Is the Bible Reliable – The SECONDARY Questions

Everything Else is Very Secondary

The Bible is on a level no other written or spoken word from humanity has ever come close to matching. “Is there a God behind this source” is always the primary question to ask because the ramifications are as significant as it gets. And there is evidence this book alone has God involved with it. With the answer to the primary question standing as the foundational background to always keep in mind, we can properly consider secondary questions or concerns regarding the Bible.

Challenge: The Bible is just a bunch of ancient ideas, now we have science.

Answer: What is the primary question to answer? If there is a Creator of the universe behind the Bible (the answer to the primary question), such a source will always be a greater, more reliable, and more important source of knowledge than science. We have evidence of this, are you open to hear some? Because the relationship between theology and science is generally not covered well in our education, it may be surprising to some to realize peer-reviewed scientific literature can be used to demonstrate the real relationship between science and Christianity is similar to what biologists know as symbiosis. Science and Christian theology exist in a mutually beneficial and supportive relationship, and the contrary relationship exists between science and every other worldview. I present this new explanation or model of the real relationship in the article: Cameras of the Watcher.

Challenge: The Bible includes miracles and the supernatural, so I cannot trust it.

Answer: Same answer as above, because if such a Creator exists, then the intelligent response would be to have humility in how much you think you know.

Moreover, we already have scientific confirmation of both the greatest miracle, and the supernatural. The BIGGER CAUSE blog explains how some of the greatest discoveries in science confirm not only does the cause of the Universe have to be independent from or beyond all nature (the defining characteristic of “supernatural” is being beyond all nature), but also whatever caused the Universe is miracle-working, as it violated the Law of Conservation of Matter/Energy, and violating this law of nature is, by definition, a miracle.

Challenge: The Bible has errors/contradictions, so it is just man-made and doesn’t have to be taken seriously.

The conclusion, that the Bible must be just a product of people and need not be taken with utmost significance, just does not logically follow. It doesn’t matter if the Bible stated, “The political leaders of the United States will be the most honest and intelligent people of the nation,” which is obviously false.

We have demonstrative evidence there is a God involved with the Bible, and this evidence does not change at all even if an error were found. Therefore, even if there were such an egregious error as noted above – this does nothing to change the fact the Bible has a God behind it – and rationally has utmost significance to each of us, requiring more serious attention than anything else ever produced by humanity.

Christians do not believe as Muslims do, that God ensures every word is kept perfect through all history, as the Bible has always recognized inconsequential changes or uncertainties coming in through copy mistakes, which are always displayed in the margins. Finding an error would simply mean God did not care to ensure to keep out an error or errors a biblical author added in, so we would have to be more diligent in determining where an error existed. I do not think there are errors, but am always open to look into challenges someone brings up. This topic will be covered in more depth in the frequently asked question section of the website. But even further, all essential concepts to Christianity are covered not just in one place, but redundantly throughout the Bible.

Challenge: You can’t know what the Bible originally said, we don’t have any of the original writings; the Bible has been changed over time.

Once again, the primary question is always whether or not there is a God behind the Bible, and if evidence supports there is, then WHY would you believe God would not be able to get into our hands what he wanted?

Further Answer: the scholarship, whose career and area of expertise includes this topic, disagree with you. What evidence can you provide to overturn the evidence which already forced the consensus of the experts to affirm we do have the Bible as originally written? Anything uncertain is clearly noted in the margins of the Bible, and is inconsequential as the important issues are covered redundantly throughout the Bible.

What evidence is forcing the scholarship to accept the Bible we read today is the same as was read when originally written? We will start with the New Testament (NT) and cover just one example here, and further details demonstrating the reliability of the NT and the Old Testament (OT) is covered in the frequently asked questions (FAQ) section.

Everyday examples can display how we can know what was originally written

It is true we do not have any of the original writings from the biblical authors, what manuscript scholars call “autographs.” Unsurprisingly, those original ancient writings have been lost in history. So how do we know the words of the originals made it all the way to us accurately?

Some argue the Bible cannot be trusted because it is comparable to the “telephone game”, where one person whispers a statement to another, and that person repeats the statement in a whisper to another, but maybe doesn’t get the words exactly right, and the next person whispers what they heard to the next, and so on, until the last person has a different message then what began the exercise. Those who argue this need to think further, as they are giving a false analogy.

When the original books of the Bible were written, the writers were inspired and verified by God, and confirmed by the people through known standards, causing the writings to be recognized as sacred and of utmost importance. Therefore, copies upon copies were made wherever possible, and as meticulously as possible, in order to allow different locations to keep a copy, and also for the spreading of God’s message. Aside from some amazing facts about how fantastically strict and obsessive copyists of the Bible were to ensure correct copies, which will be covered briefly later in this article, copy mistakes still occurred here and there.

Notice, even with errors in three of the four copies, we can still know what was originally written. Systematic theologian and philosopher, Norman Geisler, asks readers to consider this message: Y#U HAVE WON TEN MILLION DOLLARS. Even with an error in it, we can still be sure of the message. Now consider the same message with two copies and two errors.

Y#U HAVE WON TEN MILLION DOLLARS

YO# HAVE WON TEN MILLION DOLLARS

We are even more sure of the original message with two errors in it because every new copy brings a confirmation of every letter except one. In fact, you can even have serious differences in the letters and have the exact same message. Line 2 and line 3 below only have 25% of the letters in common, yet the message is 100% the same. (Norman L. Geisler, A Note on the Percent of Accuracy of the New Testament Text)

YOU HAVE WON TEN MILLION DOLLARS

THOU HAST WON 10 MILLION DOLLARS

Y’ALL HAVE WON $10,000,000

Therefore, even knowing copy mistakes exist, can you start to see how we know exactly what was originally written? There is a simple test: compare all the copies. Even with a mistake made in every line in first example, we can know what the original document stated and where mistakes are made in the copies.

