used specially appointed people (eg Moses, David, Solomon, and the prophets) to write the OT Scriptures. The Lord by His Spirit inspired these men to pen his words infallibly and inerrantly. The OT was faithfully transmitted and preserved till the time of Jesus. Rom 3:1-2 tells us that to the Jews were entrusted the safekeeping and guarding of the Hebrew OT. Just how did the Jews safeguard the Scriptures to ensure that there would be no or minimal copying errors in the OT Scriptures? There were 8 rules applied by the scribes in copying the Scriptures: 1e. Preparation of a clean parchment taken only from the skin of clean animals. 2e. Each column consists of at least 48 lines, and contains no more than 60 lines. Lines must be drawn before any copying is done. 3e. The ink used must always be black, and is prepared according to a special recipe. 4e. The scribe is not allowed to write from memory. He must have an authentic copy before him. Before writing, he must first read and pronounce aloud each word. This is to prevent any duplications, or omissions of words. 5e. Whenever he has to write God”s name (ie, Elohim), he must first clean his pen. But before writing the name "Jehovah" (KJV "LORD"), he will have to wash his whole body. This is the kind of carefulness and reverence shown to God”s Word. 6e. Strict rules govern the forms of the letters, spaces between letters, words, and sections, the use of the pen, and the colour of the parchment etc. 7e. If there is a need to correct the manuscript, it must be made within 30 days after the work is finished; otherwise the manuscript would be considered worthless. One mistake on a page condemned the whole page, and if there are three mistakes in any page, the entire manuscript is destroyed. 8e. The proofreading involves the laborious process of counting every word and every letter in the manuscript to ensure that it matches with the original. If there is an omission or addition of just one letter, or if one letter touched another, the manuscript was condemned and destroyed at once. (H S Miller cited by D A Waite, Defending the King James Bible, 24-6.)
1e. Miller said that the above historic rules of OT transmission "show how sacred the Holy Word of the Old Testament was to its custodians, the Jews (Rom 3:2), and they give us strong encouragement to believe that we have the real Old Testament, the same one which our Lord had and which was originally given by inspiration of God" (Ibid, 26). 2e. Dr Robert Dick Wilson, co-defender of the faith with J Gresham Machen at Princeton Seminary in the 1920”s, and proficient in over 40 languages, wrote: "In 144 cases of transliteration from Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian and Moabite into Hebrew and in 40 cases of the opposite, or 184 in all, the evidence shows that for 2300 to 3900 years the text of the proper names in the Hebrew Bible has been transmitted with the most minute accuracy. That the original scribes should have written them with such close conformity to correct philological principles is a wonderful proof of their thorough care and scholarship; further, that the Hebrew text should have been transmitted by copyists through so many centuries is a phenomenon unequaled in the history of literature. . . . The proof that the copies of the original documents have been handed down with substantial correctness for more than 2,000 years cannot be denied" (A Scientific Investigation of the Old Testament [Chicago IL: Moody Press, 1959], 70-1). 2c. Transmission of the NT
The period of transmission covers 1400 years from the time of composition (1st century) to the invention of the printing machine (15th century). The history is divided into 3 periods: (1) Papyrus period (1st -4th century), (2) Uncial period (4th-9th century), and (3) Minuscule period (9th-15th century).
Papyrus manuscripts are continuing to come to light. A very important one just discovered is the Papyrus "Magdalen GR 17" which we will discuss later. There are a total of 97 papyri according to the 4th edition of the UBSGNT. Papyrus is found in Egypt, and is still being produced today more for tourists than for copyists. (I encourage you to go take a look at the few printed papyri in our Greek/Hebrew classroom.) It comes from a large water plant by that name. The soft tissue-strips within the stem are used to make papyrus sheets. A papyrus sheet has 2 layers consisting of the horizontal and vertical strips. Writing is done on the smoother side where the grain is horizontal. What is the length of a papyrus scroll? 2 and 3 John (13 and 14 verses respectively) would cover 1 column of 1 page of a papyrus (usually 1 page has 2 columns). Jude and Philemon would have taken 2 columns on a sheet. Revelation would have taken a scroll 15 feet long, Mark 19 feet, John 23 feet, Matthew 30 feet, Acts and Luke 32 feet. It is impossible on papyrus to have a complete scroll of the NT. It would take a 200 feet scroll to contain the whole NT. The papyrus scrolls are therefore circulated separately. This tells us 3 things: (1) the ignorance of a particular book does not mean it does not exist, (2) the scroll form makes it difficult to look up references, and (3) the scarcity of copies and difficulty in referring to specific passages, encouraged people to memorise the Scriptures. Besides scroll-type papyrus manuscripts, there are also codices. These are book-type papyrus manuscripts. The sheets are stacked together and sewn at the age. This form existed from the 3rd century onwards. Some suggest that Christians were the ones who invented the codex form. Obviously, this form allows for frequent reading and easier referencing of the Scriptures.
