Is the Bible Reliable? Part 2

II Timothy 3:14-17

June 5-6, 2004

We’re looking into rumors.

Last week we investigated allegations that the Bible was put together as part of a back-room deal, brokered among ambitious bishops who included only those books which they thought would make them more powerful. We looked at the version of that rumor that’s included in the popular novel, The DaVinci Code. Then we traced the process of how the Bible really came together.

In the weeks ahead we’ll hit on other hot topics. We’ll talk about the widespread notion that there’s really nothing unique about the Bible, that it has no more authority than other religious writings. We’ll check out the opinion which says the Bible is such an old relic it can’t possibly have anything relevant to say to us today. And finally we’ll explore some of those nagging questions about how the Bible is to be interpreted.

In short, we’re exploring the question, “Is the Bible Reliable?” Can we trust the Bible as a “lamp for our feet and a light for our path?”

Today we want to answer a very common accusation. Some people say that the Bible has been copied so many times that countless changes must have crept in. Therefore, they say, we can’t be sure that the Bible we have is the same as the Bible that was written.

A PARLOR GAME

Have you ever played the game “telephone” or “rumors?” It goes like this. One person writes down a one-sentence message – usually one that has the potential to be misinterpreted in funny ways. That person whispers the message to a second person, who whispers it to a third and so on until everyone playing has heard a version of the message. The last player says the message out loud. Then the first player then reads the original message for all to hear, and everyone is amazed at how different the message has become. It can be a fun game. And it underlines one of the reasons we should never spread or even listen to gossip.

Some people say that this is what happened with the Bible. It was written so very long ago and copied over and over again. We don’t have the actual scroll Isaiah wrote on. We don’t have David’s sheet music. We don’t have a “first edition” of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. We don’t have any of Paul’s letters on his personal stationary. All we have are copies. Hand-copies at that, since the photocopy machine hadn’t been invented yet. So how can we be sure the message of the Bible hasn’t been distorted like the messages in that parlor game?

Well, for one thing, the rules of the game “rumors” are designed to encourage mistakes. You only get to hear the message once. You can’t ask the person to repeat the message or clarify any details. If you didn’t catch part of what the person said, you have to guess what it might have been, and pass that on to the next person. You see, if the message doesn’t change, the game’s no fun.

The scribes who copied the Bible, on the other hand, made every effort to see to it that the message didn’t change. Sometimes, of course, they had a copy in front of them. So they didn’t have to worry about not hearing clearly something that was whispered in the ear. They could just compare what they copied with what was written, and correct any mistakes.

But sometimes groups of scribes would work together. That was a quicker method for making multiple copies. One person would read out loud the book to be copied, and all the scribes would take dictation. But here you do have a greater opportunity for misunderstandings and mistakes, don’t you? So the scribes devised rules that helped them keep mistakes to a minimum. They came up with checks and balances. For example, they would agree always to have a certain number of words or a certain number of letters on each line. They would also agree to have a certain number of lines on each page. At the end of the day they could go back and count the letters or words per line and the lines per page. If they found too many or too few, they would know a mistake had been made and could go back and fix it. They were serious about getting this right. Devout scribes were copying sacred books, and they wanted to preserve the message. They did make mistakes, but not as many as you might think.

THE STORY OF THE SCROLLS

Let me tell you a story. It starts in 1947, 13 miles from Jerusalem. A Bedouin shepherd boy was searching for one of his goats in the Judean dessert. In the process he threw a rock into a cave, hoping to scare his goat out. Instead, he heard a crackling noise, like the shattering of glass. When he went in to check it out, he found a big clay jar with some scrolls in it. He reported what he found, and over the next 9 years archeologists discovered about 850 scrolls in 11 nearby caves. These are the famous “Dead Sea Scrolls.”

You’ve probably heard about the Dead Sea Scrolls, but may have wondered why they’re important. One of the main reasons is that among those scrolls they found copies of every book of the Old Testament except for Esther. Further, when they determined the dates of these scrolls by coins that were found near them and other means, they discovered that these scrolls were written between 200 years before Christ and the fall of Jerusalem in the year 70.

Until the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, the earliest copy we had of the Hebrew Scriptures was a version called the Masoretic Text, from roughly the year 900 AD. That’s a huge gap between the time the books of Moses and Malachi were written and the time our best copies were made. That’s more than 1,300 years. How many corruptions had taken place during those centuries of copying and recopying? How much had the Bible been transformed in transmission? Skeptics were certain the distortions were many. Some people were sure the Bible we had was very different from the Bible that was written.

So when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, we had an opportunity to compare these very late copies with some fairly early copies. We could see what corruptions had crept in over a thousand years of copying.

