Today Has the Bible Been Changed

Today – has the Bible been changed??

I’m indebted to Daniel Wallace for much of this

Intro:

For a long time now skeptics and heretics have attacked the Bible based on the ignorance of believers about how the Bible has come to us from its authorship till now.

Frequently, they are factually wrong…

“big game of telephone” – Hemit Metta (Friendly Atheist)

Not true

“The Bible has evolved through countless translations, editions and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book” -Davinci Code

Not true

Mixed truth/lies “all we have are copies, the first of which were made hundreds of years after the events supposedly took place”

True/Not true

Other times they speak truth, generally, but do so to leave a false impression

Bart Ehrman – “Misquoting Jesus” who changed the Bible and why

“Not only do we not have the originals, we don't have the first copies of the originals. We don't even have copies of the copies of the originals, or copies of the copies of the copies of the originals. What we have are copies made later—much later. In most instances, they are copies made many centuries later. And these copies all differ from one another, in many thousands of places. As we will see later in this book, these copies differ from one another in so many places that we don't even know how many differences there are. Possibly it is easiest to put it in comparative terms: there are more differences among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament”

Mike – I was slaughtering pigs for experience –

“the Bible has been corrupted”

True – in a technical sense –

Corruption = Any variation or alteration in the text, no matter how minor.

KJV Bible – adulterers version (type-set) –

Extreme example, but not confusing

But is it corrupt in the sense that most of us are thinking?

Results of modern hyper-skepticism

Agnosticism about all of history

2 things to avoid
Modern hyper-confidence
Not only do I have the word of God
There are NO translation issues
This isn’t Greek
NO textual issues
Two differing readings that each be the original
Modern KJVO advocates
Can’t allow any questions to be asked,
Any mention of textual issues destroys faith
Modern hyper-skepticism
As if any question equals all question

It is our ignorance that they count on

Why we can and should believe that we still have the Bible

It’s easy to get lost in the details…
I’m very aware of this
My goal is to stand in between the scholars and the rest of us and make simple sense of it without losing the scholarship
I’ll teach, THEN I’ll take questions.
PLEASE ask questions, others might need them answered too.

