The Word of God, the Bible, is true in all that it affirms in it's original text (the Autographa). The use of Textual Criticism has given the Christian Faith a trustworthy text, as trustworthy as the Autographa.

"The Bible is the watershed for evangelical Christianity...and is true in all that it affirms" - Francis Schaeffer

     From the time of the Cross there have been many who sought to subvert Christianity through liberal thought and teachings. Over the last fifty years the words of the Bible have been twisted to support many of Liberalism’s finest doctrines:

• That homosexuality is an alternate lifestyle;
• Man is not truly head of the household;
• Family values are of no importance;
• Marriage is an old fashioned premise;
• Other religions are just as valid for salvation as that which we find in Christ;
• Christ was only a good man;
• Evolutionary theory can be supported by the Genesis account;
• and on, and on.

     When Conservative Theologians, standing firm on the clear teachings of God's Word, refuted these teachings, Liberalism sought another way. And that way was to claim that God&'s Bible is no more than an ancient yet faulty text, no better than a sonnet by Shakespeare or a tale by Milton. While Liberals teach that scripture was perverted by man's hand, Conservatives strongly believe and teach that God the Holy Spirit transmitted this sacred text through man while retaining it's purity of source. I believe the Bible to be the inerrant Word of God, and believe that this claim can be substantiated in four different ways:

1. Through the internal evidence of scripture, what the Bible says about itself.

2. Through historical evidence, what the apostolic fathers and reformers said about the scripture.

3. Through the scientific process of Textual Criticism.

4. Through the logical use of our own minds to reach a sane conclusion. A blend of all these methods can be seen in the words of Theologian C.S. Lewis, who stated:

        "The scriptures cannot be legends. They are not good enough to be legends (no prose, no art in fact, no explanation of where God came from). If they are legends and not historical, then they are realistic prose fiction of a kind which actually never existed before the eighteenth century"..

     The Jewish Faith is built on the idea of total scriptural inerrancy. The Jews, believing themselves to be God's chosen people, felt that they had a duty to carry and transmit His Word with absolute purity. Jewish scribes went to extremes to maintain God's Bible. When a scripture was copied, the finished text was reviewed as much as a dozen times to insure it's exactness. If any error was encounter, the text wasn't erased: the whole document was burned, and the scribe started anew. The ancient historian Josephus said:

     "There are no discrepancies in the facts recorded. The prophets learned their message by reason of the inspiration which they received from God...they compiled accurately the history of their own times"..

     "You have carefully studied the sacred scriptures which are the true utterances of the Holy Ghost. You know that in them there hath not been written anything that is unrighteous or counterfeit" - Clement of Rome

     "The writers received from God the knowledge which they taught... men whose sole foundation was to present themselves pure to the energy of the Divine Spirit, in order that the Divine Plectrum itself, descending from heaven, and using righteous men as an instrument like a harp...might reveal the knowledge of things divine" - Justin Martyr

     "His members gave out the knowledge which they had received through the diction of the Head; whatsoever He willed us to read concerning His own words and acts, He bade them write, as though they were His very own words" - Augustine

     Additionally the Church Fathers Polycarp, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Crysostom, and Athanasius all believed and taught the inerrancy of scripture.

     "The scriptures have never erred, the scriptures cannot err... it is certain that scripture cannot disagree with itself" - Martin Luther

     When John Calvin admitted scriptural error, he called it "alleged", and attributed the alleged error to his own fallibility or to the neglect of the copyist. Calvin accepted the scriptures as inerrant in the original text, and believed that the Bible was dictated by God to man so that it might be recorded perfectly. (see Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.6.2N5; 1.7.1N1; 4.8.8N7; 4.8.9N9)

     "It is the only infallible rule of faith and practice." - Westminster Confession of Faith

     "It has God for it's Author, Salvation for it's end and truth, without any mixture of error for it's matter" - New Hampshire Confession of Faith

     It is evident even from a careless reading of the Gospels that our Lord regarded the scriptures as something more than man inspired.   Jesus referred to specific scriptures 33 times, and used Holy Scripture as His only defense against Satan (Matthew 4).   It's not surprising that Jesus would quote scripture, as he had a hand in it's writing as a member of the Godhead.   If Jesus were only a good man, then how is it that He quoted scripture that He knew to be fallible?   "Jesus quoted scripture because He believed in it's infallibility, and taught this doctrine to His disciples as well."

