Can We Trust Our English Bible Versions? Part 2

Introduction

We have just converted this to a class. This is a Bible class, and you’re allowed to interact with me in a Bible class. The elders have approved my approaching this this way because it’s very much what we need to do in this kind of a lesson. Part two can we trust our English versions? Let’s do a little bit of review from this morning, and then we’ll get right into the lesson. How did we get our Bibles, which are so redibly available and usable today? Most of the history of mankind, you would have not had a copy of your own Bible. By the way, I meant to ask this morning how many of you have more than one copy of the Bible at your house? Yeah, everybody.

I think I have 50. In about seven different languages. When I would do this series if I did it in Romania, it would be a whole different way of approaching it because they don’t have nearly as many translations in Romanian as we do in English. So we’re really blessed here to have that kind of service in our study of God’s Word. It’s a long, fascinating story. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and Aramaic and the New Testament in Greek. About 40 different authors over a period of about 1,600 years. Everybody in this audience knows the Bible is a book of books. 66 books, as a matter of fact. And here’s a fact, class. We do not possess any of the original autographs of either the old or new testaments.

You are aware of that. Do you know what I just said? The original autographs are the documents that somebody wrote down in the first place when God told them what to write. We don’t have any of those. They don’t exist on earth. That means, class, this to support the documentation of this book, we don’t have the originals. That’s a difficult problem. So how can we know that this book is what God wants us to have? And critics of the Bible will certainly press that point. So I think it’s good for Christians to have considered how do we deal with that. So how can we be confident that our English versions are trustworthy? Given that so much time has passed, so many things have happened, it’s difficult to translate, and we don’t have the originals.

That’s a good question. So, summarizing from this morning, the most trustworthy modern English versions are those translated by large committees of various backgrounds who produce their versions with the intent of giving the world an accurate word-for-word translation of the best known available Greek and Hebrew texts.

By the way, I meant to say at the beginning, I don’t allow sleeping in my class. If I start seeing you nodding, we’re going to do something. By the way, I’ve been teaching a long time. I can see you.

All right. Now, a lot of you didn’t get to eat, so that’s good for me. I will tell you if I had eaten a big lunch and we’re sitting where you are, I’d be asleep in five minutes. I don’t blame you if you get sleepy, but I don’t allow it. Okay, even in these five standard versions, we’re going to find variations. It’s because there have been some discoveries and the emphasis you put upon them. And that’s part of what we’re going to talk about this afternoon. We’re going to focus on the New Testament. Jared is going to do a series on the Old Testament after I leave. You can do the same kind of thing as I’m doing on the Old Testament. And there’s some fascinating material about it.

How many of you have heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls? Okay, they have to do with the Old Testament. So that’s a great study. We’re going to focus on the New Testament, because that’s the testament that we use as we try to get from earth to heaven. And that’s the one I think we’re most interested in. So why are there variations in the English text of the New Testament, even in these standard versions? Because there are variations in the Greek manuscripts. That’s the truth. And that’s going to be our topic. So, here we go, class. Do you see the heading? The preservation of the Greek New Testament is what we’re going to talk about. How is it that God preserved the Greek New Testament? The language in which he delivered the New Testament.

1. Manuscripts: Handwritten in the Original Language

Well, we have three great witnesses in support of the text of the New Testament. Glad y’all could make it. Did you get to eat? Oh, good. Alright. There are three great witnesses to the testimony of the New Testament. The first is manuscripts. Everybody’s eyes on me. Manu means what? Hand. Script means right. So a manuscript is handwritten. There’s more to it than that in this topic. In this topic, a manuscript is a handwritten document in the original language. So for the New Testament, what is that language class? Greek. So you call it a manuscript when it’s handwritten and in the Greek language. For the New Testament. What is it for the Old Testament? Hebrew and a little bit of Aramaic. So manuscript means handwritten in the original language.

Here’s some of the most famous ones. The Ryland script, the Vatican manuscript, the Synodic, and the Alexandria. These three are the three most important on the face of the earth. And we’re going to focus on those in a little bit.

Because the New Testament was written in the first century, wasn’t it? Most all of it. There’s a book called Livy’s History of Rome, written in the first century. In our possession on earth, we have about 20 copies of that, 20 manuscripts. However, the earliest of those manuscripts dates to 500 years after Livy wrote it. You understand what I said? Livy’s original history of Rome, he wrote himself, handwritten. But then they made copies of it. And copies of copies and copies of copies. The earliest copy of Livy’s history of Rome dates to 500 years after he wrote it. That’s pretty standard. Caesar’s Gallic Wars. Y’all know Julius Caesar. He lived in the first century. He wrote a book called the Gallic Wars, because he won those wars.