The first scroll to be evaluated was a copy of Isaiah. Some folks were sure that the version of Isaiah we had followed for years would be completely discredited. But guess what they discovered. Most good detective stories have a surprise ending, and this is no exception. Instead of showing how much the Old Testament had changed, the Dead Sea Scrolls showed how little it had changed. The scribes had been very careful. Oh, there were some fascinating and enlightening discoveries that we can’t go into here. But by and large what we found in the Dead Sea Scrolls was very close to the copies we had from about a thousand years later.

Instead of proving that the Bible we have is unreliable, the Dead Sea Scrolls emphasize how reliable the Bible is.

AN ELABORATE SCIENCE

Nevertheless, mistakes did slip in. We can’t deny that. But scholars have developed a very sophisticated science called “Textual Criticism” or “Lower Criticism” that helps us recognize mistakes – scholars call them “variants” -- and choose which variant is probably best.

This science isn’t limited to Biblical studies. All kinds of literary critics use these tools. After all, the plays of Shakespeare were hand-copied, too. The philosophy of Aristotle was hand-copied, too. And variants found their way into all of these works. In fact, compared with most other literature, it’s amazing how few the variants are in the Biblical text.

Textual critics are the super-sleuths, sort of the CSI of literary scholars. They know how variants are likely to happen, and that helps them distinguish which readings are better than others. For example, a scribe is more likely to add a couple words to explain an idea than to purposely leave a word out. So the shorter reading is usually to be preferred. It’s probably original.

Again, a scribe is more likely to try to clarify a passage than try to make it more confusing. So if one version is harder to understand than the other, the more difficult reading is to be preferred. The easier reading was probably an attempt to fix the original.

If we can see how a scribe’s eye might have slipped and he accidentally copied a word from a previous line, we can be fairly confident that’s a mistake.

Many of the mistakes are easy to catch: A word or phrase copied twice, misspelled words, transposed words, a word or phrase copied twice. As I said, it’s an elaborate and impressive science. And if there are enough good documents to compare, Textual Critics can come up with a pretty reliable version of what an original text said.

A GOLD MINE

Now with the New Testament, we have over 5,600 documents to compare! The next closest piece of ancient literature is the Iliad. (You know, the Brad Pitt story.) We have about 650 copies of that. In addition to these 5,600 New Testament copies, we have thousands of ancient translations of the Bible. We also have innumerable documents where early Christian writers and preachers quoted the New Testament. As a matter of fact Bruce Metzger, who is sort of the Gil Grissom, the chief guru of Textual Criticism, says that we could reconstruct the entire New Testament on the basis of these quotations alone!

What’s more, these 5,600 copies of the New Testament, or parts of the New Testament come from all over the ancient world. So we can compare the copies that came from Egypt with the copies that came from Syria with the copies that came from Greece or Palestine or Rome. We can see if local prejudice might have changed a text.

Finally, our earliest copies of the Iliad are from about 900 years after Homer. By contrast, the earliest fragment we have of the Gospel according to John is about from the year 180, less than a century after John’s death. And many New Testament manuscripts are from the second and third centuries.

So the New Testament documents are a gold mine for textual critics. We have thousands of them. They come from all over and we have some very old copies. And what happens when we compare all these documents? We find that it’s much easier to be sure about the original text of the Bible than it is of any ancient writer, or even most later writers. In other words, although we only have copies of the Bible, not the original manuscripts, we can be confident that the versions of the Bible we have are a very good reflection of the Bible as it was written. Did mistakes creep in? Yes. But we have enough material to see what the mistakes were and correct them.

THREE IMPORTANT VARIANTS

In fact, let’s take a look at some of the most important variants in the New Testament. Here’s one example. The last twelve verses of the Gospel according to Mark are missing from some of the best manuscripts. Of course most Presbyterians don’t mind that because that passage includes the verse about snake handling! Anyway, most modern editions of the Bible have Mark 16:9-20 in brackets. We haven’t taken those verses out of the Bible, but we do admit that they aren’t in the earliest manuscripts.

Listen to those verses for a moment. They describe what happened after Jesus’ resurrection.

When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. ¹⁰She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. ¹¹When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.
¹²Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. ¹³These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either.
¹⁴Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.
¹⁵He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. ¹⁶Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. ¹⁷And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; ¹⁸they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."
¹⁹After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. ²⁰Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.

Now, let me point out that vitually everything that’s contained in those verses is found somewhere else in the Bible.

In Matthew and in Acts the risen Jesus commissions us to spread the Good News to every nation and to baptize.

Luke tells us about those two disciples to whom Jesus appeared, but they didn’t recognize Him on the road to Emmaus.

Matthew and John tell us how some of the disciples doubted, even after the resurrection.

Luke and Acts tell us about Jesus ascending into heaven.

And in Acts we see the miraculous power Christ gives His people to heal, to drive out demons, to speak in tongues. It even shows us a Christian being bitten by a poisonous snake and not being harmed. We see the gospel being preached everywhere, confirmed by God’s powerful signs.

