God's Word Preserved

Before we begin our study, I want to acknowledge that I recognize the length of these blogs are a little longer than your average Christian blog. This blog, and several of the ones to follow, will be more historical and theological than you'd usually find. (That's the point, remember?) That being said, I also recognize that there will be a lot of vocabulary that's new to you. I find that when a writer assumes I know what a crazy word means and doesn't explain it, I tend to skim over its importance through the rest of the book. I want to do my best to not lead you into any confusion or bore you to tears with something that can already be hard to follow. To do so, I have to elaborate a little more, making these blogs a little longer. I cannot write a helpful blog on Bibliology and explain the history of the Bible in 10 minutes. To dump that amount of new information on someone would be much more confusing and discouraging than helpful and edifying. Please, forgive my lack of brevity. If you put the effort into this study, I really believe you will enjoy it and find it interesting! You might find it helpful to listen to the audio while reading the blog to help with some of the words.

In our last post on Bibliology, we talked about the importance of Scripture. How as Protestant Christians, we affirm (or are supposed to) Sola Scriptura. Scripture is infallible and inerrant. Only God can speak infallibly, therefore, His Word is infallible. That's easy to say as we hold up our leather-bound, freshly printed Bible in our hands. But how did it get that way? When did a bound copy of Scripture first come into being? Well, the answer may be surprising to you.

Why Does it Matter?

This blog took me quite a while to work on, even though this particular one was one of the main reasons I started Plowboy Theology. In reality, it's a difficult subject to address. Once I started typing it out, I really had to pray about what was best to address. The reason this topic is not addressed in most churches is simply because the pastor doesn't usually know it that well either, even after seminary. If they do have some sort of knowledge of it, they're afraid they'll unnerve the congregants by addressing it. I have to be extremely careful in how I present this because what I'm about to say can be misunderstood so easily. It will come across to you, if you've never heard anything like this before, that I'm alluding to an imperfect Scripture. It will come across to some as though I'm inferring some sort of conspiracy theory, which I loathe, especially when made towards Scripture.

I absolutely do believe God's Word is perfect. That belief is not strictly based on historical evidence, but I embrace the historical evidence because I believe it to be God's Word. I'm not afraid of it. I trust that God has preserved His Word and can see the evidence that He has. Many, if not most Christians, don't want to think about this. It's easier to just hold up your Bible and say, "if it's in there, I believe it." But what about when you're following along in church and realize a verse isn't there? Or when you see a note at the bottom of the page says a verse is not in some manuscripts? What about when a whole passage is in brackets with a note that earliest copies don't contain it? Some are so afraid of this field of study that they fall into vices such as King James Onlyism. This particular vice is the most rampant and damaging in my area of the Bible belt. Whatever the King James Version says, manuscripts don't matter. Some have even taught that the Bible wasn't perfect until the year 1611 when the KJV was made. Even further, the only way to read God's Word is to learn English and read the King James Version. If we all knew this topic as we should, such statements would sicken us to our stomachs.

There are several reasons why Christians, especially now as opposed to maybe 100 years ago, should know how their Bible was preserved and where it came from.

1. It's God's Word. We are not first century Christians. People have been using the same Bible for 2000 years now, and longer for the Old Testament. They have passed down and preserved God's Word to make sure the next generation possesses a copy of it. Since God spent 1500 years compiling and revealing His Word, we should know and treasure its preservation.

2. Faith is not ignorant. We don't prove how much faith we have by not caring about evidence and reason. As people of faith, we boldly examine evidence since we already have faith that it is true. Christians are lovers of truth, therefore, we aren't afraid of it.

3. It's under attack. There are a lot of scholars in the field of Textual Criticism that are not even Christian. There is one scholar who is regarded by many as the best textual critic in the world, who has written numerous best sellers on why the gospels cannot be trusted as accurate accounts of the life and miracles of Jesus. He is a brilliant scholar who studied at Moody Bible Institute, Wheaton College, and Princeston Theological Seminary training to be a scholar and a pastor. He abandoned his faith and is now an open atheist. Here's the kicker, he only lives about 30-45 minutes away from us. He is a professor at UNC Chapel Hill. His name is Bart Ehrman. He has wrecked the faith of many young adults by exposing them to the truth of where the Bible came from, concluding from that evidence that it cannot be trusted. It's not just him, but most any theology or religion professor at a non-Christian institution, or exceedingly liberal Christian school. The reason they are so successful is because local churches have neglected the topic. Sending our children to college without preparing them in this subject is like sending a soldier to war without any armor. They're vulnerable to attacks they could have seen coming but weren't prepared to defend themselves. You don't have to go to college to hear such. The next video on Facebook and YouTube are selected for you. Eventually, they will just pop up without having to look for them.

