It seems like today has boiled down to sad songs and personal attacks.
I do want to return to the issues surrounding the text of Scripture. The Bible is more sure than most folks know -- we are at a point where about 99% of the text is certain, with the remaining 1% that remains unsure being of no consequence to any doctrine of Christianity.
There is more manuscript evidence for the Bible than for ANY other book of antiquity, and more are being found all the time. Currently, there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 26,000 copies of the New Testament manuscripts out there -- and why is that important? Let's suppose that I asked 10 of you to retype one of my posts. I'd bet that almost all of the 10 would have errors. If we could compare them to the originals (which WE can do easily, seeing as how it is the here and now) we would be able to highlight the errors very quickly and restore the text.
In the case of the Bible (and other books of antiquity) we don't have the luxury of being able to compare to the actual original documents (called "autographs" versus the copies called "manuscripts"). That would seemingly create a problem, but an interesting thing happens when you begin comparing copies -- NO TWO HAVE IDENTICAL MISTAKES.
If, in our exercise, we had no remaining original document, we could still arrive at the original by comparing the 10, none of which are likely to have the exact same mistakes -- and even if a couple do have the same mistakes, not all of the 10 will. Arriving back at the original text would be relatively easy.
In the case of the New Testament, we have 26,000 copies with which to compare... Biblcal scholars (biblical textual criticism) have nailed down the content of the New Testament with some high assurance. What we have, in the original Greek language (the language of the NT writers) is certain almost to a letter.
So, what of the Old Testament? How can we be sure of its accuracy? Well, certain things have happened in history that have helped us to know that the OT is also accurate -- as accurate as the NT. First, is the way that the OT was transmitted (copied). The scribes that copied the OT were called (in Hebrew) "counters" for they litterally counted each letter on each page (they worked on scrolls, and though there were not "pages" as in a book, the text was still layed out in coloums, as if written on a page. They did not write from one end of a scroll to the other, then start over... :confused1 ). They also counted letters to the exact center letter of the text, which HAD to appear on in a certain place, every time -- exactly. The penalty for missing the mark the first time was to have the entire work thrown away, only to have to start all over from scratch. The penalty for the second time was death... I think it is safe to assume that the scribes that copied the text of the OT were accurate, but wait, there is more...
That, in and of itself is a very accurate way of transmitting text, but there were other correctives and things that they did, remember, the scribes worked to copy the thing they revered more than any other thing -- the Word of God, to them, the book of the Law, Prophets, Wisdom, and History. When they came to the name of God (YHWY translitterated into English, often pronounced "Yaweh" or sometimes "Jehovah" when the vowels for the word "adonai" (Lord) are combined with the consents YHWH, you get Jehovah) the scribes would stop, ritually purify themselves, put on a new robe, and take up a new pen, with a new pot of ink before they wrote the word. It was THAT important to them.
So, how do we know that we have an accurate transmission of the OT text? Well a couple key events have helped here. First, were the Masorites, who diligently worked to copy the OT books into a more modern form of Hebrew alphabet. It was they who added vowel pointing, etc. They were remarkably expert in the Hebrew language, and we today are very appreciative of their efforts. Better still, their work compares favorably to older copies of the OT that have been found in archeological digs, temples in and out of Israel, and the biggest factor of all, the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are the most ancient copies of the OT scriptures. What is cool is that even though the Dead Sea scrolls predate the next oldest manuscript of the OT by 1000 years --- THERE ARE NO CHANGES. When the scrolls were first discovered, there was a lot of speculation about how the church would react if the text of the OT was radically different. That proved to be of no consequence, for it was identical.
Added to all of this, the OT was also translated from the Masoretic Hebrew into Greek in 250 BC in Alexandria, Egypt -- for there was a large contingent of Greek-speaking Israelites living in Egypt at the time. This, once and for all, locked the canon (the word means "rule" or "measure") of the OT into place 250 years before the birth of Christ, which I mentioned above.
The text of Scripture is THE SINGLE MOST RELIABLE MANUSCRIPT of all antiquity -- it FAR OUTCLASSES all other books -- which means the works of Plato, Aristotle, The Illiad, the Oddesey, etc -- all of which have fewer than 100 copies extant (in existence) and all of which date to at least 500, if not 1000 years past the time of their actual writing. The NT dates to as little as 20 years past the time of the writing of certain books... Quite a difference in accuracy, reliability, and transmission, I'd say.
The Bible is trustworthy and accurate in the original languages, but what of all the other translations -- English, Spanish, French, Chinese, etc., etc., etc. (The BIble has been translated and is continually being translated into virtually every language and dialect on earth!) Well, translations are just that -- the transposing from one language to another so that a particular people group can read in their own language or dialect. No translation is perfect, but the translators, like those that worked to copy the original language manuscripts take their task seriously -- taking liberties with the Word of God is just something not done.
Yes, some splinter groups that claim the name of Christ have indeed messed with the Bible (Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and some who go under the name "liberal" Christian) but everyone knows what they have done -- it is no big secret in the field of biblical study. For the most part, however, the translators of Scripture have taken every pain to be as accurate as is humanly possible, with serious oversight into the editing and translating process by boards of scholars to insure that the text has been transmitted accurately.
Why so many? Well, simply, becasue there are a lot of ways that people talk, and there are also a lot of ways that people think. One Bible, the NIV (New International Version) for instance, is a "thought-by-thought" translation. The idea behind this is that the key words and phrases from the orignal Greek are thoughts, and it would be best for the modern reader to also have the Bible that repeats the thoughts of the writers, instead of just their words. The NAS (New American Standard) on the other hand, is a literal word-by-word translation, which means that it, as accurately as scholars know how to do, translates each word of the Greek into English. A new version, the HCSB (Holman Christian Standard Bible) bridges the gap between the NIV and the NAS, with word-by-word translation for the most part, but also using thought-by-thought when needed to make a passage clear to the reader -- that is my preferred version -- it is THE most accurate Bible in English of all time (based on the best and earliest manuscripts) and the scholars that did the project were second to none.
What about the good old King James Version? Well, the original was translated in 1611 AD, and it is now SO archaic that it is virtually impossible to read unless one is a student of Old English. It too has been "updated" (as have most English translations) and the current version dates to the late 1800's -- still archaic English language usage compared to what wa are using today. Is it a "bad Bible?" Certainly not... Any Bible is a good Bible, and the BEST Bible is the one someone actually reads and understands.
This BREIF history of the Bible transmission should allay a few fears that the Word of God has been tampered with over the years -- IT HAS NOT, and scholars such as myself -- and those FAR more adept than I -- can EASILY go and READ MORE ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS to see if there are differences. There are none.
That will make my day complete. :jester:
