The right text (src: Apologetics Canada)

Video

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Summary

TODO: Summary

Content

Introduction, and the discovery of the Oxyrhynchus papyri

Video clip from Apologetics Canada

Summary points and follow-on topics

Summary points:

• Review: why did Andy and Wes go to Egypt to talk about the complexities concerning the Bible (rather than, say, Israel)?
  • Because many early manuscripts of the Bible, especially early ones, come from Egpyt.
• Almost immediately after its production, the books of the Bible were being copied and translated into many different languages. Nowadays, our copies of the Bible are some 2,000 years removed from the originals.
  • So how can we know that what we have was accurately copied and translated over that time?
• Discoveries of ancient papyri in places like the city of Oxyrhynchus help us answer that question.
  • A treasure of ancient manuscripts was discovered in the garbage dumps of Oxyrhynchus.
  • Around modern-day Al-Bahnasa (which was, in antiquity, called Oxyrhynchus), Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt discovered ancient papyri.
  • Between 1895 and 1897, over half a million papyri were discovered, including every book of the Bible, and a number of other classical and religious texts.

Follow-on topics

• Unlike last week, which focused on the idea of how we know which books were part of the Bible (at least at a high level), this week, we are examining the textual transmission of the Bible: how it was copied and passed down throughout the centuries, and how we know that the text we base our modern translations off of is not inaccurate or flawed.
• Just like last week when we talked about the discovery of biblical and gnostic texts at Nag Hammadi in Egypt, this week too we are once again examining texts found in Egypt, this time from Oxyrhynchus.
• Understanding the textual transmission of the Bible is another important part of us being able to have faith in the Bible as the cornerstone of our belief system. If we cannot trust it, then what basis do we have for our beliefs as Christians (especially us sola scriptura Protestants)?

Further discussion

Did these discoveries fundamentally change the way we view the text of the Bible?

Video clip from Apologetics Canada

Summary points and follow-on topics

Summary points:

• If the manuscript discoveries from places like Oxyrhynchus are fairly recent discoveries, well what were we relying on before then, and could we trust our Bibles?
• These discoveries did not completely blow up how we understood the text of the Bible. Rather, they largely helped us confirm that what we had all along was shockingly similar to the earliest copies from the very beginning.

Follow-on topics:

• Last week, I mentioned that the vast majority of manuscript differences in the biblical text (in the small-ish number of places where there are any differences to begin with) are not theologically significant. I think we should consider for a moment how astounding it is that a book the length of the Bible has high consistency in all that was copied across hundreds and thousands of years, across times and places and languages and cultures. Isn’t that incredible?
• There are some exceptions to the claim that the discoveries of these ancient texts did not change our views on the text of the Bible. But by and large, the point stands: the ancient texts largely confirm the fact that the text we’ve had all along is incredibly accurate and free from corruption.
• I think these sorts of exceptions maybe get skimmed over a bit quickly here in support of the main point (which is unequivocally true = that manuscript discoveries have mostly reinforced what we know to be the text of the Bible, rather than contradicting it everywhere). But what about those pesky places where in fact manuscript discoveries have challenged parts of the text? Did believers in the past really just not know?
  • For example, the so-called “long ending” of the gospel of Mark (Mark 16:9-20), the so-called “pericope of the adulteress” (John 7:53–8:11), and so on. Essentially all unbiased scholars agree that these “interpolations” are not part of the original text of the Bible, which would mean these passages are not inspired scripture. That is pretty important theologically-speaking, is it not?
  • For the hundreds of years before some of the best manuscripts came to light (manuscripts that enabled us to gain a new perspective on these textual matters), did people just have no way to know that these things weren’t actually part of the Bible? We should not wave our hands and dismiss that question too fast, because it is a perfectly valid thing to ask. <!– — –>
• As I see it, it actually gets worse too. Sometimes, even if the text isn’t an interpolation (as in the cases mentioned above), Bible translations really drop the ball in passages that are difficult to interpret. Take the verse James 4:5 (see: different translations of this verse on BibleHub). Many English translations badly contradict each other in the translation of this verse, and interpretation of it is all over the place. In my opinion, most of the early English versions (including the KJV) got the sense of this verse wrong in their translations because they do not translate in such as way as to make it clear that James is actually referencing Galatians 5:17 in this verse. (See here for more explanation).
• This is to say, for hundreds of years, mainstream English Bible versions lacked any proper translation of this verse, and many modern translations still fall quite short. So did believers of the past just not know what James is saying here?
• Questions like these are often dodged or explained away by people who lean heavily on the doctrines of inspiration and inerrancy because they are, objectively speaking, quite effective at calling into doubt the foundations of our beliefs. If we say we believe in the Bible as the sole measure of our faith and practice, but can’t even agree on what exactly the Bible says or even if some passages are part of it, then isn’t it hopeless? How can we believe anything?
• There is more too. Consider that for large swathes of human history many people could not read, or if they could, they could not read Latin, and the Catholic Church forbid “common tongue” translations of the Bible into everyday languages like German. Combine all this, and it is not unfair to say that for large parts of history, many people had very limited access to the text of the Bible, period.
• But if the Bible is the centerpiece of our entire Christian Epistemology… well, you see the problem, right?<!– — –>
• So why then? Why did God allow there to be late interpolations in the biblical text? Why are there some verses that end up commonly translated incorrectly? Why was the Catholic Church allowed to problematically gatekeep translations of the biblical text for centuries, depriving many everyday people of God’s Word?
  • In each of these instances, consider that God could have prevented it had He wanted to. He is the Omnipotent Creator of the entire universe. What are these things to such a Being?
  • So we must conclude that the reason things turned out the way they did is according to the Will of God. Things have not happened accidentally or according to chance. There is in truth no such thing as chance.
• As I see things, there is here a degree of God requiring faith of us. Skeptics will scoff and think this eminently irrational. But truly, I don’t think it is. I can tell you with a straight face that I believe no person throughout history has ever been unfairly treated by God. Even illiterate peasants who had little opportunity to hear anything other than the false teachings of the Catholic Church in their rural backwater town. How can I believe this?
• Well, I won’t pretend that I can beautifully handle all these sorts of points with some grand explanation that ties everything up with a nice pretty bow. But I can say that God always answers those who ask and seek (Matthew 7:7-8). He always gives people what they need to undertake His Will for their lives. And, importantly, His judgement is always perfectly just, accounting for the opportunities people were given in their lives… or not, as the case may be.
• So the fact that many people throughout history lacked direct access to God’s Word is a sad thing indeed. In many ways, this probably crippled their understanding of the truth. But God knew what they lacked. Is He so unjust as to condemn them for something out of their control? I do not believe so. That is not the character of the God that I believe in.<!– — –>
• We, however, lack all such excuses, and that is a sobering thought indeed. In our modern world, most people can read, and free access to very solid translations of the Bible is ubiquitous via the internet. We even have a much better understanding of some textual and translation issues than ever before in human history. Combine all those facts with the esteem we sola scriptura Protestants hold the Bible in, and I hope it is clear how in many ways, we have been given more in the way of potential to fully understand God’s Truth than nearly any other generation in human history.
• So what will we do with it? That choice lies in our hands.

Further discussion

The Septuagint, and the long history of the Bible getting translated to be read

Video clip from Apologetics Canada

Summary points and follow-on topics

Summary points:

• The ancient city of Alexandria was important in both early Christian and Jewish history. It had a rich literary and scholarly tradition.
• It is here that the translation of the Old Testament into Greek (including the first five books, the Torah) was most likely commissioned.
• Though translated into very many languages, the Bible is not itself a translation of a translation; its Greek and Hebrew (and Aramaic) texts are original.
  • So when we go from ancient papyrus into a modern day print Bible (or even phone app!), we have… a single step of translation from Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic into our modern languages. Not some complicated layered web of translations.
• The Septuagint is an example of the Bible’s rich literary tradition—of how believers have always translated the books of the Bible into new languages in order that they may be read by all.<!– — –>
• Modern day translations of the Bible make use of a large collection of archaeological evidence—not only the Oxyrhynchus papyri we just discussed, but also things like the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in Israel, and also plenty of other manuscripts besides. (For example, the so-called great uncial codices we discussed some last week).
  • Over time, the discovery of more and more manuscripts has not complicated or thrown into question our understanding of the text of the Bible, but has helped clarify the accuracy of the text we do have.
  • In other words, as more discoveries are made, we are not getting further away from the original text of the Bible, but closer to it. We come to an ever-greater confidence in the reliability of the text that we translate and proclaim to be God’s Word.
  • This evidence helps confirm that the Bible has been faithfully and accurately copied—from the earliest centuries of Christianity, all the way up until now.