They like to brag on them. We have 10 manuscripts of Caesar’s Gallic Wars, but the earliest one of those is a copy from 900 years later. That’s very typical. Tacitus wrote a book called The Annals in the first century. He’s a Roman historian. We have two manuscripts that exist on earth. Earliest one dates to 800 years after his after he wrote it. Folks, if you want to know, that’s typical for old books. They were handwritten and they were copied, but with most of them are lost. Now, what about the New Testament? We have over 5,795, either partial or complete copies of the New Testament. And some of them date within 40 years of the time they were written. There isn’t another ancient book anywhere in the history of mankind that’s even close.

You see how much difference there is? Over 5700 as compared to those. Yes, sir.

It is fairly close for the Old Testament. And the Dead Sea Scrolls were a huge improvement on that. For a long time, the Old Testament was 100, 900 AD. Were the earliest ones we had. Because you know what the Jews did with the manuscript that was messed up of the Old Testament? What did they do with it? Anybody know? They burned them. Because they considered God’s word was defiled. So they were lost. The Dead Sea Scrolls were a huge fine. You’ll study about that for them, Jared later, right? Don’t get me off on the Old Testament. All right, my point here is when you want to know a book from the ancient world that is well attested, you’ve got the Bible. And the New Testament in particular.

It’s the best by far. So here’s the point. When you have over 5,700 manuscripts, some of them dating to within less than a century of when they were written, you can compare them. And you can determine what the original was, even though you don’t have the originals.

When God chose to preserve his word, he preserved it marvelously compared to anything else that’s been ever written in the history of mankind. And that’s because Paul, God said through Peter in 1 Peter 1, verses 24 and 25, my word endures forever. Have men kind of mankind tried to destroy God’s word? Over and over again. Through the centuries, they tried to gather them all up, burn them up, and get rid of them. No, he hasn’t allowed that. So God has promised we’re going to have his word. Well, manuscripts is the first witness. I’m coming back to that in a minute. There’s a second uh witness, and that’s the versions. So, what’s a version? I’m going to tell you. And the quiz at the end today, I’m kidding.

2. Versions: Handwritten in a Different Language

But if you did have a quiz, and if you were in my class, when you came back tomorrow, you’d have a quiz. What’s a manuscript? It’s a handwritten document in the original language. What’s a version? In this case, it’s a handwritten document in a different language. So are you aware, class, that the New Testament was translated into old Syriac? It was early on. In the hundreds, you have copies of the New Testament translated into Syriac. Name me a church in Syria in the first century. Come on, you can do it. Antioch, one of the most famous churches in that time. In fact, Antioch of Syria was the church from which Paul was sent out on his missionary journeys. Remember? So it’s logical that Syriac was one of the languages into which the New Testament was translated early on.

3. The Church Fathers Quoted Scripture

There’s also an old Latin version, which was the Roman language. There’s Ethiopic, did you know that? The Ethiopian eunuch got a hold of God’s word. Of course, first of all through Philip, but then later it was translated into Coptic. And did you know there’s still a Coptic church? And history will tell you there was a strong group of Christians in Ethiopia not long after the Ethiopian eunuch. I have an idea. I know who started that. And then the Vulgate version is another Latin version. So there’s some ancient versions as well. That’s another testimony. It’s not as strong as this one. Why is that? Because this is in the original language. This is in different languages. But there’s a third one. And that’s the church fathers. In the first century and on, there were lots of leaders in the church in different places that wrote letters to one another.

So maybe one of the elders of the church in what? Name a place. Antioch wrote the elders in Jerusalem and wrote them a letter. In those letters that they wrote, they quoted Scripture a lot. And it is said, let me just read you this quote so extensive are the citations that if all other sources of our knowledge of the text of the New Testament were destroyed, the citations of the early Christian writers would be sufficient alone to reconstruct the whole New Testament. So, Jared, I would write you a letter back in the first century, and I’d say, Jared, I’ve been talking with my other elders at this church about the problem of. And in 1 Timothy 3, it says this, and I quote it. And then you write me back.

4. Transmitted Through the Hands of Copyists

Yes, but Ephesians 5 says, and you quote Ephesians 5, those letters have been preserved. We call them the church fathers. I’m telling you, it’s another testimony to the text of Scripture. It helps verify what’s in this in the text. So there’s three. That’s an excellent thing. There is no other book that’s even in the same category. That’s a good thing. So now let’s talk just a little bit about manuscripts. This deserves three lectures. We’re going to go really fast. The most important manuscripts are called unseals. Anyone know what that word means? No? What? That means capital letters. Can you see in this unseal here? Can you see all those letters are capitals? The unseals are the most important because they’re the most ancient. Back in the old days when they were writing the copies, they did it in all capital letters.