II Timothy 3:16 "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness"...

     "Inspiration of God", when translated literally from the original text, means "God Breathed". Scripture is the very breath of God, and all of it as is written in the Autographa is equally pure. Alford’s Greek New Testament states:

     "The meaning, unquestionable, both grammatically and textually [means] every scripture, i.e., every part of scripture"

     While liberal thought teaches that the Bible is inerrant only in matters pertaining to faith, the Bible itself recognizes it’s own sanctity. If this text (which concerns a matter of faith) is in error, then where are we to separate fact from fiction within scripture? Inerrancy is a whole or nothing proposition: "either the Bible is without error, or it is no more than an ancient fairy tale."

II Peter 1:21 "For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost"

I Thessalonians 2:13 "For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the Word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe"

     "Worketh" is in a Greek tense that denotes active habitual action, and can literally be translated "keeps on working in you". Scripture is not an ancient dead text, but a dynamic living Word that has the power to transform the lives of those who believe in it. There is no room for error in this type of living writing.

I Corinthians 14:37 "If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord"

     It would be so easy to discount that portion of scripture that offends, while accepting only the pleasing as inerrant. But one of the signs of a "maturing Christian" is the ability to accept all scriptural teaching as "God breathed", whether it's teachings suit your fancy or not. When Paul taught the doctrine of authority, and it’s relationship to women, do you accept this teaching as God breathed or is the teaching just an ancient prejudice? Do you accept God’s condemnation of homosexual behavior as a deviation from normal behavior, or were the Old Testament authors uninformed? If we portray a portion of Holy Scripture as errant, then by what basis do we proclaim other portions of the same inerrant?

Galatians 1:11-12 "But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man, for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ"

     "If you teach that errors exist in scripture, then can't we reasonably assume that the gospel of Salvation is equally suspect?" And if we pervert the gospel message with our own message of error, what hope do any of us have for salvation. I know in whom I have believed, because I accept the Bible as the pure and undefiled Word of God. Otherwise, I am without hope and totally undone.

Isaiah 46:9-11 "Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me. Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, my council shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth My council from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass: I have purposed it, I will also do it"

     "Liberalism disregards God’s sovereignty in the transmission of scripture". God is sovereign, as in complete control of all that He wills to do. If we can accept this as fact, then we can also accept the fact that God was able to control those whom He transmitted His Word through without making the prophets into puppets, and yet to still insure what He desired man to know was purely transmitted. In the Old Testament "Thus saith the Lord" occurs more than "2000 times" as a loud witness to the fact that this is indeed God’s Word we are blessed with.

     Over a period of some 1500 years God used over 40 authors, all with different personalities and languages (the original text is written in Hebrew, Chaldean, Assyrian, Greek, and Aramic. These authors wrote from three continents (Africa, Asia, and Europe), yet each book of the Bible historically and textually blends with the next, a monument to God’s architectural control of His Record.