It's a fascinating history, and hopefully at the end of our study, you will have a new appreciation holding God's Word in your hands. You can read it knowing these are the words of God, given to us by the apostles and prophets, and passed down by faithful Christians.

The New Testament was written in Greek, while the Old Testament was written in Hebrew with some chapters in Daniel written in Aramaic. Perhaps you have heard that Greek is a dead language, yet wonder how that is so given that people in Greece still speak Greek. What people mean is that Koine (Common) Greek is a dead language, the Greek that the New Testament was written in. Just as Old English is a dead language, so is Koine Greek. The Greek spoken today is Modern Greek.

The preservation history of the Old and New Testaments are very different. Let's take a look at how both the Testaments were preserved. There are scores of books written on this topic, and loads of information available for further study. So, if the topic strikes your interest, there is a lot of great information out there to learn from. I'll share a few books for you to consider.

The Old Testament

Although overlooked and neglected by so many Christians, the Old Testament holds tremendous value and carries with it the same inspired weight as the New Testament. When Jesus said that God's Word is truth (John 17:17), He was referring to the Old Testament. It was the Old Testament that proclaimed Jesus. Jesus told the unbelieving pharisees, You pore over the Scriptures (Old Testament) because you think you have eternal life in them, and yet they testify about me (John 5:39 CSB).

The Old Testament is often treated like the most boring part of the Bible. Even some preachers such as Andy Stanley teach that we should detach ourselves from it all together. Excuse my language, but that's baloney... The Old Testament is full of interesting and enlightening narratives, many of which probably stick in your mind. The account of Noah and the Flood, David and Goliath, Daniel in the Lion's Den, Moses Parting the Red Sea, those are only a few of the many stories that are anything but boring. Even the law represents to us the standard in which God commanded from His people before He sent His Son to make an atonement. Those things are crucial to understand, and it cannot be treated as "lesser" Scripture. It proclaims the same God as the New Testament because it was written by the same God.

When an apostle or prophet sat down to write their letter, either Old or New Testament, they wrote it on a scroll. But it didn't take long for Christians to come up with a better way to store and collect copies. They came up with the crazy idea to lay the pages flat and fold them together, creating what is called a codex. We don't call it that anymore because all of our books are codices (plural form of codex). Literally, Christian's invented the Book. And they did it to preserve the Bible. I tell ya, as we continue our historical study, you see how revolutionary Christianity has been.

Copies of the Old Testament were made professionally, so that limited the amount of copies that we have today. When an error was found in a copy of the Old Testament, that copy was ceremonially buried. The Israelites wanted to make sure that they preserved God's Word perfectly, so made sure that no errant copy was created. The oldest full copy of the Hebrew Scriptures that we have today is from the 11th century. We have much older full copies of the New Testament, dating back to the 4th century. However, that shouldn't discourage us as to the validity and reliability of the Old Testament. With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1940's, finding 11 rooms full of old Hebrew documents, we have copies of Old Testament books that date much further back. We can use those documents to compare to our 11th century Old Testament and see that it was preserved intact.

There are two main manuscripts used that make up our Old Testament today, though older fragments are used to compare.

1. The Aleppo Codex - written in the 10th century, it at one time was a full copy of the Old Testament in Hebrew. However, due to Arab riots in 1947, 1/4 of the codex was destroyed.

2. The Leningrad Codex - a full copy of the Old Testament in Hebrew created in the 11th century, it is now kept in St. Petersburg, Russia. It is the main basis of our Old Testament today.
   

These two manuscripts are the primary contributors to what is known as the Masoretic Text, the textual basis for most all Bible translations. I say most because some are not based on the Hebrew at all, but the Latin. More on that a little later...