So even if we loose Mark 16:9-20, the teaching of Scripture isn’t changed.

A second important example comes from the Lord’s Prayer. No, it isn’t the “debts and debtors” thing. All the manuscripts say “debts” and “debtors.” It’s the last part of the last verse of the prayer. “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.” That’s a beautiful and beloved doxology. What wonderful words of praise! But they aren’t found in many of the earliest documents. They probably weren’t in the Gospel as Matthew wrote it.

However, listen to I Chronicles 29:11.

Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom;
you are exalted as head over all.

So even if those wonderful words of praise weren’t originally at the end of the Lord’s Prayer, they are still Scriptural, and they’re still true. The kingdom does belong to God alone. The power and the glory do belong to God alone. And we are right to praise Him for that. And we are right to continually declare those words, “Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen!” Again, the teaching of Scripture is not changed.

One more. In the eighth chapter of John we have the moving story of Jesus and the woman who was caught committing adultery.

³The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group ⁴and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. ⁵In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" ⁶They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
⁷But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." ⁸Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
⁹At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. ¹⁰Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
¹¹"No one, sir," she said.
"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

The story is very old and I have no doubt that it’s true. But the story isn’t found in some of the best copies of John’s Gospel. In fact, one manuscript includes it in Luke! So again, most modern Bibles include this story, but set it apart by brackets or some other means.

However, even without this story, the Bible still tells us how Jesus deals with people like you and me, people who have failed in our righteousness. I think of Romans 8:1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

And the Bible still tells us that Jesus calls us to leave our sinfulness behind. Mark sums up the preaching of Jesus with these words. "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" (Mark 1:15)

And the Bible still shows how Jesus responds to self-righteousness. I think of the story of the tax-collector and the Pharisee in Luke 18:9-14. The religious man bragged to God about his own holiness and goodness. The tax-collector simply said, “God have mercy on me, a sinner.” Jesus summed it up by saying, "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Luke 18:14)

So yes, as the Bible was copied over and over, some changes showed up in some manuscripts. There are indeed variant readings. The above three are among the most important. But even those variants don’t change the teaching of Scripture. We are still charged to carry the Good News to all creation, just as the end of Mark tells us to. The Kingdom and the power and the glory still belong to God, just as the last verse of the Lord’s Prayer proclaims. And the Bible still presents Jesus as the forgiving friend of sinners whom we meet in the eighth chapter of John.

A CLASSIC EXAMPLE

Further, the overwhelming majority of variants aren’t nearly as significant as the ones we just examined. One of my favorites is I Timothy 3:16. It says,

Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great:
   He^[1] appeared in a body,
       was vindicated by the Spirit,
   was seen by angels,
       was preached among the nations,
   was believed on in the world,
       was taken up in glory.

The variant here is on the word “He.” The Greek word for he is OS (hos). That’s what most manuscripts have. However, some manuscripts have the word QEOS (theos) meaning God. Which one is right? What does it say? “He appeared in a body” or “God appeared in a body?”

Some very clever scholars pointed out that a common abbreviation for QEOS (theos) is QS, the first and last letters of the word.

Now, when we put the abbreviation for theos or God next to the word hos or he, we see how similar the two are. OS and QS. Just one little dash distinguishes them. It’s easy to imagine how a scribe might have added that dash, or left it out. So again, which is right?

Now, I should tell you that, as clever as that proposal is, we don’t have any manuscripts that use the abbreviation QS here. But let me ask you this. This is the important question. If the correct reading is “He,” If the verse really says “He appeared in a body” and so on, to Whom does the word He refer? Why to God of course! Who appeared in a body? God appeared in a body.

So regardless of the variant you choose you get the same great truth. In Jesus Christ God became a human being.

The vast majority of the variants are like that. They’re interesting. I even think they’re fun. But in the final analysis it doesn’t matter much which variant you choose. The great truths of the Bible are still in tact. Yes the Bible was copied again and again, and no we do not have the original manuscripts. And yes it is true that there are places where a word or a sentence or even a passage has been changed. But let me tell you something that hasn’t changed.

Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great:

He appeared in a body,

In Jesus Christ God became a human being, with a body of flesh and blood just like yours and mine. And because of His amazing love, He offered that body as a sacrifice to take away our sins. That’s why he died on a cross. But that’s only the beginning of the story.

He   was vindicated by the Spirit,

Three days after Jesus was crucified, God raised Him from the dead and declared once and for all that His Son is Savior and Lord. Even the heavenly beings know this because

He  was seen by angels.

He was preached among the nations,
   was believed on in the world,

And everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins. Everyone who believes on Him becomes a beloved child of God. Everyone who believes in Him receives eternal life, for

He  was taken up in glory.

And someday He will come for us, and we will be with Him there forever.

That’s what the Bible teaches. And that message has never changed.