     The uninformed liberal is fond of mentioning that we have none of the original Autographa today, and what we do have is obviously copies of copies and thus unreliable. By Textual Criticism we can easily disprove this assertion. Textual Criticism is a scientific method of re-creating the original text of ancient manuscripts by comparing existing copies. The more copies of the work we have, the more accurate our re-creation will be. The closer in time our copies are to the original, the more reliable our re-creation will be. Textual Criticism has been used for years to re-create ancient texts, yet no one has ever questioned these re-creations as mere fabrications. For instance, the following classical authors’ writings have been recreated using Textual Criticism (and with only a few existing scribal manuscripts):

• Plato, seven copies exist, earliest dated copy 1200 years from original mss
• Caesar (Gaelic Wars), ten copies exist, earliest dated copy 1000 years from original
• Aristotle, five copies exist, earliest dated copy 1400 years from original
• Aristophanes, ten copies exist, earliest dated copy 1200 years from original
• Sophocles, a hundred copies exist, earliest dated copy 1400 years from original

     The closest scribal copy (by years) is Caesar's, dated 1000 years from the original Autographa. The most scribal copies available to Textual Criticism for an extant Autographa is the works of Sophocles. Textual Criticism has taken these few copies, compared them, and reproduced classical works that are (by popular opinion) absolutely valid. Now let's look at what Textual Criticism had to work with , with our Bible:

• John Riley manuscripts date 100 years from the Autographa
• Papyri 2 manuscripts date 150 years from the Autographa
• Chester Beattie manuscripts date 135 years from the Autographa
• Vaticanus manuscripts date 220 years from the Autographa

     With assorted other manuscripts, available copies for Textual Criticism of the Bible are an astounding "5000 times" more accurate and more valid than any of the others!

     The reproduced Autographa of Scripture has a greater reliability than any of the classic ancient texts: by scholarly estimates, the Bible is 99% accurate to the Autographa, with the 1% textual uncertainty being excluded from any area concerning Christian faith and practice, or Biblical historicity. I believe that God in His sovereignty allowed the original texts to disappear, lest we worship them or enshrine them. But He left us a more than adequate replacement in the multitude of ancient manuscripts available today.

     The answer is simple: "from our own ignorance in good Bible exposition, and from our own faithlessness". When good Biblical exegesis done in good faith is practiced, the majority of these "errors" are shown to be in the interpretation, not in the text. Situations that lead to alleged discrepancies are:

1. "Different methods of recording time" - The Jews had two chronological dating systems, one sacred and one secular. Among early Latin Christians there were seven different methods of dating. The early Romans also had another method of dating, as did most early peoples. When you see two Biblical Authors use two different dates to describe the same event, then you are not witnessing a discrepancy. God always addresses the audience in a way that best gets the message across, so it’s not unusual that He would use a dating system peculiar to the early readers.

2. "The evolution of the thought and language of man" - As man ages on planet Earth, his language evolves. Terminology used yesterday is obsolete today. As before, God addressed the audience of that time in ways that best conveyed His message. There is no discrepancy here.

3. "Different standards of presentation" - Liberals make much of the fact that, for instance, the Gospels seem to disagree. One case in point is that the Beatitude account of Luke is not as complete as the same account written in Matthew. But we must understand that, again, God always addresses His early audiences in the best way possible. Luke was the Gospel to the Greek Christians, and contains exactly the message God wanted to convey. The same is true of Matthew, which was directed toward the Jewish Christians. God took into account the cultural bias of each group He addressed, and directed the Gospel written accordingly. The primary purpose of the Gospels was and is to present the Gospel message of salvation to a peculiar group of people.

4. "Changes of circumstance or situation" - As a situation or condition changes, God's attitude toward man may change. Following Creation, God looked at everything that was done as said that it was good. But when man fell into sin, God repented that He had made man, and washed the majority of evil off of the earth using the Flood. God didn't change, man changed for the worse, and forced God to act harshly in punishment and judgment.

5. "The recording of declarations made by historic features" - The Bible accurately records what early beings said, whether what the individual said was truthful or not. Where the Bible records God's spoken word, this word is always true. But where man or fallen angel speaks, the Bible records what they said accurately, though what they said may be inaccurate. Again, though the statements made may not be intrinsically true, the statement is inerrantly recorded verbatim as the speaker made it.