The Preservation of the New Testament

The writings of the New Testament were preserved much differently that the Old. Christianity was spreading like wildfire despite the intense persecution they suffered. When Paul wrote a letter to a church, it was circulated and copied by other churches and those within the church. Paul tells people to circulate the letters. He ends his letter to the church of Colossi, And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea. (Colossians 4:16 ESV). At times, it was copied by a professional scribe, but many times it wasn't, especially in the early church. They were just laymen who had a desire to collect letters written by the apostles.

Let's go back in time for a minute to understand the debate and controversy over the New Testament. Keep in mind, if you wanted a copy of Scripture, you HAD to copy it by hand. Gutenberg's Printing Press wouldn't come around for another 1400 years. Let's be honest and understanding here. If you sat down to copy a short epistle such as Jude or III John, do you think you would make at least one mistake? You would misspell at least one word, and probably make a couple more mistakes. And some of you, including myself, have such terrible handwriting that no one could copy your manuscript later.

But now you have your own copy of John's third epistle. Your brother who attends another church in a neighboring city hears that you have this copy, and asks if he can borrow it to make a copy of his own. He keeps your copy for a week and carefully copies exactly what you have written down. He wants to make sure that he copies God's Word exactly. He may notice that you made a spelling error, so he corrects it but makes some of his own. He may have copied some errors you made, but could probably tell which ones were obvious mistakes. Overall, he has a trustworthy copy of the letter, but its not inerrant like John's original letter. We call those original writings by the authors autographs. We don't have any of the autographs today. We only have copies.

There was a lot to take in in that short paragraph. You're saying we only have copies of the New Testament, and every single one of them has errors in it? And the original writings don't exist anymore? How can we possibly know what they really said? Well, if you heard this for the first time in a public university religion class, the conclusion would be that you can't know what the original's said. Excuse my language once again, but that is also baloney...

Certainly, if we had the original copies, the later copies wouldn't matter at all. But there are a few issues with that...

1. There is no way to verify its authenticity. It could just as well be a copy made on a scroll. We have no way of knowing that this is the original document an apostle hand wrote and has not been edited.

2. If the original documents still did exist, people would worship them. John Calvin stated that the human heart is a factory of idols. We can look at the Roman Catholic Church and see people praying to Jesus's mother Mary. We can look at the Eastern Orthodox and see people praying to paintings. If an original manuscript was still in possession, it would most likely be at the Vatican or another Catholic Cathedral on a podium with people praying to it. Such as when a parent sees the potential shattering of a vase in reach of a toddler and removes it, God saw the potential for idolatry, and the originals wore out.

We have over 5500 manuscript copies of the New Testament. Sean McDowell points out that the second-best attested work of antiquity is Homer's Iliad, yet we only have about 643 manuscripts of it. We have over 8 times more manuscripts of the New Testament, yet no one is disputing the reliability of Homer's work. The New Testament is the best attested work of antiquity, yet it's authenticity and reliability are the most detested.

When these manuscripts are studied and compared to one another, this is a science known as Textual Criticism. It is a fascinating and very complex field of study. Since all manuscripts vary in some form, they must be analyzed to see what errors the copiest made, and from that, they can trace the line of errors back to other manuscripts. These differences are called variants. Out of the 5500+ manuscripts (the number is approximate since the final number changes based on discovering two or more manuscripts are actually connected), conservative scholars conclude that there are around 400,000 variants. That number is staggering at first, and textual critics like Bart Ehrman argue that since that number is larger than the actual words in the New Testament, they conclude from that that it is impossible to know what the apostles actually wrote. But most of the variants are spelling errors. Also, the sentence structure of Greek is not like the Subject, Verb, Object structure in English. The words don't have to be in any particular order most of the time, and yet it would still read the same way. This is why there's no such thing as a literal word-for-word translation of the Bible. It would make absolutely no sense if there were. Language barriers are more than just a different vocabulary. Sentence structures are different in all languages, and in Greek, structure doesn't always matter. Dr. Daniel Wallace points out that there are 100s of different ways to write Jesus loves Paul in Greek, and they are translated the exact same way each time in English.

Muslims like to use this as an argument against Christianity. They claim that their manuscript tradition doesn't contain any variants, so they know exactly what the original Qu'ran says. Well, they would have the same problem we do if Muhammad's son-in-law Uthman hadn't burned all other manuscripts and standardized one official version of the Qu'ran. Muslims trust that Uthman got it right because they have no way of comparing their book to anything else. It is impossible to know what the original Qu'ran said. Our manuscript tradition is much more valid and reliable.