Let’s fix that…

Most of the attacks are on the NT, so we will focus on that
Paint the picture – you will need a general understanding of what happened to the NT documents after they were written.
Step 1: Apostles or their companions author the NT documents
Anytime from the mid to end of the 1st century AD.
This is what we believe to be the word of God
Autographs – don’t exist
They are dust
Written on Papyrus and didn’t last more than 100 years probably.
Frequent handling and copying
Step 2: They are copied
These copies spread out and were, in turn, copied
Copied a LOT
All over the place (Egypt, Syria, Israel, Europe)
Christians popularized the codex.
Free transmission
Unlike Quran
So, we have copies
The question tonight is “do the copies we have give us what was in the originals?”
Or “is the Bible lost?”
The answer is that we still have the Bible… but I should explain
Variants
What’s a variant – when there is a difference between the writing of one text (or group of texts) and another
400,000 variants out of 138,162 words
This is where the skeptic stops
In order to offer a distorted understanding of the facts
Understanding the QUANTITY of variants
How many manuscripts (hand written copies)?
Greek (NT language) 5,824 manuscripts – as of Dec 2014.
Some fragments, some long
Average size – 200 pages long
New ones are being discovered all the time
1.2 million pages of Greek
Latin – 10,000+ manuscripts
Other langauges(Syraic, Coptic, Gothic, Arabic, etc)
Est. 5000-10,000 copies
Over 20,000 manuscripts to compare!
This is GOOD
Suppose the average Greek classical writer has 20 copies remaining
Stack them up and they would be about 4 feet high
Stack up the NT manuscripts
Over 1 mile high
How old are our copies of the NT
Older would seem to mean more originality
Of the 20+ thousands manuscripts about 15% of them are from the 1st 1,000 years AD
The average classical author waits at least 500 years for the first fragments, let alone copies
The NT has multiple FULL copies by 300 years
NT – we wait a few decades for the first copies
From 1850 to 1934 European scholars were convinced that John was written at the end of the 2nd century…
Which means it’s a forgery
I heard this in my early 20s.
1934 - Gospel of John P52
Credit card (the earlier the shorter)
Jn 18:31-33 and 18:37-38
codex
4 papyrologists dated it
3 to AD100-150(LATEST)
One said 90s
Dan Wallace “two tons of German scholarship” was put to the flames
But the internet is full of zombies
Dead skeptic’s arguments are raised again
Other ancient texts have entire MISSING sections… scholars guess at what was there.
Tacitus (1st-2nd century Roman historian)
We are missing about 2/3 of his work Annales (a year-by-year account of Rome)
NOT the NT – we aren’t missing anything – we have some EXTRA
This is the nature of having SO MANY COPIES
“Embarrassment of riches”
No two manuscripts are identical
Why so many variants?
Lots of copies
Lots of copies = lots of confidence about the original reading
If one copy is changed, the others aren’t
No revision, no Constantine
Variants are good
Useful graphic – image of text copies and dates for ancient works (in pictures folder on desktop, I have permission from Mark Barry)
By comparison
Homer – the next best 643 copies – 500 years for the first fragment
Pliny the Elder (23-79AD) – 700 years till first copy
Herodotus – 1500 years
Biographer of Alexander the Great
Do we doubt his existence???
Plutarch (46-119AD) – 800 years
Josephus (37-100AD)– 800 years
Pausanias – Britannica says (flourished ad 143–176) Greek traveler and geographer whose Description of Greece is an invaluable guide to ancient ruins
1400 years till first copy
Many places where 3 or 4 chapters in a row are missing
Skeptics don’t treat the NT the way they treat these texts!
“The NT is the earliest attested document in all of antiquity” Bart Ehrman (antiquity is time before the middle ages)
Proves a bias
Quotes from church fathers
Over 1 million quotes
About 8,000 verses in the NT
We can reproduce nearly all of the NT many times over.
10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle, with 10,100 pieces.
POINT – if we don’t know what the NT says, we don’t know ANYTHING from ancient history.
1000 times more evidence for the NT than for the average classical author
If we are skeptical about what the NT says
We should be 1,000 times MORE skeptical about what all other classical authors say.
The QUANITITY of variants is because of a GREAT situation
This is a hard point sometimes…
The common reading
More copies = more confidence
This alone doesn’t answer our questions
Understanding the QUALITY of those variants
Can I trust those scribes?
Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, pg. 177
“It is probably safe to say that the copying of early Christian texts was by and large a ‘conservative’ process. The scribes (whether non-professional scribes in the early centuries or professional scribes of the Middle Ages) were intent on ‘conserving’ the textual tradition they were passing on. Their ultimate concern was not to modify the tradition, but to preserve it for themselves and for those who would follow them. Most scribes, no doubt, tried to do a faithful job in making sure that the text they reproduced was the same text they inherited.”
They don’t all say exactly the same thing
How do we get back to the original wording?
Over 99% of these don’t matter
Movable nu or spelling variants account for ¾ of all variants
Word order accounts for much of the others
Greek language
These can’t be translated
The definite article (“The”)
Untranslatable
They aren’t “MEANINGFUL”
Don’t change the meaning of the text
Daniel Wallace “Jesus loves Paul”
16 ways to say it in Greek WITH the same words for Jesus, Paul and love.
Add spelling variations and you get hundreds of ways
All these still mean “Jesus loves Paul”
John (ioannes, ioanes)
3rd largest category of variants are meaningful but not viable
Meaningful – changes the meaning of the text
Not Viable- doesn’t go back to the original
It’s an obvious error
1 Thes 2:7 “we were gentle among you”
Epioi
One late manuscript says “hipoi”
“we became horses among you”
One late manuscript
About 25% of variants are meaningful but NOT viable
4th meaningful and viable
Less than 1%
99% do NOT impact the meaning of the text at all!
Often can’t even be translated
Make virtually NO difference at all
So… what matters here?
1,500 to 2,000 viable, meaningful variants
1 meaningful & viable variant every 6 pages