Follow-on topics:

• From the Septuagint (the translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek), to the Vulgate (the translation of the Bible into Latin), to the Peshitta (the translation of the Bible into Aramaic) and other translations besides, in the ancient world, translation of the Bible into different languages was a very natural part of sharing the gospel and helping spread God’s Word.
• This overwhelming evidence of many early translations and great variety in the languages through which ancient peoples’ took in the text of the Bible makes it all the more strange how certain later Christian groups tried to stamp out variety and force the usage of only a single translation. For example, compare the Catholic Church forcing usage of Latin, and actively trying to get rid of any “common tongue” translations of the Bible.
• This is part of the reason why people like John Wycliffe (who was behind one of the early influential translations of the Bible into English) and Martin Luther (who was behind one of the early influential translations of the Bible into German) were important. Their theology aside, simply translating the Bible into languages that the common man could actually read put them drastically more in line with the people of the early church than the central church authority that opposed variety in translation.
• Even to this day, there are ongoing efforts to translate and re-translate (to update outdated wording, etc.) the Bible into various native tongues. Personally, I see this as very important work, for what is more important for believers than having access to God’s Word, in faithful and accurate translations that are easily understandable to all?

Further discussion

What about when there are actual manuscript differences?

Video clip from Apologetics Canada

Summary points and follow-on topics

Summary points:

• Many Bible translations will tell you (with a footnote or whatever) when there are differences in the manuscripts.
• This can sometimes cause people to panic, and perhaps consciously or unconsciously begin to lose trust in the text of the Bible, as if we have no way to know what it might be.
• But in fact, the notes making these comments are actually indicative of something closer to the opposite: that we have a such a wealth of textual information that it is possible for us to draw precise distinctions about the textual base of the Bible.
• Also, what about situations like John 5:4, which is removed in modern translations, but not the KJV? What happened there?
  • The earliest manuscripts simply do not have this verse. Well, to be precise, they do not have the text of that verse… since chapter and verse assignments were added much later, and are not part of the inspired text of the Bible. (They are very useful as a shorthand way of referencing what part(s) of the Bible we are referring to, however, and there is nothing wrong with them. It is just important to keep in mind that they are not themselves part of the original text, or the copies of the original text upon which we base our translations of the Bible).
• The same situation is true of the “long ending” of the gospel of Mark, the pericope of the adulteress around the beginning of John chapter 8, and in several other cases besides.<!– — –>
• It is impossible for us to know the real reasons why some of these interpolations ended up added.
  • One possibility is that the scribes were so concerned with accuracy that they copied everything there in their source manuscripts… even the bits that were maybe written as comments in-between lines or in the margins. Eventually what was a comment or note in the margin and what was the main text ended up obscured (or at least later scribes were not sure), and thus we get these interpolations in the text.
  • For example, maybe some early scribe thought that the gospel of Mark ended somewhat abruptly at Mark 16:8—and thought to add some notes explaining that Jesus actually did appear to people after His resurrection (like the other gospels report)… and then maybe a later scribe didn’t understand that the first scribe’s notes were commentary rather than being part of the text itself, and so copied the notes directly after verse 8 of the main text.
  • But ultimately, we have no way to know for sure. It is also possible that someone really did intentionally add to the main text right from the get-go, rather than the interpolation arising from accidental errors/misunderstandings in copying.<!– — –>
• At any rate, the point is that when we are trying to “put together the puzzle” (i.e., determine the original text of the Bible) we almost always have too many “pieces in the puzzle” (i.e., passages in the text), rather than too few. So the original text has always been there from the beginning in our manuscripts… just with some extra stuff too.
• Aside from interpolations like these, the vast majority of all the manuscript differences we have are minor differences in spelling, word order, and the like—meaning they really do not change meaning almost at all. And even in cases that aren’t truly minor like this, most everyone agrees that the passages up for debate do not deal with the essentials of the gospel. Exactly how important some of the doctrines related to the disputed passages are is somewhat in the eye of the beholder, but it is true that no core doctrine of Christianity (for example, the divinity of Jesus Christ, salvation by grace through faith, etc.) relies solely on one of these sorts of passages.
  • I say this not to downplay the importance of textual matters (since all truth is important truth), but to make it clear that we should not go questioning the basics of our belief system just because there is some scholarly debate as whether some scribe may or may not have added some extra explanation after John 5:3 and before John 5:5 because he found the passage to be confusing (for example). It is not a make or break sort of thing for Christianity’s foundations.