Let’s use an example using cell phone texting today. You have a daughter going to college, and you want to meet her to give money for tuition and other expenses, but you are not the most skilled at texting. Even as annoying as this parent is in texting, do you know exactly what the parent was trying to say?

The books of the Bible are even more obvious. If a book in the Bible wasn’t written on a scroll, but in a text message, even if the copyist was as bad as the parent in texting, with numerous copies to compare against each other, do you think you can figure out what the original said?

Unlike the telephone game, the Bible is not oral communication, but written, so unlike the people just passing the message along by word-of-mouth, the copies can be directly tested against each other, as with the cell phone text messages.

A further difference from the telephone game false analogy, transmission does not occur linearly, from just one person to another to another, it is geometric, meaning one scroll would lead to maybe 10 copies, which themselves would lead to another 100 copies, and so on. Ultimately, you will have a massive number of copies, from different regions, languages, and groups across the Mediterranean world, to all compare against each other. Consider just the apostle Paul’s tireless work traveling to spread the Gospel, and his writings in the NT were copied, and spread, and copied again, and verified by himself, the other apostles, and his committed followers through all their traveling and work.

How does the Bible compare to other ancient writings as far as having enough copies to compare against each other to ensure we have what was originally written? Daniel Wallace, professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary and the founder and director of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, states if you take any book from antiquity, and stack up all the manuscript copies found for that book, the average amount of copies collected stack up to 4 feet high, which is actually very good as you can compare it all together and determine we know what was originally written. If you stack up just the Greek manuscript copies of the New Testament (NT), many of which are catalogued here,[1] you will have a stack one mile high!

That is around 2.5 million sheaves or pages, and the vast majority of these copies have been discovered in the last 120 years, in fact, there are so many still being discovered, scholars cannot even keep up as there are so many discoveries still waiting for the scholars to have time to study and verify and add to the count. And each new copy catalogued has added confirmation to the already mile high stack of evidence.

Stacked on top of that are around 20,000 more manuscript copies in other languages to bring in to compare against the Greek manuscript copies. And stacked on top of that are tens of thousands of quotations of the NT from early church fathers’ (those who were the early Christian leaders, many of whom were mentored by the apostles or in the direct line of sucession to the apostles) sermons and letters, which in turn were passed on to other churches.

A foremost biblical scholar, Bible translator, textual critic and longtime professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, Bruce M. Metzger, observed if we had lost every manuscript copy of the New Testament, then we could still reproduce 95% of the New Testament with just the writings of the early church fathers.[2]

And yet, in all of the copies to compare against each other, there is no variant (copy mistakes that vary from the original writing) in those found, which make scholars question the Bible’s message today is as it was when originally written.

Norman Geisler documented in his article:

“NT textual authorities Westcott and Hort estimated that only about one-sixtieth (of the copy mistakes) rise above “trivialities” and can be called “substantial variations.” In short, the NT is 98.33 percent pure. Second, Greek expert Ezra Abbott said about 19/20 (95 percent) of the readings are “various” rather than “rival” readings, and about 19/20 (95 percent) of the rest make no appreciable difference in the sense of the passage. Thus the text is 99.75 percent accurate. Third, noted NT Greek scholar A. T. Robertson said the real concern is with about a “thousandth part of the entire text.” So, the reconstructed text of the New Testament is 99.9% free from real concern.”[3]

And it is essential to understand – this small percentage does not affect any fundamental Christian doctrine – because all these doctrinal points are covered over and over again in other passages throughout the rest of the Bible. World-renown archeologist and authority on manuscripts, Sir Frederic Kenyon summed up what the evidence leads to:

“No fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith rests on a disputed reading. It cannot be too strongly asserted that in substance the text of the Bible is certain.”[4]

“The interval between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established.”[5]

NT scholars have long agreed the massive manuscript evidence, as well as the tens of thousands of quotations of the NT made by the early church fathers, make reconstructing what was originally written well assured. We have what was originally written in the Bible, with the insignificant uncertainties always being honestly presented in the margins (see image below).

[1] https://www.csntm.org/

[2] Metzger and Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: its transmission, corruption, and restoration, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005, p. 126.

[3] Norman L. Geisler, A Note on the Percent of Accuracy of the New Testament Text; https://normangeisler.com/a-note-on-the-percent-of-accuracy-of-the-new-testament-text/

[4] Kenyon. Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1941, p. 23, as cited in Josh McDowell. A Ready Defense. Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville, 1993, p. 46.

[5] Kenyon, The Bible and Archaeology, George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd. London, 1939, p. 288; https://biblicalarchaeology.org.uk/pdf/e-books/kenyon_f-g/bible-and-archaeology_kenyon.pdf

Love letters never opened

Elizabeth Barret Browning’s parents disapproved of her marriage and disowned her. Almost every week Elizabeth wrote love letters to her parents, hoping for forgiveness and a renewal of their relationship. After ten years, her parents died, and to her horror Elizabeth received a box full of all her letters – unopened. Today those love letters are some of the most beautiful and engaging classical English literature. If only her parents had opened the letters, and been open to the letters, then there may have been a reconciliation.

The Bible claims to be God’s love letters to you. If that claim is true, then it could not be expressed how harmful it would be to return it to God unopened.

Further, God sends love letters more beautiful and important than Browning’s, through many means other than the Bible, and is waiting for you as poignantly displayed by the father in the parable of the lost son (Luke 15:11-32).