So I’m going to ask one of you to read.

Louder.

Is that hard to read, class?

Go ahead. You’re doing fine. The apostle set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised. Yeah, you stuttered a whole lot there, brother.

Would you like to read something like that? Well, I’m trying to show you in English what the text looked like in Greek on manuscripts. Unseals. That’s what you’d have to be reading. Now, can I take a little side trip here? You remember when Philip ran up to the chariot in Acts 8 of the Ethiopian eunuch? What was he reading? Isaiah, right? The prophet Isaiah. So he just whipped out his Bible, right, and flipped over to Isaiah. No, that was the first century. If he had a copy of the prophet Isaiah, what was it probably written on? A scroll. Probably. And it looked like that. Because that’s all they had. Handwritten. The fact that he had his own copy of the book of Isaiah tells you how wealthy this man was.

What was his job? He was the treasurer to the queen of Ethiopia. That’s only the second most important person in that country. And don’t you think for a minute he was traveling by himself? Are you kidding me? He ran all the money for the whole country. There was a little army around him, I guarantee you. The Bible doesn’t say that. And by the way, he was in what kind of a vehicle? Do you think he was driving the chariot? I hope not, because he was reading. And you better quit doing that. While you’re driving. No, he had a driver, I’m sure. And probably a group of soldiers. Because that man was very important. But look, class, I want you to get this. Why would God pick Philip up from doing a big job in Samaria and move him to a place to preach to one man?

That man was, he wanted to know. Because he was riding on a chariot. Can you watch up here just a minute? He’s sitting on a chariot reading a scroll with that on it, trying to read Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ. Like this. Did he want to know what Isaiah was saying? And by the way, he was on his way home from church. Right? He’d been to Jerusalem to worship. And he’s on his way home. That’s a passionate man. But that’s what he was reading. Something like that. I have been privileged to go to the Boda Museum in East Berlin, which is now just Berlin. If you ever get a chance, you need to go there. Because in that museum, there’s a copy in Coptic of the book of Isaiah.

Probably something very similar to what Ethiopian eunuch was reading. Those things exist. Now I want to take a little side trip here. How did God choose to preserve his word? Somebody had to sit down and write that for the entire Bible. They assigned scribes to do that job. Scribes had a tremendously important responsibility. And they took their job so seriously that they copied every line, line by line, capital letter after capital letter, no spaces, no punctuation, everything lined up. And if the copy came out with a flaw in it, it was destroyed, and they started over, there were no Xerox machines. And they were so meticulous, class, that by the time I finish today, I want you overwhelmed, inundated with what these men have done for us.

Because that’s the only reason you have God’s word.

So now I want to make an assignment. Some of you have your children here. You could come. How old are you? Thirteen? Okay. Anybody in that high school, junior high, middle school, or even high elementary school. I’m giving you an assignment. Okay, so I’m going to talk to you, but you’re representing all the kids. What’s your names? Joey. Joey? Oh, you’re Jody? He’s Jody. And what’s your name? You’re Joey. And what’s your name? Nathaniel. Kids, I’m glad you’re here. But I’m going to give you an assignment. Everybody listening? If you have children, you’re getting a sign too. I want you to make a manuscript. And I’m going to tell you how you got to do it. You get to pick out 10 verses in your English Bible.

Ten verses. Pick whatever you like. And I want you to copy that in English on a piece of manuscript paper. You can buy it. If you just use regular paper, I won’t fuss. But I’d rather have manuscript paper. And it looks old. And you can stain it with T and make it look older. You don’t have to do that. I want you to get ideally a pen that’s made out of a feather.

Again, you don’t have to do that. If you want to use a ballpoint pen, I won’t fuss. I would like it if you had to dip a feather into an oil into an ink well. Dip the feather into the ink well and write on the manuscript paper. Is everybody with me? I want you to set up a table arrangement that is as uncomfortable as you can possibly get. You sit in a hard chair, no pillow. Ideally, you set it up in a table and it’s dark into your house because you don’t have electricity. I’m not going to fuss if you turn the light on. But I’d like you to handle. Because that’s what those guys had inside. That was the light. The manuscript class did not have lines.

You could kind of make a line without making a line by scraping it so you could get your line straight. So do the best you can. And I want you to take those ten verses and I want you to write them in all capital letters, no spaces, no punctuation. You saw how I did that. I want you to write ten verses that way on a piece of paper. Ideally in one setting. And then imagine, class, you’re doing that for the whole Bible. Over and over and over and over and over for centuries.