Uncial manuscripts are Greek manuscripts written in capital letters on vellum or parchment (ie leather usually calf-skin). There are about 300 extant uncial manuscripts; the more well-known ones are these:
Discovered by Tischendorf in St Catherine”s monastery in 1844. There are 4 columns per page. Contains the complete NT and has much of the OT in Greek. Dated to about 350 AD (determined by the style of writing).
Stored in the British Museum. Dated to about 400-450 AD. It is the longest and best known uncial manuscript. Contains the whole NT except for most of Matthew and some parts of John and 2 Corinthians. There are 2 columns per page. The gospels have the Byzantine text-type reading, while the others correspond to the Alexandrian text-type.
Kept in the Vatican library. It was found in 1481. Dated to about 350 AD. There are 3 columns per page. Contains both OT and NT, and Apocrypha. But almost the whole of Genesis, and the Pastoral Epistles, and Revelation are missing.
"Rescriptus" means "to write again." Parchments were expensive, so people in those days recycled used parchments and wrote on top of the erased face. C was a biblical manuscript which had been erased and Ephraem—a 4th century Church Father—wrote a sermon on the recycled parchment (or palimpsest). Contains parts of the NT except 2 Thessalonians and 2 John which are missing. Dated to about 450 AD.
Located in the Cambridge University Library. Dated to the 6th century. Contains the Gospels and Acts in Greek and Latin.
The minuscules appeared a little later than the uncials. A demand for books saw a change in writing styles. Minuscule or cursive writing was a lot faster than uncial writing. The letters are smaller, and in formal running hand. Over 90% of the 5,000 extant Greek texts are from Byzantine Text type. And out of a total of about 2,800 minuscules, 99% belong to the Byzantine text-type which underlies the KJV.
Since there were no printing or photostating machines in those early days, the production of copies of the NT manuscripts was done painstakingly by hand, word for word. This tedious process would invariably result in some copying errors experienced even today by typists on electronic typewriters or computers. Many errors are accidental but there are those that are intentional. The common types of copyist errors in the transmission of the Greek NT are as follows:
This can easily occur because some manuscripts do not leave spaces between words. How would you divide this string of letters?
This can happen especially when words are all in the capital letters. Eg: P and TI, M and LL.
This is an error when the scribe”s eye skips over words or sentences to the next similar word or sentence. 4f. A word which occurs once but is copied twice, or a word which occurs twice but is written only once.
This occurs during dictation. A wrong pronunciation of a word by the reader can lead to the writing of the wrong word by the scribe or copier.
This occurs when the scribe, having memorised a portion of scripture, fails to remember accurately the verse or passage when putting it on paper.
Words or notes written on the margin of an older manuscript were sometimes accidentally incorporated into the text of a new manuscript. Abbreviations can also be mistaken for something else. Eg: THE (GOD) and OE (HE WHO). It is likely that the change 1 Tim 3:16 from "God" (TR/KJV) to "He" (WH/NIV) was an intentional one to obfuscate the deity of Christ. 4b. The Preservation of the Bible 1c. Psalm 12:6-7 on Bible Preservation 1d. Ps 12:6-7 says, "The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever." Other passages are Pss 33:11, 100:5, 111:7-8, 117:2, 119:89,152,160; Isa 40:8, 59:21 (John Owen called this verse "the great charter of the church”s preservation of truth"); Matt 5:18, 24:35; 1 Pet 1:23,25; Rev 22:18-19.
1e. Shamar means "to keep," "to guard," or "to observe." The basic idea is "to exercise great care over" (TWOT sv "shmr" by J E Hartley). It is used 461 times in the OT, and most of the time with reference to paying careful attention to the Word of God. In Ps 12:7, it has to do with the safeguarding of the purity of God”s Word. God ensures the protection of His Word from perversion. 2e. Natsar, a synonym for the above, means "to watch," "to guard," "to keep," "to preserve." It is used about 60 times in the OT, and when used in connection to God”s Word, it has the concept of "guarding with fidelity" (TWOT, sv "ntsr," by W C Kaiser). The faithfulness of God in guarding His Word from corruption is the intrinsic idea of the word here in Ps 12:7.