No variant changes any core doctrine of Christianity. Bart Ehrman would agree with that statement. It's simply a matter of fact. There is only one textual variant that would cause a denominational doctrinal division, and that would be with the snake-handling Pentecostals. I'll address this a little later.

Besides the analysis of the text, manuscripts are also valuable in their dating of books. Each manuscript is given a number to use as reference. Liberal theology in the late 1800s, particularly in Germany, taught that the Gospel of John was written in the late 2nd century. That means that the Apostle John could not have written it. Then, a fascinating discovery was made. A manuscript known as P52 (P meaning it is written on Papyrus), the size of a credit card, was discovered that contained only a few verses from John 18. Scholars concluded that this manuscript was created at least in the early 2nd century. It was written on a codex, not a scroll. This means that it was a copy based on an earlier manuscript. That earlier manuscript would have to date back to the 1st century, giving evidence of the Apostle John actually writing it. If you'd like to see that manuscript, you can view it here.

The link provided is to a ministry called The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM) under the direction of Dr. Daniel Wallace, a Christian expert in the field of Textual Criticism and professor at Dallas Theological Seminary. His ministry is dedicated to the digital preserving of New Testament manuscripts. Because of God using CSNTM, generations of Christians will be able to view and study these manuscripts long after they have potentially worn away. Feel free to graze about on that website looking at the detailed copies of Scripture by early Christians.

Does that fascinate you? This is where our leatherbound Bibles came from. I'll admit that there is a realm of scholarship, on any topic really, that would bore to tears the most learned scholar. But we are only scratching the surface. Put the work into it now so that you and your children won't be mind-blown when having to take a class on this in college. It is interesting enough to some to completely wreck their faith. We, as Christians, should have even more interest in the matter.

Conspiracies, Both Old and Never-Ceasing

Here's an interesting add in: Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, claimed that the text of Scripture had been tainted over time. With errors and opinions added throughout history, God's Word contained errors. It would be his responsibility to fix what had been lost in Scripture. Mormons have 4 holy books that they use: The Book of Mormon, Doctrines and the Covenants, The Pearl of Great Price, and the King James Version of Scripture. Joseph Smith, like many today even in Christian churches, believed that the King James Version sounded holy. Hence, the other three books he wrote read with the same Elizabethan English. They sound almost identical to the King James Version. But the King James Version was translated in a time when people actually spoke that way. Nobody talked like that 200 years later, yet he made sure his holy books read the same way. I don't typically agree with atheists such as Richard Dawkins, but I believe he's spot on in analyzing that they're obvious fakes due to the language style he used. But back to my point, we can verify if Joseph Smith was right in that Scripture had been tainted. Textual Criticism completely debunks Mormonism. He was wrong. And it is interesting that Textual Criticism is not a field of study for Mormons today.

Joseph Smith is not the only one to completely make up a fictitious conspiracy as to the legitimacy and trustworthiness of Scripture. People can say the most outright false claims about the transmission of Scripture and people will believe it. When people don't know anything about a topic, they will believe anything on the topic. The New International Version (NIV) has been the primary victim of slander above all other translations. A legitimate concern would be the gender neutrality of the most recent edition of it, but conspiracies as to the hidden agenda behind earlier versions of it are completely false. No, they didn't take verses out about the deity of Christ. No, no one changed manuscripts that were used in translating it. Bible translators aren't even looking at individual ancient manuscripts while translating. Those are made up claims that you would be hard-pressed to find answers to in a google search. Scholars just can't keep up with the litany of false claims made about manuscripts or translations. But a basic understanding of the subject we are discussing in this blog will help you in discerning fiction from truth.

Additions to Scripture

We will look into the King James Only controversy in a later post, but I need to mention now how a common argument is used when a verse is missing in a modern translation as opposed to the King James Version or earlier English versions. They frequently cite these missing verses with no context or thought, only to slam them down in condemnation of using a more modern translation. We'll look at just one example now, but there are others,

3 In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. 4 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. 5 And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. (John 5:3-5 KJV)

In modern English versions such as the New International Version, English Standard Version, New American Standard Bible, and Christian Standard Bible, verse 4 is missing. They don't mention an angel coming down and stirring the water. Ah ha! the King James Onlyist exclaims. Those modern translations take from God's Word! Let's take a little deeper look into this...