6. "The audience of the speaker and the direction of the teaching" - Just as with the Gospels, God the Holy Spirit often directed His words through human writers to different groups of people. Paul in writing the Romans noted that works without faith is dead, as the Romans had turned God's message of Grace in salvation into an exercise of the Law. Follow this code, follow that code, or you can't be saved. The Apostle John, on the other hand, wrote to a group of believers who were falling into Gnosticism; i.e., you can sin now that you're saved, for God will wipe it all our. John emphasized the message, "Faith without works is dead", not because salvation requires a code of ethics, but because the truly saved believer will produce the fruits of righteousness. Both authors taught the same thing, that a saved believer will automatically (under the power of God’s Holy Spirit) be changed into a new creature, where all things are new in his or her life. Faith saves, but saving Faith is evidenced by works.

7. "Oriental idioms are misunderstood" - The scripture tells us that God's power influences the four corners of the earth. Early believers and ancient man took this literally to mean that the earth was flat, and often executed or ridiculed scientists for seeking to prove the earth was round. We use a modification of this term today, the "four points of the compass", to denote all over the earth. Another traditional term, "rising of the sun", or "setting of the sun" doesn't denote that the author mean that the sun itself was moving. Actually, we still use the same terms today in sunrise and sunset, and we fully understand that the earth revolves around the sun. A good expositor recognizes the idioms for what they are, and never literalizes their meaning.

8. "Discrepancies in names of people or places" - In ancient times significance was always attached to a name. God changed Abram's name to Abraham when He recognized his great faith and made him the father of many nations. Sarai's name was changed to Sarah after she inherited the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant. It is always good to read and study the whole context of a scripture before crying discrepancy over a name change.

9. "Human error" - Human error by Biblical scholars is by far the greatest cause of all discrepancies. You need to remember to following things about studying scripture in context:

   • Though the context of a verse is often near the verse, at other times the context may be in the preceding or following chapters of that book, or within a series of Bible books. Often a topical Bible is a great study resource, as it shows all like occurrences of the topic you’re studying.

   • You may need to look up the original language meaning of the text you’re studying. Remember that our Bible was written in several other languages, and then translated into English for our reading pleasure. No matter how Godly or well intentioned the translator, they did make mistakes. Invest in a key-word study Bible that has an English/ Ancient text lexicon. You’ll be amazed at the clarity you add to your Bible study.

   • The context of a verse often can only be understood when you understand the historical background of the writing. You need to ask (and answer) questions like:
     To whom was the Bible book originally addressed to?
     What was their spiritual state at the time of the writing?
     What significant historical event caused God to write the message?

   • Verses are often misinterpreted when their context is merged with the context of other verses. You can take Scripture out of context and proved God to be a liar, Satan to be good, or man just misguided. Make sure you stay in the proper scriptural context.

   • "And this is a biggie": Verses are often misinterpreted because you want them the say something. In the Middle Ages many people supported the doctrine that the earth was flat because they thought the Bible taught this. When science taught that evolution was what brought life to man, many believers went to their Bibles and worked out a supporting doctrine because they wanted to defend God or their beliefs. God can defend Himself, and if you ground your belief in Him then you are protected as well. As Lord Kelvin once stated, “Physical science has nothing to say against the order of creation as given in Genesis.” Science theorizes, God’s Word knows. (By the way, In Genesis there is a note that says that the world is a "sphere" - Wow, the Bible was right again folks.)

     "The Bible is completely worthless to the Christian Church if it is filled with error or for that matter, even contains one!" We must know in whom we have believed, that He lived and died and rose again for our eternal salvation. If the Bible is erroneous then we can’t even say for certain that He lived, much less died for us. We don’t know that there’s a heaven other than that which we see reported of it in the Bible.

     I'll leave you with this final message from C.S. Lewis concerning satan and one of his tactics:

"You start arming against the devil when you know and recognize his works. He doesn't want you to believe in him. His first aim is to give you an anesthetic to put you off your guard. Only when this fails do you recognize him" - C.S. Lewis

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Last modified: 4/9/2007