Follow-on topics:

• Last week we spent some time discussing how peeling back the curtain on how the Bible came to be is not something we really need to be afraid of as Christians. When we properly do our homework here, there is little to be concerned about. Instead, we can better come to appreciate the mountain of textual evidence that modern Bible translations have behind them, and have even stronger faith that they are largely accurate and trustworthy.
• We should not make a bigger deal out of all this than is proper. It is common for those attacking inspiration and inerrancy to try and push on these matters, as if they are some sort of glaring problem that necessarily makes the Bible untrustworthy as our single source of truth. If we are confronted with people like this, the first thing we should do is get our interlocutors to acknowledge the fact that there is very little controversy about the vast majority of the biblical text (since that is incontrovertibly true). Past that, we can point out that the number of textual issues where there is any real debate is now pretty small. Most of the significant interpolations have been identified and understood for many decades now. This is not to say there are no further conversations to have about the text of the Bible, but merely that most arguments along the lines of “you can’t trust the Bible since there’s no way to have confidence in the text” are stated as if this some massive problem, when truly it is like 1% of 1% of the entire text of the Bible that this sort of attack even applies to in the slightest.<!– — –>
• So I am not saying we should not consider such things, because ignoring potential disconfirmatory evidence in debate is truly bad form, and sticking our heads in the sand causes witness problems. Instead, we just need to make sure that when these sorts of conversations do come up, we don’t let people pretend the text of the Bible is any more up for debate than it actually is. If people still want to go there and nitpick on that handful of cases, well and good—we can have that conversation. But that is a very different sort of thing from letting assertions like “the text of the Bible is generally untrustworthy” stand unopposed, because that sort of sweeping dismissal of the Bible’s astounding textual evidence (in terms of quantity and quality) is simply unjustified and untrue. That is the point.

Further discussion

So, if we have the right books in the Bible, and the right text in those books, how do we know any of it is actually true? And what are the takeaways from all that we’ve studied here?

Video clip from Apologetics Canada

Summary points and follow-on topics

Summary points:

• Basically, even if we do all this archeological legwork and properly piece together the Bible as closely as possible to its original form, well, how do we know that what we have is not just the most historically-attested lies?
  • After all, many similar ancient texts have much the same thing going on with manuscript evidence and textual criticism, but we don’t view them as being true in the same way as we do the Bible.
• Maybe the original authors made it all up, or were deluded? After all, there have been plenty of adherents of false religions throughout history who claimed to see and experience all manner of untrue things, so how do we know Christianity and its scriptures are any different?
• Let’s use Luke as an example. In the first three verses of Luke chapter 3, we have:
  • Seven historical characters that mark out the beginning of the ministry of John the Baptist.
  • 22 (!) historical references to locations and people that have been verified by archeology and ancient literary sources outside of the Bible.
• This places Luke’s account within a historical framework, and makes it clear he is not just making up a story, but pinpointing exactly where and when these events actually took place in history.<!– — –>
• People, places, names, even the plant and animal life described in the Bible… all of it is accurate to the place and time.
• The gospel accounts take pains to make it clear that what they are writing is real history. For example, the word Luke uses to begin his account is the same that other historians use for their writings.
• So, in conclusion, not only do we have the right books in the Bible, with the text of those books being faithfully preserved and copied over the centuries, but we also have accounts that pass the “historical smell test” too. So we can also trust that the authors of the books of the Bible were not just making things up, but were writing down genuinely true things that actually happened, based on eyewitness testimony.

Follow-on topics:

• I think sometimes we take this idea for granted as Christians—that the Bible is a valid historical source in its own right. Especially the gospel of Luke, wherein Luke takes pains to present his writing in the same style as other ancient historians.
• I think this serves as an excellent coda to all that we’ve gone over the last couple weeks here. The Bible’s true and historically accurate writings were all collected into the canon and accurately preserved through painstaking copying throughout history. All the evidence we have points to these facts being demonstrably true. And this is why even though we sit thousands of years downstream from the events recorded in these ancient writings, we still have good reason to believe that the Bible is 100% worthy of our full trust.

Further discussion

Review Questions

Coming soon!