Bible translation has been around since before Christ. Since the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, Hellenistic Jews couldn't read it. Therefore, a Greek translation of the Old Testament was created, potentially as early as the 3rd century BC, known as the Septuagint. Interestingly enough, this Greek translation is what Jesus and the apostles quote from 90% of the time, not the Hebrew. Soon after the completion of the New Testament, there were translations being made into other languages, including Old Latin, Coptic, Syriac, and Old Church Slavonic. In the 4th century, a scholar named Jerome decided that a new translation was needed in Latin. People were outraged, believing this to be completely unnecessary, and even not liking a more literal translation being made. But Jerome persisted, and created what is now known as the Latin Vulgate. Today, it is the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church, hence some of their translations of the Bible such as the Douay-Rheims Version being based on the Latin Vulgate, not the Greek and Hebrew. In fact, the most popular Bible used up until the 16th century was Jerome's Latin Vulgate.

In 1516, another scholar named Desiderius Erasmus created the first published Greek New Testament. It was not the first Greek New Testament created, but the first published. There was another Greek New Testament known as the Complutensian Polyglot, meaning it was a translation in many different languages, that had already been created and was waiting for Papal approval. Erasmus couldn't wait for Papal approval, so he took a risk and dedicated his Greek New Testament to Pope Leo X instead. The same Pope, mind you, that excommunicated Martin Luther.

Erasmus only had about 8-12 manuscripts to examine, his oldest one being from the 10th century. Over time, Greek manuscripts got a little longer. Usually, the older the manuscript, the shorter it is. The size difference is not significant. Dr. Wallace notes that over the course of 1400 years, manuscripts only got about 2% larger. Sometimes, when someone made a note or error, the person copying it who wanted to be sure to copy all of God's Word would also copy the note or mistake. When the plethora of New Testament manuscripts were found, none of the copies of John before 400 A.D. contained verse 4, that an angel came down to stir the water. Most likely, it was believed that an angel did come down to the pool of Bethesda to stir the water, and a scribe noted that in the margin of his copy. The next person who copied his manuscript saw the note and copied it also. Eventually, it worked its way from the margin into the text. Thus now, in Erasmus's copies, verse 4 was present. The King James Version and New King James Version base their New Testaments on Erasmus's Greek text. If Erasmus's manuscripts did not contain verse 4, it would not be in the KJV or NKJV either. Remember, we want to know what John wrote, not what a scribe added.

To clarify, verse divisions were not added until 1551, some 35 years after Erasmus's first publication. Erasmus wasn't counting verses to make sure each one was there. If Erasmus's copies did not contain a sentence about an angel stirring the water, then the next verse would have been verse 4. But when verse numbers were added, that verse was already present in published Bibles. In order for updated translations to consistently notate verse and chapter divisions, they must go from 3 to 5.

Newer translations are based on what is known as the Nestle-Aland text, an updated Greek text that lists the known textual variants in the manuscript tradition. Having access to thousands of more manuscripts than Erasmus had, we see that verse 4 was added later. That changes absolutely nothing in regards to Christian doctrine. No doctrine is based on verse 4 about an angel stirring the water. Nothing about our faith is wrecked because of this variant, yet many will insist that since it made its way into popular Bible translations, it is automatically God's Word.

Two Major Codices

Here is where I expect your eyes to get a little heavy. I know mine did the first several times I heard this information! But don't let the vocabulary overwhelm you. These are just two names you probably haven't heard before. Remember, codex means book. There are several major early codices we use in textual criticism today. I'll share two of the main ones. They are the earliest and fullest Greek copies of the New Testament we have, being professionally copied and bound. I'll share links so you can take a look at them.

1. Codex Vaticanus - As the name suggests, this manuscript is kept at the Vatican Library. It is a significant manuscript, dating back to the 4th century. You can view the manuscript here.

2. Codex Sinaiticus - The history of this magnificent manuscript is much like that of an Indiana Jones movie. Another 4th century manuscript. Today it is held at the British Library. You can view the manuscript here.