D A Waite comments, "The word ‘them” in verse seven refers back to ‘the words of the LORD.” That is a promise of Bible preservation. God has promised to ‘PRESERVE” His ‘PURE WORDS.” This promise extends "from this generation [that is, that of the Psalmist] FOR EVER." That is a long time, is it not? God is able to do this, and He has done it! He has kept His Words even more perfectly, if that is possible, than He keeps the stars in their course and the sun, moon, and all the other heavenly bodies in their proper place" (Defending the King James Bible: A Fourfold Superiority [Collingswood NJ: The Bible For Today, 1992], 6-7). 2c. Westminster Confession on Bible Preservation "The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which, at the time of the writing of it, was most generally known to the nations), being immediately inspired by God, and by His singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical; so as, in all controversies of religion, the Church is finally to appeal unto them" (I.VIIIa). 3c. Dean Burgon Society on Bible Preservation "We believe that the Texts which are closest to the original autographs of the Bible are the Traditional Masoretic Hebrew Text for the Old Testament, and the Traditional Greek Text for the New Testament underlying the King James Version (as found in "The Greek Text Underlying the English Authorized Version of 1611" as published by The Trinitarian Bible Society in 1976). "We believe that the King James Version (or Authorized Version) of the English Bible is a true, faithful, accurate translation of these two providentially preserved Texts, which in our time has no equal among all of the other English Translations. The translators did such a fine job in their translation task that we can without apology hold up the Authorized Version of 1611 and say ‘This is the Word of God!” while at the same time realizing that, in some verses, we must go back to the underlying original language Texts for complete clarity, and also compare Scripture with Scripture" (Articles of Faith, II.A). 4c. Significant Remarks on Bible Preservation by Scholars
1e. "If the doctrine of divine inspiration of the Old and New Testament Scriptures is a true doctrine, the doctrine of the providential preservation of these Scriptures must also be a true doctrine. It must be that down through the centuries God has exercised a special, providential control over the copying of the Scriptures and the preservation and use of the original text have been available to God”s people in every age. God must have done this, for if He gave the Scriptures to His Church by inspiration as the perfect and final revelation of his will, then it is obvious that He would not allow this revelation to disappear or undergo any alteration of its fundamental character" ". . . if the doctrines of the divine inspiration and providential preservation of these Scriptures are true doctrines, then the textual criticism of the New Testament is different from that of the uninspired writings of antiquity. The textual criticism of any book must take into account the conditions under which the original manuscripts were written and also under which the copies of these manuscripts were made and preserved. But if the doctrines of the divine inspiration and providential preservation of the Scriptures are true, then THE ORIGINAL NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS WERE WRITTEN UNDER SPECIAL CONDITIONS, UNDER THE INSPIRATION OF GOD, AND THE COPIES WERE MADE AND PRESERVED UNDER SPECIAL CONDITIONS, UNDER THE SINGULAR CARE AND PROVIDENCE OF GOD" (The King James Version Defended [Des Moines IA: The Christian Research Press, 1984], 2). 2e. "If we ignore the providential preservation of the Scriptures and defend the New Testament text in the same way that we defend the texts of other ancient books, then we are following the logic of unbelief. For the special, providential preservation of the holy Scriptures is a fact and an important fact. Hence when we ignore this fact and deal with the text of the New Testament as we would with the text of other books, we are behaving as unbelievers behave. We are either denying that the providential preservation of the Scriptures is a fact, or else we are saying that it is not an important fact, not important enough to be considered when dealing with the New Testament text. But if the providential preservation of the Scriptures is not important, why is the infallible inspiration of the original Scriptures important? If God has not preserved the Scriptures by His special providence, why would He have infallibly inspired them in the first place? And if the Scriptures are not infallibly inspired , how do we know that the Gospel message is true? And if the Gospel message is not true, how do we know that Jesus is the Son of God? . . "It is a dangerous error therefore to ignore the special, providential preservation of the holy Scriptures and to seek to defend the New Testament text in the same way in which we would defend the texts of other ancient books. For the logic of this unbelieving attitude is likely to lay hold upon us and cast us down into a bottomless pit of uncertainty. . . . "The Bible teaches us that faith is the foundation of reason. Through faith we understand (Heb. 11:3). By faith we lay hold on God as He reveals Himself in the holy Scriptures and make Him the starting point of all our thinking. . . . "Like the Protestant Reformers therefore we must take God as the starting point of all