All books were handwritten prior to that. I want your kids, and ideally, you do it too, to have done one little ten verse piece. I’m expecting to see it Wednesday night at the end of service. Okay. Obviously, you don’t have to do it. But if you don’t, I’m going to be very disappointed. Yes, sir.

You can make a copy of the wall. I know. By your own hand by hand.

And every day. We’re supposed to do that.

They had to write a copy of the whole law on hand. Yes, they did. And they would have it all days for a while. And they were reading every day. Amen, brother. But I mean, that’s how we got the cops.

I agree. What I want is for everybody in this age to have the experience of finding out how hard that is. So you have a deeper appreciation for the fact you can whip out an English Bible and just open it up to any page you want. It’s incredible what God has done to preserve his word. And I want you to taste one little piece of that.

And those families have told me it changed their perspective on the preciousness of the Word of God.

Later, cursives came along. They’re called minuscules. And can you see that this looks more like script writing, doesn’t it? They’re smaller letters and cursive-like in appearance. Did you know they’ve stopped teaching cursive in schools? It makes me so mad. That means people are going to quit writing personal letters. Nobody’s going to print. There are kids that can’t read cursive. I go, what’s that all about? These date later from the ninth century. The earliest cursives are dating to the 800s. So they’re not as valuable as the unseals. They’re a more ancient. And there are over 2800 extent of these. Last time I looked it up. The most important unseals are the oldest vellum manuscripts. Anybody know what vellum is? What is it? It’s calf skins or goat skins.

And you want to know something interesting, mamas? If you do homeschooling, for example, you ought to have your kids learn how to make a vellum manuscript ready to be used for writing. How do you take an animal skin and prepare it so people can write on it? It’s a tough job. And that’s what they were written on primarily, rather than papyrus, because it lasts longer if it’s vellum. So the Codex Alexandrinus, found in Alexandria, Egypt. Codex Vaticanus, presently located in, the Vatican, and Codex Sinaiticus, presently located in. Anybody know? The British Museum in London. If you ever get a chance, class, these are three of the most precious documents that exist on earth. Because they are an almost complete copy of the New Testament and most of the Old Testament as well in Greek.

So they are a manuscript for the New Testament. They are a version for the Old Testament, but they contain most of both. And they date back to the three and four hundreds. They’re the most ancient, almost complete copies of the Bible that are in existence anywhere on earth. So I’m going to blow them up a little bit. Can you see how this writing is? Your writing needs to look just like that. I’m kidding. But then look at that writing class. That’s amazing. The Vaticanus one is three columns. And you see how they lined that up? Folks, those guys were so good, they knew how to end that thing right where it was supposed to be, and they knew what letter was supposed to be right in the middle of that page.

And if they didn’t end up with the right letter in the right place, they knew something was wrong. You think you could make a mistake here? Copying. Sinaiticus is a four-column one. Fascinating stuff. Now, class, I would like to take a little break here and do something for you, but it’s probably going to make me run late. So do I have your permission? I was going to do it anyway.

I have asked our experts here because Sinaiticus was not discovered until the 1800s. That manuscript was not found until it was found at the foot of Mount Sinai in a monastery where it had been for a long time, but they didn’t know it. And there’s a fascinating story about that about Constantine von Tischendorf. He’s a German that devoted his life to finding every manuscript of the Bible so that you could have a careful copy of the Greek Bible. And he went everywhere on earth tried to find manuscripts. And he found this one.

He’s going to take us to the website. See it over there on the right bottom?

It’s right up there. See it? There he’s going to click on that. And isn’t this wonderful what you can do? This is a website. Do you see up at the top up there? It’s called Codex Sinayaticus.org. If you want to go there, write it down. Codex Sinaiticus.org. So you can go there yourself and notice, don’t go anywhere yet, okay? Just stay right where you are. Right now, what you’re looking at here is a piece of that manuscript that’s on the end of it where the book of Genesis is. Because it’s a book. And on the ends of those books, when they’re so old, the ends kind of look rough, right? It’s because it gets torn and the ends kind of fall off. So parts of it are not well preserved.

So you’re looking at Genesis chapter 21, right there. The rest of Genesis is missing. All right. But let’s go. Here’s where I want him to go. I want him to go look at Mark, the gospel of Mark. So let’s watch what he does here. You can go down there on this website and you can find the book of Mark. And then you can go and ask for chapter 16. And then up there where it says verse, you can go down and it only goes to verse 8. So go ahead and click on verse 8. Alright, class. What you’re looking at here now, can you scoot that up a little for me, Tony? And by the way, Tony and his crew, would you all just hug them really good?