Why lots of manuscripts is such a good thing
It spreads out the text, it can’t be controlled
It allows us to seek the original in the copies
10 of you copy something
Mistakes are made
I compare the ten
Why variations are an expected thing
It’s a natural result of copying
Slips of the pen, duplication, missing a word/letter or line
Our theology says the originals are the word of God
Copies are in so much as they accurately reflect the originals
Why variations help us
We want lots of copies
1 copy = no variants
But how confident could we be that it’s original? Not very
What are the theological implications of variants?
No core issue is at stake
Take any reasonable reading you want…
It doesn’t change Christianity in any significant way
Appendix to Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus
“Why do you believe these core tenets of Christian orthodoxy to be in jeopardy based on the scribal errors you discovered in the biblical manuscripts?”
“essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament”
They quickly removed this question from the appendix
Bart was asked what the Bible would look like if he reconstructed it
He said it would pretty much look the same
So, we have what we written, in the manuscripts
In Essentials
But, some particulars are in question.
We will get to that, next week

150 years over 130 Papyri have produced NO new readings

Today – we will go through issues
Serious issues in our Bible
Where the manuscripts disagree
Verses in your Bible that don’t belong in the Bible
Used by skeptics (like Bart Ehrman) to undermine faith
We should not be afraid of the truth, just afraid of knowing so little that the skeptics rendition becomes our version of truth
Review
Over 20,000 copies (about 5800 in Greek)
We reconstruct the original from these
400,000 variants
This number is used out of context to deceive
To imply we have no idea what the originals said
This number is small, given the number of manuscripts
5,800+ Greek
75% are nonsense or spelling errors (aka “typo”)
2nd largest group – synonyms, word order changes, untranslatable issues
Meaningful but not viable
Over 99% non-issues
Our question is “is there any bearing on what the original said”
Less than 1% both meaningful and viable
1,500-2,000
This is the only place where you can say that the text is in question!
But, we aren’t clueless, we just have questions.
It’s like imagine 2 copies
250 places of variation
99% of them don’t matter
2 or 3 places of difficulty
The large number of copies is why there are so many variants
but these DON’T mean we don’t have the text
Dan Wallace “these differences are, for the most part, absolutely irrelevant”
Skeptics never talk about this big picture
They distort
Why?
Because it’s not powerful to say “you Christians think you have the Bible but it has been copied and recopied so much that less than 1% of passages require some critical thinking to consider their original reading. And whichever original reading you take it doesn’t impact your doctrine. So, there.”
Last week – QUANTITY of variants
This week – continue onQUALITY of variants
Rare moments when the variants MATTER
Where the manuscripts disagree
Some tough questions – but let’s work through it and see the end
Perspective on verses in question
2 places where 12 verse portions are, or so it seems, additions
John 7:53-8:11
Mark 16:9-20
12 places where 1 or 2 verses are in question
The rest are short phrases, clauses and individual words