our thinking. We must begin with God. Very few Christians, however, do this consistently. For example, even when a group of conservative Christian scholars meet for the purpose of defending the Textus Receptus and the King James Version, you will find that some of them want to do this in a rationalistic, naturalistic way. Instead of beginning with God, they wish to begin with facts viewed apart from God, with details concerning the New Testament manuscripts which must be regarded as true (so they think) no matter whether God exists or not. . . . "Conservative scholars . . . say that they believe in the special, providential preservation of the New Testament text. Most of them really don”t though, because, as soon as they say this, they immediately reduce this special providential preservation to the vanishing point in order to make room for the naturalistic theories of Westcott and Hort. As we have seen, some say that the providential preservation of the New Testament means merely that the same "substance of doctrine" is found in all the New Testament documents. Others say that it means that the true reading is always present in at least one of the thousands of extant New Testament manuscripts. And still other scholars say that to them the special, providential preservation of the Scriptures means that the true New Testament text was providentially discovered in the mid-19th century by Tischendorf, Tregelles, and Westcott and Hort after having been lost for 1,500 years. "If you adopt one of these false views of the providential preservation of Scriptures, then you are logically on your way toward the denial of the infallible inspiration of the Scriptures. For if God has preserved the Scriptures so carelessly, why would he have infallibly inspired them in the first place? It is not sufficient therefore merely to say that you believe in the doctrine of the special, providential preservation of holy Scriptures. You must really believe this doctrine and allow it to guide your thinking. You must begin with Christ and the Gospel and proceed according to the logic of faith. This will lead you to the Traditional text, the Textus Receptus, and the King James Version, in other words, to the common faith" (Believing Bible Study, 216-20).
Dr Whitaker who was Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge in the 16th century affirmed the doctrine of the providential preservation of Scripture: "If God had permitted the scripture to perish in the Hebrew and Greek originals, in which it was first published by men divinely inspired, he would not have provided sufficiently for his church and for our faith. From the prophetic and apostolic scripture the church takes its origin and the faith derives its source . . . We must hold, therefore, that we have now those very ancient scriptures which Moses and the other prophets published, although we have not, perhaps, precisely the same forms and shapes of the letters" (taken from Douglas W Taylor, "Pure Words, Preserved Words: The Doctrine of Providential Preservation," Australian Beacon [July 1995]: 3).
Burgon a graduate of Oxford and dean of Chichester whom we quoted above on Bible inspiration has this to say about preservation: "If you and I believe that the original writings of the Scriptures were verbally inspired by God, then of necessity they must have been providentially preserved through the ages" (taken from Jack Moorman, Modern Bibles—the Dark Secret [Los Osos CA: Fundamental Evangelistic Association, nd], 41). 5c. Arguments for Preservation
We know that the OT was providentially preserved down through the ages because Jesus Himself said so. We can infer from Jesus” words in Matt 5:18 that every jot and tittle of the OT up till His time was faithfully transmitted and preserved without error. He considered the 39 OT books He had, comprising the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings, to be the inspired Word of God (Matt 4:4, Luke 24:27, 24:44).
"During His earthly life the Lord Jesus Christ appealed unreservedly to the very words of the Old Testament text (Matt 22:42-45; John 10:34-36), thus indicating His confidence that this text had been accurately transmitted. . . . [In Matt 5:18, and Luke 16:17] our Lord assures us that the Old Testament text in common use among the Jews during His earthly ministry was an absolutely trustworthy reproduction of the original text written by Moses and the other inspired authors. Nothing had been lost from that text. . . . "Moreover, our Saviour”s statements are also promises that the providential preservation of the Old Testament text shall never cease or fail. That same Old Testament text which was preserved in its purity during the Old Testament dispensation shall continue to be faithfully preserved during the New Testament dispensation until this present world is brought to an end . . . The true Old Testament text shall be preserved in the Church till all be fulfilled. So our Lord has promised, and today the Holy Spirit gives to all true believers the assurance that their Saviour has kept and will keep His promise. As the believer reads the extant text of the Old Testament Scriptures, the Holy Spirit prepares his heart to receive its message with confidence and to recognize with gladness that the Old Testament as it exists today is a trustworthy reproduction of the Old Testament text that was first written down by inspired authors and then used by Jesus in the days of His earthly ministry" (Believing Bible Study, 6-7).