Because they’ve been working on this for a couple of weeks to help me make this work. So that’s a lot of work. And what he had to do is learn how to manipulate. This is not an easy one. So look, go go down just a little bit, Tony. There you go. No, the other way, I mean. Yeah. Right there is the end of verse 8. This is Mark chapter 16, verse 8. By the way, you know there’s no chapters and verses in there, right? That was added much later. It’s what we would call chapter 16 and verse 8. And it stops right there. And do you see that there’s a big blank here? Go ahead and scroll down a little bit more. See that? Does it look to you like there was something written underneath there?

It does, doesn’t it? Here’s a new word for you for scrabble. Palimpsest? Anyone want to try to spell that? Palimpsest. P A L I M P S E S T. That’s an ancient document that was written on, erased, and used again. We think this is a palimpsest. At any rate, it sure looks like something was written on there, doesn’t it? Scoot up a little bit. Can you see right there? It’s even more clear. Now, do you see right up here at the top of this next column? That’s the introduction to the book of Luke. And then Luke starts right here in Sinaticus in Greek. So class, it is a fact that Sinaiticus is missing verses 9 through 20 of chapter 16. That’s a fact. There it is.

What does that mean? Does that mean 9 through 20 didn’t belong in the original that God dictated? Or did they just mess up? Why does Sinayaticus not have Mark 16, 9 through 20? That’s a question for biblical critics. I’m just showing you that’s a fact. You now, if you want to explore this, can go home and look at any part of Sinaiticus manuscript, old or new testament, and just examine it and see what you find out. By the way, there’s another piece to it. You see right here about Codex Sinayaticus. You want to click on that, or can you do that? It tells you the story of how we found Codex Sinayaticus. Fascinating. It’s better than the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Because Constantine von Tischendorf was quite a character.

He wrote on camels and other stuff. And there’s a lot of intrigue, but it’s a great story. I wanted to introduce that to you, class, because that’s one of the great breakthroughs in the history of biblical textual criticism. Until the 1800s, we didn’t have access to this. Now, the important thing is it supports the other texts mostly very well. Alright? Let’s go back now to our PowerPoints. Boom. There we are. Thank goodness for grandkids. And Tony. All right. The Greek New Testament, divinely inspired, and its original autographs were transmitted to us through the hands of copyists. The manuscripts, ancient versions, and the writings of the early Christians were all copied by hand. You know that, right? Every single one of them. In some cases, the copyists were looking at earlier copies when they made their copies.

So in your case, kids, you can sit at that hard table on a hard chair with bad lighting and dip your ink. And you can put your nice Bible over here and open it up to the ten verses you want, and you look over there and you write what’s on that page in English. All caps, no spaces. You got it. They did it by looking at another manuscript that already looked like that. No verses, no chapters, no anything. It’s all run together. In other cases, they were listening to the reading of earlier copies. How do you mass produce handwritten copies? How about it, class? How do you mass produce handwritten copies?

Yeah, so you have to do it orally. You set up what’s called a scriptorium. A scriptorium is a big room where you have lots of those very uncomfortable chairs and tables. And you have people sitting at each one. And up front, you have a reader who’s reading that manuscript to you out loud, and you’re writing down what he says. You think that might be even harder? Dictation. That’s what they did. And some of those scribes were sitting in kind of a bad badly lit scriptorium for hours and hours and hours writing what was dictated to them. Human copyists are susceptible to slips and faults of either the eye or the ear. How good are you at spelling? Terrible in English. Greek’s not as bad in spelling.

But still, you got to write what he said. You’re not looking at what’s written. So it leads to copyists, yes, sir, Mark.

Yeah.

No, he would read the words. No, no, no. He would read the words. Yeah. They had to spell it for themselves. Of course, look. Huh? You did. Listen, scribes were really well educated, and most folks couldn’t do it. And besides that, you can, when you look at these manuscripts, you can see there were different scribes doing different parts of it because their handwriting is different. And some of them weren’t very good. If you depended on me, you’d be in big trouble. My handwriting’s terrible. Some of these guys were amazing. All right. Scribes were also sometimes susceptible to trying to improve a text by making it agree with other passages of scripture. I’m sorry, but that is the case. It’s very rare. But especially in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, some of that happened.

5. The Proper Way to Count Variations

From one point of view, class, it could be said there are over 200,000 errors in the Greek New Testament text. Can we then trust even our modern Greek text? And a critic of the Bible would say, you trust a Bible in the Greek that’s got over 200,000 errors in it. And you say.

No, that’s one error repeated 400 times. Right. So that’s not a good way to do it. The count is misleading. So I’m going to show you the proper way to count. Because there are variations in manuscripts. And I’m about to enter one of the most important things I’m saying this whole time. And some of you are fading out on me, and I’m not going to have it. So everybody stand up and shake yourself. I would lead you in calisthenics, but I don’t think it’s appropriate. Get your blood flowing. Yes, sir.