Great book – King James Only Controversy by James White

Consequential

Important - We can usually tell which reading is authentic

Inconsequential

Mark 1:14
Mark 1:14 (NASB95) 14Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God,
Mark 1:14 (AV) 14Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,
This is an example of a typical “significant” variant
That is super important!
The skeptics want to give you atypical examples and lead you to think they are typical. They aren’t.
Matt 16:20
Matthew 16:20 (NKJV) 20Then He commanded His disciples that they should tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ.
Matthew 16:20 (NASB95) 20Then He warned the disciples that they should tell no one that He was the Christ.
Meaningful? Yes Viable? Yes
Important? no
Expansion of piety – making names longer
Jesus/Lord
A very large number of these
List of places where this happens
Matt 4:18 – Jesus
Matt 12:25 – Jesus
Mark 2:15 – Jesus
Mark 10:52 – Jesus
Luke 24:36 – Jesus
Ants 19:10 – Lord Jesus
1 Cor 16:22 – Jesus Christ
Acts 19:4 – Christ
1 Cor 9:1 - Christ
2 Cor 4:10 – Lord
Heb 3:1 – Christ
1 John 1:7 – Christ
Rev 1:9 – Christ
Rev 12:17 – Christ
1 Thes 3:11 – Christ
2 Cor 5:18 – Jesus
Acts 15:11 – Christ
Acts 16:31 – Christ
1 Cor 5:4 – Christ
2 Cor 11:31 – Christ
2 Thes 1:8 – Christ
2 Thes 1:12 – Christ
2 John 3 – the Lord
No problem here
Matt 21:12
Matthew 21:12 (NKJV) 12Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.
Matthew 21:12 (ESV) 12And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.
Only one temple is possible here
Matt 24:36 “nor the son”
Later manuscripts
Matthew 24:36 (NKJV) “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.
Earlier manuscripts
Matthew 24:36 (ESV) 36“But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.
Earliest manuscript that drops “nor the Son” is in the 10th century
Only 1 Greek manuscript doesn’t have “not the Son”
How can I say this doesn’t matter?
Mark 13:32 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
The same scribes who drop it in Matthew KEEP IT in Mark (4 gospel codex)
It’s not a question about what Jesus said but whether Matthew recorded more or less of the quote
Shortening quotes isn’t a problem, we do that today
Even without “nor the Son” it still implies Jesus doesn’t know
An entire verse missing Mark 7:16 16If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!”
Completely missing in the oldest manuscripts
Mark 4:9 and 23 (it shows up concluding a teaching)
They didn’t delete it… it’s still in those other verses
Perhaps it was added because it was at the conclusion of Jesus’ teaching

“matters” but not that much

Matt 1:25 (NKJV)and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name Jesus.
Matthew 1:25 (NASB95) 25but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus.
“Firstborn” borrowed from Luke 2:7
Harmonization
More examples of harmonization
Matthew 8:29 (NKJV) 29And suddenly they cried out, saying, “What have we to do with You, Jesus, You Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?”
Matthew 8:29 (NIV84) 29“What do you want with us, Son of God?” they shouted. “Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?”
“Jesus” comes from Mark 1:24
Matthew 20:16 (NKJV) 16So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few chosen.”
Matthew 20:16 (NIV84) 16“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
“many are called but few are chosen” added from Matt 22:14
Obviously, this isn’t malicious, it’s included in the same manuscripts in 22:14
Matthew 25:13 (NKJV) 13“Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.
Matthew 25:13 (NIV84) 13“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.
From Matthew 24:44 (NKJV) 44Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
Matthew 27:35 (NKJV) 35Then they crucified Him, and divided His garments, casting lots, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet: “They divided My garments among them, And for My clothing they cast lots.”
Matthew 27:35 (NASB95) 35And when they had crucified Him, they divided up His garments among themselves by casting lots.
John 19:24 (NASB95) 24So they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, to decide whose it shall be”; this was to fulfill the Scripture: “They divided My outer garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots.”
The same manuscripts that DON’T have it in Matt 27:35 do have it in John 19:24
Colossians 1:14 (NKJV) 14in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
Colossians 1:14 (NASB95) 14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Ephesians 1:7 (NASB95) 7In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace
Romans 8:1
Romans 8:1 (NKJV)1There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
Not there
Romans 8:1 (NASB95) 1Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Verse 4
A different example of addition
Matthew 15:8 (AV) 8This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
Matthew 15:8 (NIV84) “ ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
Quoting the rest of Isaiah 29:13
This is not uncommon.
Imagine if you hear “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son”
1- quoting the rest of a passage
2- correcting a paraphrase to a quote
An example where EITHER is possible
Mark 10:24 (AV) 24And the disciples were astonished at his words.