It is possible, though not certain, that both Codex Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are products of the 50 Greek Bibles commissioned by Constantine in 331 AD. His order was to copy the Bible's in "threes and fours." It's not clear exactly what he meant by that, but Vaticanus is written with 3 columns on each page, while Sinaiticus is written in columns of 4. These two Bibles are greatly used in textual criticism given their dating and clarity. I will mention these in future blogs, so there is a reason we are looking at them now. They are the earliest, fullest manuscripts we have.

Locations of Manuscripts

There are two main geographical locations that we find New Testament manuscripts. Manuscripts found in and around Byzantium, modern day Istanbul, are known as Byzantine manuscripts. They are sometimes referred to as the "Majority Text," since there are more of them there than anywhere else. They are also usually newer and longer.

Another main location for manuscripts is Alexandria Egypt, referred to simply as the Alexandrian Text. These manuscripts tend to be more fragmented, older, and shorter, despite Vaticanus and Sinaiticus being Alexandrian. Due to their more recent discovery, they have contributed greatly to the field of textual criticism, getting back closer to the original writings of the authors. There is some controversy here, especially among the King James Only camp who believe we should only use manuscripts from the Byzantine empire, and that Alexandrian manuscripts are "tainted." They argue that there were Arians in Alexandria that didn't believe in the Trinity, so they removed verses that pertained to it. I've even heard, to my horror, Jeremiah 44:26 misquoted in a pulpit to say, "God says, 'My name shall no more be named in all of the land of Egypt,'" intending by this that we shouldn't use manuscripts found in Egypt because God says He won't be named there anymore. The verse actually reads,

Therefore hear ye the word of the LORD, all Judah that dwell in the land of Egypt; Behold, I have sworn by my great name, saith the LORD, that my name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, The Lord GOD liveth. (Jeremiah 44:26 KJV)

God was going to wipe out Judah from Egypt. This has absolutely nothing to do with future manuscripts or there being Christians in Egypt later.

If you recall our first blog, the Council of Nicaea met to deliberate Arius's ideas. I mentioned that a man named Athanasius was there. Athanasias was the Bishop of Alexandria, and he met at the council to defend the doctrine of the Trinity. He did so using the Alexandrian text. No people group changed doctrines in manuscripts. It's simply not possible. As James White explains, no people group ever held possession of a majority of manuscripts to change doctrine. It wasn't possible to do so.

Textual Variants

We can't cover every textual variant, but we'll take a look at some of the more important and controversial ones. The first one I'll address has more recently become well-known among laymen, most likely due to the obvious noting in Bible's such as the ESV that this passage is not in the earliest manuscripts.

Longer Ending of Mark

This is the variant that leads to a denominational divide, though it is a very small minority. The snake handling Pentecostals of the Appalachian Mountains use this variant as grounds for proving their faith by holding venomous snakes and drinking poison during church services. I watched an interview with a snake handling Pentecostal pastor who had lost both his dad and his brother to snake bites during their services. He said in the interview that if it was up to him, it wouldn't be in the Bible. But it's there, so they have to do it. If he used a more modern translation, his wish might come true.

In the earliest manuscripts, Mark's Gospel ends in chapter 16 verse 8, And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid (ESV). That seems to be a dull ending to the resurrection account, since Mark doesn't describe Jesus coming back and appearing to the disciples. Our Bibles continue with verses 9-19,

Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it. After these things he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them. Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs. (ESV)

Neither Codex Vaticanus nor Codex Sinaiticus contain verses 9-19. However, Vaticanus has a blank space following verse 8, which may indicate that the scribe knew about the longer ending and left room enough for its addition. There are also some variations of this longer ending among other manuscripts, known as an intermediate ending. The NET Bible has a helpful footnote on the matter,

Several [manuscripts] have marginal comments noting that earlier Greek [manuscripts] lacked the verses. Internal evidence strongly suggests the secondary nature of both the intermediate and the long endings. Their vocabulary, syntax, and style are decidedly non-Markan... All of this evidence indicates that as time went on scribes added the longer ending, either for the richness of its material or because of the abruptness of the ending at v. 8. (Indeed, the strange variety of dissimilar endings attests to the likelihood that early scribes had a copy of Mark that ended at v. 8, and they filled out the text with what seemed to be an appropriate conclusion. All of the witnesses for alternative endings to vv. 9-20 thus indirectly confirm the Gospel as ending at v. 8.) Because of such problems regarding the authenticity of these alternative endings, 16:8 is usually regarded today as the last verse of the Gospel of Mark. (netbible.org/bible/Mark+16) If you'd like more information, click the link provided. The NET Bible has more textual notes than any other translation.