"The results of those 30 years” study which I have given to the text has been this: I can affirm that there”s not a page of the Old Testament in which we need have any doubt. We can be absolutely certain that substantially we have the text of the Old Testament that Christ and the Apostles had and which was in existence from the beginning" (Which Bible?, 1st ed, 80-1, cited by Waite, Defending the King James Bible, 35).
Dean J W Burgon wrote of the preservation of the NT through the multitude of manuscript copies: "The provision, then which the Divine Author of Scripture is found to have made for the preservation of His written Word, is of a peculiarly varied and highly complex description, First—By causing that a vast multiplication of Copies should be required all down the ages,—beginning at the earliest period, and continuing in an ever-increasing ratio until the actual invention of Printing,—He provided the most effectual security imaginable against fraud. True, that millions of the copies so produced have long since perished; but it is nevertheless a plain fact that there survive of the Gospels alone upwards of one thousand copies in the present day" (Revision Revised [Collingswood NJ: Dean Burgon Society Press, nd], 8-9).
John Lea compared the Bible with Shakespeare”s writings, and had this to say, "It seems strange that the text of Shakespeare, which has been in existence less than two hundred and eight years, should be far more uncertain and corrupt than that of the New Testament, now over eighteen centuries old, during nearly fifteen of which it existed only in manuscript. . . . With perhaps a dozen or twenty exceptions, the text of every verse in the New Testament may be said to be so far settled by general consent of scholars, that any dispute as to its readings must relate rather to the interpretation of the words than to any doubts respecting the words themselves. But in every one of Shakespeare”s thirty-seven plays there are probably a hundred readings still in dispute, a large portion of which materially affects the meaning of the passages in which they occur" (taken from Josh McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict [San Bernadino CA: Campus Crusade for Christ, ], 19-20). 6c. The Textus Receptus and Bible Preservation
"The defense of the Textus Receptus, therefore, is a necessary part of the defense of Protestantism. It is entailed by the logic of faith, the basic steps of which are as follows: 1e. "First, the Old Testament text was preserved by the Old Testament priesthood and the scribes and scholars that grouped themselves around that priesthood (Deut. 31:24-26). 2e. "Second, the New Testament text has been preserved by the universal priesthood of believers, by faithful Christians in every walk of life (1 Peter 2:9). 3e. "Third, the Traditional Text, found in the vast majority of the Greek New Testament manuscripts, is the True Text because it represents the God-guided usage of this universal priesthood of believers. 4e. "Fourth, the first printed text of the Greek New Testament was not a blunder or a set-back but a forward step in the providential preservation of the New Testament. Hence the few significant departures of that text from the Traditional Text are only God”s providential corrections of the Traditional Text in those few places in which such corrections were needed. 5e. "Fifth, through the usage of Bible-believing Protestants God placed the stamp of His approval on this printed text, and it became the Textus Receptus (Received Text)" (Hills, King James Version Defended, 193).