Translation.

Yeah. So you could be 7 by 11.

It’s not a jury because it’s got a statement. Or it’s a different way of explaining what we said. Yeah.

Well, I’m going to show you what the variations are pretty well in broad brush right now. As soon as everybody gets awake. Alright, I just don’t want you to miss this piece. So here’s what I’m going to do for you. I think this is a good way to look at it. Do you see what it says there? There are no variations in these manuscripts in 86% of the text. That is incredible. Because these have all been handwritten over centuries of time. You’re going to tell me they agree with one another 86%.

I got that. So let me look at it this way. Here’s my copy of the English Bible, and I’m going to come to my New Testament over here, to the first chapter in the book of Matthew, which is right. And of course, I have helps in here, so this is doesn’t count, but you get it. Here I am at Matthew 1, and I’m going to go all the way over to the end. I have some stuff helping at the end of my Bible. Helps, so they don’t count. What’s the last chapter in Revelation, class? Chapter 22. So I’m coming over here to Revelation chapter 22. Sorry, I should have had this marked out ahead. Alright, here we are. In my Bible, that’s 253 pages. The text of the New Testament is written.

Understand there’s some other stuff in there. That’s close enough for government work. 253 pages. 218 of those pages for all manuscripts say the same thing. So how many does that left? How does that leave? Do your arithmetic. 253 minus 218. 35, thank you. Somebody’s awake. So I’m going to take out of this 253 pages, all but 35. So here it is. Exactly 35. I don’t know how many that is, but it’s called 35. Alright? That’s where I’m going to start. The rest of this we don’t have to worry about because there’s nothing to do with textual criticism because it’s all the same. Which in and of itself is a miracle. Now let’s go on. Another 12% is spelling variations. Okay. That’s 30 and a half pages worth.

How many pages did we pull out? 35. So you keep track. Let me show you some examples of spelling variations. Often words in Greek copies are spelled differently. You could call that an error. E I is exchanged for I. AI is exchanged for E. Bethzatha becomes Bethesda. That’s the kind of thing we’re talking about. Does that change what it says, class? Doesn’t change what it says. It’s spelled differently. That’s another 30 and a half pages. So, what does that leave out of 35? Come on. Four and a half. Don’t cheat me out of the half page. That leaves four and a half pages for which there are any significant variations. Well, there’s another piece called minor variations. Do you see that up there? That’s another 3.25 pages that are minor variations.

Here’s an example. Matthew 118. In some manuscripts says the birth of Jesus Christ. In some others, it says the birth of Christ Jesus. In some others, it says the birth of Jesus. In some others, it says the birth of Christ. Now that’s a big deal, isn’t it? Those are variants, class. And you could say, well, that means one manuscript differs from the other. Yes, it does. Does it differ in anything significant? No, it does not. So that’s another set of variations. That’s another 3.25 pages out of four and a half.

One and a quarter page. One and a quarter. Of any significant variations. And you know the three passages I read to you this morning that disagreed. They’re on that one and a quarter pages. And there’s some others. You know, you can fill up a page and a quarter of some significant variations. One of them is Acts 837 that we talked about this morning, didn’t we? And there is a significant variation in the manuscripts in Acts 8. Some of them leave the verse off completely. So let me tell you what biblical textual critics do with this. And they don’t have a very big job because they got a page and a quarter of significant variations. Okay. But here’s how they’ve managed that. Here’s the question. Well, I’m looking at it again.

6. Significant Variations: Which One Is Right?

This is just a review. Remember, this is what it says in the King James and the New King James. Let me go back there. I told you that the New King James identifies there’s a problem. And that’s because they know now about Cinaeticus and Vaticanus and some of these other finds. And so there’s a footnote telling you some of the issues here. And we’ll come back to that in just a second. What’s the support for having verse 37? Here’s the question, class. Is Acts 837 in the original autograph? I’m looking at you. Do you understand what I just said? We don’t have the original autograph, but you’ve got to ask the question. If there are variations, does it belong or doesn’t it? That’s the question. That’s what a textual critic is asking.

Some of you look like you’re glazed over. Do you understand what I’m telling you? If you’re going to try to decide what’s in the original autograph, and the manuscripts differ, which one is right? That’s the question. So, what is the support for having verse 37 in the original? What support does it get? There’s one sixth century unseal. The sixth century is a 500s. There’s one of those unsealed manuscripts that exists. It’s somewhere on earth that has that verse in it. From the sixth century. There’s some good minuscules that have it in it. But remember I told you the cursives don’t come along until the 800s. So that’s even later. But there are some minuscules that have that.

And that’s it. That’s the support. That’s not strong support that that verse was in the original. It supports rather that it might later. That happens sometimes. And I’m sorry, but that’s reality. You got to deal with that kind of thing. I’m not going to tell you what my opinion is. If you want to form your own opinion, you go do your research yourself. I’m telling you where to find it. Alright, so the New James says in a footnote, N U and M omit verse 37. It is found in Western texts, including the Latin tradition. I’ve told you some of that. What in the world is N U and M? I’m telling you that right now. N U stands for, the N stands for the Nestle A Land Greek New Testament.

That’s N. And U stands for the United Bible Society’s Greek New Testament. So N and U, that’s the two best Greek texts of our time. And those gentlemen, scholars have taken all the Greek texts that exist on earth, manuscripts and other things, and compared them and come up with a text. And they don’t, and that those two, well, I’m going to the majority text, but those two do not have verse 37 in them. In addition, there’s an M. Well, M stands for the majority text. It holds that the best Greek text is based on the consensus of the majority of existing Greek manuscripts, even though many are late and none is earlier than the fifth century. They say just take all the manuscripts you have and whatever the majority of them have in it, that’s the best support.

I don’t know how you feel about that. I don’t like that the best, because it seems to me you ought to give more weight to the older ones than you do the newer ones. But that’s a variation. But class, the majority text doesn’t have verse 37 in it either. So what’s the opposition to this verse? That’s what a critic would ask. What’s the opposition? Practically all other manuscripts and versions do not have it. There is no Greek manuscript earlier than the sixth century that knows this reading.

So why are there so many before that that don’t have it in it? It’s a good question.

So I’ll let you think about that. But that’s the facts. And you can dig into that as deeply as you want. Yes, sir. John chapter 7 says. Yeah. I mean idea that we have to say. Exactly. Is there any problem telling us?

Is there any what? No.

John. John 17 is in the text that’s agreed on by everybody. No problem with that one. And listen, class, I don’t want you to go home and losing sleep over this. Because if Acts 37 wasn’t in the original, have we lost anything that the Bible teaches? No. How about Romans 10 10? What does it say?

If you believe with your heart and confess with your mouth, you’re saved. That’s Romans 10.10. Does the Bible teach you need to confess Jesus Christ? Before you’re baptized? Of course it does. You haven’t lost anything if that verse is not in the original. So don’t worry about it. But let’s go to the next one. How about 1 John 5, 7 and 8? You remember that one? Because it was quite different, wasn’t it? From the King James and the others. What’s the support for the verses as it is in the King James? Here it is. Erasmus’s third edition of the Greek New Testament. Tyndale used this for his first translation into English. Erasmus was a Dutch scholar who tried to produce the best Greek text of his time.

He did not have 1 John 5, 7 and 8 the way it’s in the King James. He did say, if I find a single manuscript that has that in it, I’ll put it in my Greek text. I think I have this here. There are only two manuscripts, one from the 14th or 15th century and one from the 16th that have that reading. The reading from the King James. There are two other manuscripts that have this rendition written in the margin. That’s a fact. And late Latin versions have this in it.

We had him read from the English standard. You remember it? It was different, and there wasn’t even a footnote. What’s the opposition to the verse as it is in the King James, the seven and eight? Practically all other manuscripts and versions, there’s no Greek manuscript earlier than the 14th century that knows that reading. So I’m going to give you my opinion on this one. Don’t use the King James version for 1 Kings, 1 John 5, 7 and 8. It’s based on almost no evidence. And you can hardly blame the King James translators because they didn’t have access to some of the most important manuscripts. In this case, go to the ESV and the New American Standard and the other regular ones. Because they’re based on more information.

How about Mark 16? This is a biggie. Because that’s one of the longest segments that’s on that page in a quarter. What about Mark 16? What’s the opposition? The Vatican and the Synatic manuscripts do not have these verses. So how big a weight do you give that? That’s what a critic has to ask. Those are the ancient ones, and they’re missing. May I tell you there are books written about this as to why they’re missing? There’s all kinds of theories about it. But the fact is they’re missing from both of those. And those are heavy evidences. The earliest known copies of the old Syriac and Latin Vulgate don’t have it either. And a number of Armenian manuscripts don’t have it. So that’s the opposition. What’s the support?

Almost all other manuscript evidence has Mark 16, 9 through 20 in it. Statement from Irenaeus from the second century in those church father writings has it in it.

Don’t you worry one minute about Mark 16. The evidential support for it is massive. It belongs in the original autograph. Period. Cynaiticus and Vaticanus, I don’t know what they did, but something messed up there. That’s just my opinion. But the evidence is very powerful in support of it. Yes, sir. I I agree with that.