"Hence, as orthodox Protestant Christians, we believe that the formation of the Textus Receptus was guided by the special providence of God. There were three ways in which the editors of the Textus Receptus, Erasmus, Stephanas, Beza, and the Elzevirs, were providentially guided. 1e. "In the first place, they were guided by the manuscripts which God in His providence had made available to them. 2e. "In the second place, they were guided by the providential circumstances in which they found themselves. 3e. "Then in the third place, and most of all they were guided by the common faith. Long before the Protestant Reformation, the God-guided usage of the Church had produced throughout Western Christendom a common faith concerning the New Testament text, namely, a general belief that the currently received New Testament text, primarily the Greek text and secondarily the Latin text, was the True New Testament Text which had been preserved by God”s special providence. It was this common faith that guided Erasmus and the other early editors of the Textus Receptus" (Ibid.) 7c. Recommended Reading: Edward F Hills, The King James Version Defended (Des Moines IA: The Christian Research Press, 1984), 90-111; Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible and Christianity, sv "Preservation—Bible." 5b. The Translation of the Bible 1c. Westminster Confession on Translation God originally gave the Old Testament in Hebrew/Aramaic, and the New Testament in Greek. "But because these original tongues are not known to all the people of God, who have right unto, and interest in the Scriptures, and are commanded, in the fear of God, to read and search them, therefore they are to be translated into the vulgar (ie "common," or "vernacular") language of every nation unto which they come, that, the Word of God dwelling plentifully in all, they may worship Him in an acceptable manner; and, through patience and comfort of Scriptures, may have hope" (I.VIIIb). 2c. The Bible in World Languages The Almanac of the Christian World (1991-2 ed) has the following Bible translation statistics: (1) Bible Portions: 899 languages, (2) Testaments: 715, and (3) Complete Bibles: 314. We thank the Lord for the translation of His Word into so many languages of the world. This is surely in partial fulfillment of Christ”s Great Commission to His Church in Matt 28:18-20. However, the Church must be concerned not just in the quantity of translations but also in the quality of translation. The quality of translation has to do with translational methodology. 3c. Methods of Translation
This is the literal approach which translates the words of the original language into the equivalent words of the receptor language. It is a word-for-word translation. The Scripture itself employs this method of translation. Matt 1:23 translates the Hebrew Immanu El in Isa 7:14 as Meth” hemon ho theos, literally, "God with us." Another example is Ps 22:1 'lv 'lv lmh 'zbtnv (transliterated "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani" in Matt 27:46) which is translated by Matthew as Thee mou thee mou, hinati me egkatelipes, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" The formal equivalence method of translation is the only acceptable method of translation for the Holy Scriptures because of the Scripture”s verbally inspired nature. Since every word of the Bible is inspired of God, it goes without saying that a translation of His Word must be done as literally as possible, reproducing accurately in the receptor language what is written in the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts. The operating principle of this method of translation is "as literal as possible, as free as necessary." In other words, it is not an interlinear or woodenly literal approach. This philosophy of translation has been the standard for most Bible translators throughout the centuries. But today, we are introduced to a new approach called the dynamic equivalence method.
G W and D E Anderson—editorial consultants of the Trinitarian Bible Society—commented, "In recent years, however, there has arisen a group of scholars who no longer believe in the importance, and often the inerrancy and inspiration, of the individual words of Scripture. These men believe instead that it is the thoughts or the truth behind the words that is important. . . . This view is called the dynamic view of Scripture; transferred into the realm of translation, this is referred to as dynamic equivalence. The aim in dynamic equivalence translation is not word-for-word accuracy, but thought-for-thought equivalence." The dynamic approach is thus not really Bible translation, but Bible interpretation. The meaning of the text is no longer solely dependent on the original text itself, it is now also made dependent on the thinking of the translator. In dynamic equivalency, it is "the translator”s job is to create a lively Bible by his clever rephrasing of Scripture into colloquial language. ‘Equivalency no longer means that the translator strives as perfectly as possible for an equal transfer of the words and structure of the original. Rather, the emphasis is on a general equivalency, with the translator having great freedom to restate, change, add to, and take away from the original writings" (David W Cloud, Dynamic Equivalency: Death Knell of Pure Scripture [Oak Harbor WA: Way of Life Literature, nd], 4). How does the dynamic equivalence method work? A revealing example may be found in the Good News For Modern Man or the Today”s English Version (1966): By using the dynamic equivalence method, the TEV leaves out the word ‘blood” (Gk: haima) in no less than 10 places when it refers to the blood of Christ (Acts 20:28; Rom 3:25, 5:9; Eph 1:7, 2:13; Col 1:14, 20; 1 Pet 1:19; Rev 1:5, 5:9). In the name of dynamic equivalence, they have changed what is specifically and literally "blood" to "death," or some other word. 1 Peter 1:18-19 reads: "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." It is important for us to understand that we are not simply saved by the death of Christ, but the death of Christ which involves the shedding of His precious blood. If Jesus had died by drowning or strangulation, His death would be of no value. The blood is a very important element in the doctrine of the atonement. "There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel”s veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains." By removing the word "blood" in those places, the TEV has effectively taken away the significance of the blood of Christ for our salvation. 4c. William Tyndale on Accurate Translating "I call God to record against the day we shall appear before our Lord Jesus, to give a reckoning of our doings, that I never altered one syllable of God”s Word against my conscience, nor would this day, if all that is in the earth, whether it be pleasure, honour, or riches, might be given me." |