Even if arguments say both versions were not in the autograph. Everything in them is kind of the other gospel. Exactly right. And then secondly, it seems kind of weird to mark Peter’s gospel saying they were afraid high. Right. That doesn’t seem practical to me. They mark a kingdom’s gospel with that. So I think that also supports that he was filed on the law. Yeah. Seems that to me too. Yes, sir.

Where am I reading from?

Yeah, it was very similar. That’s correct. Alright, class, am I uh getting this across to you? I hope. I need to kind of put a ribbon around it before we get too far for it. Yes, sir. Some people may be asking, why is this bad question for this?

That’s right. Um Christianity or predicts of the Bible would say there’s all these variations, there’s all these errors, you know, you can’t believe it. Exactly right. And that’s what I’m trying to get out of your mind. Because what we’ve shown you today, let’s just go on. If all of those significant variations were not in the autographs, you haven’t lost a single doctrinal issue in the in the text. Not a single one. I’ve told you, I think there’s strong evidence for most of it already that belong in the text. But what you should not do, class, is act like there aren’t any issues and just kind of paper over it. Because it is a fact that God did not inspire the translations or the scribes who were writing those copies.

But that’s how he chose to preserve his word. And he did so in an amazing way in ways that are unlike any other text. It’s the best supported document on earth. Yes, sir.

Well, it does a little bit because even your ESV that you read now, compared to the King James and 1 John 5, reads it a little differently. Which one is the best in English that represents what was really in the original? And that’s what you gotta ask. But it’s minimal, isn’t it? Minimal. Would you agree that we’re looking at the library of God? This is his divine book. One of my kids goes in there and draws on the pages, you can see something that’s a little different. But if all the pages are uh all the libraries the same, maybe a scribe might have accidentally letter Ts. Well, that’s to talk to me. That’s just two letters. That’s not changing the doc. Correct.

Conclusion

But he might be the lighter. It’s God’s divine library, but as to actual walk out, it’s kind of it’s stilled. It’s his mind that is designed to be preservation. Absolutely. That’s good. So, class, we have three great witnesses of the text of the New Testament: the manuscripts, the versions, and the church fathers. You put all that together, you have tremendous support, so much so that here’s what Dr. Kenyon said in the Bible and Archaeology in 1940. The interval between the dates of the 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 to us 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 finely established.

I want you to leave here thinking that we have God’s word in English, and we can count on it, because the Greek text and the Hebrew of the Old Testament provide the basis for it. And our English text, if you take one translated by large committees of scholars that are giving a word-to-word translation of the best available text in Greek and Hebrew, you can count on it. And the word of the Lord endures forever. Yes, sir.

Yeah, well, that’s probably a bad name for them. These were some of the early leaders who wrote lots of letters.

That’s correct. But in their letters, they would copy the text of the New Testament, verbatim. And you can compare that to the text itself. And it’s another support, is what you’re saying.

No question. And they said some foolish things. I’m talking about the quotes of scripture in their letters. That’s all. Yes, sir.

Who’s that?

Um, you know, I don’t know the answer to that. I’m sure they quoted from it. Probably in parts would be my guess, not the whole thing. But listen, that text has so much support, I don’t think it’s even worth talking about.

Yeah. And of course, there’s a whole lot more to this uh topic in terms of looking at the papyrus manuscripts and other features that we could go into. It’s not gonna fit in this class. All right. Yes, sir. You held up pretty well here, class. Yes, ma’am.

Well, Jesus said there’s not going to be one jot or tittle pass away till I’ve fulfilled it. So that means our word that we get and that we’ve got to be given to us, even though it’s been transcribed over and over and over is still correct. Uh yes, ma’am. That’s what we’ve got to think. No doubt about it. Alright, I had one more hand, yes, sir. Okay.

Yes, sir.

We’re being told by that by all. We got everything we’re God, number, second God, number, third God, that’s all we still have all. Yeah. Well, I think I would answer that by saying you have to take his writing to the Christians in that century as saying that from what the apostles have revealed to you, which a whole lot of it was oral to start with, is included in what he said. I think you’d have to say that, because early on that’s all you had. Because they weren’t all written down. Okay, class. I mean, it’s 357. I beat four o’clock. So that’s pretty good. Because this is a heavy topic, isn’t it? But I think it is something everybody should have considered. And at least in broad brush, you understand the principles that are involved.

And please leave here with great confidence that when you read these standard versions, and particularly when you compare those together with each other, you’ve got what God wants you to do. And you can be certain, do what he tells you, and you’ll get to heaven. Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

Amen.

Amen. Praise the Lord. Okay, are you gonna sing one more song? Is that the idea?