The Pericope Adulterae

This account is one of the best-known stories about Jesus's life, we know it as the story of the woman taken in adultery. It is in every Jesus film, even The Passion of Christ, which does a flashback just to include the story. Unfortunately, it is used by many as a "don't judge me" passage, which is clearly not a Biblical principle. In John 7:53-8:11, we read about a woman caught in adultery. The Pharisees do this to trap Jesus, so He bends down and starts drawing in the sand. This is where He delivers His popular line, "let he who has no sin cast the first stone," and they all toss their stones on the ground.

This story, however, is not in the earliest manuscripts. Several manuscripts that do include the passage have an asterisks or symbols noting its doubtful authenticity. It is found in other manuscripts in different locations, such as after John 7:36, John 8:12, John 21:25, and some found in Luke's Gospel after 21:38 and 24:53. You can see the NET link provided above for more information.

Many conservative scholars conclude from this story that it may very well have happened, but the manuscript tradition doesn't conclude that John wrote it. Even early copies that do contain it seem to allude to it not being original.

Number of the Beast

This is a small variant that carries a lot of weight with people. Everyone, no matter what your church background is, knows that the number of the Beast in Revelation is 666. That number makes us uncomfortable, so much that if our total at the grocery store comes out to $6.66, we usually add a pack of gum to the order. In some early manuscripts, the number of the Beast is not recorded as 666, but 616.

If I could offer a brief possible explanation for this, I’d like to try. This variant makes more sense if you hold to a partial-preterist view of Revelation, meaning not all of the book is futuristic, but that part of it was being fulfilled at the time it was written. I hope to elaborate more on this in another post since I know many of you have never heard of such. John writes in Revelation 13:18, this calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666 (ESV). The common end-times view in the Bible-belt believes that in the end, people who follow the antichrist will take the numbers 666 on their foreheads. But it appears from the text that John is hiding someone's name in the number. Someone that they would know if they calculated the number. John is in exile, writing to an extremely persecuted people under a vicious dictator. His letters are most likely being screened by Romans before being circulated. Therefore, he can't just name the emperor in his letter. He prefaces the number by telling them it requires wisdom and understanding, so put thought into this. Calculate the number of a man, the number is 666. Those who hold to a partial-preterist view believe that John was describing in Revelation the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 AD, and that the Beast was the emperor Nero, the emperor who martyred both Paul and Peter.

English follows the Arabic number system and Roman lettering system, so our letters don’t have numeric value. Greek, Latin, and Hebrew do, though. In the Greek alphabet, alpha means one, beta means two, gamma means three, delta means four, etc. In the Greek, an epistle wouldn't say "First Peter," it would say "Alpha Peter." Numerically, if the letters in Nero's name in Hebrew are all added up together, the total comes out to 666. His name added up in Latin comes out to 616. It’s possible that both numb ers were communicating the same person to two different language groups. And it appears that early Christians knew John was referring to Nero since some of them noted an alternate number that referenced the same person. I’m afraid some of you might think that sounds like a complete conspiracy, but if English letters also communicated numbers, it wouldn’t seem so asinine. A reader at the time wouldn't have to crack a hidden code to see that. It would have been much clearer to them, especially since John said to calculate the number. You could make the case that Christians at that time were wrong in their conclusions, but it seems clear that this is who they thought John was referring to.

This variant would also lead me to give Revelation an earlier dating of around 70 AD, while those who believe it to be strictly a futuristic book lean towards a later dating of 90 AD.

My point in giving you these variants is not to wreck your faith in Scripture, nor is it to conclude for you that these texts should not be in the Bible. I cannot tell you that. Conservative, Bible-believing scholars make this information available to you and even note it in your modern translation to present you with the evidence to work through this yourself, not to decide for you. You can read this information through Bible believing sources, or you can find them through non-believing sources that use this evidence to defend strict skepticism of Scripture's reliability. My point in being upfront about these variants is to show that such unbelieving skepticism is not a legitimate conclusion. We know what the variants are. Nothing about our faith changes.

Conclusion

For those of you who have always used a Bible translation such as the King James Version or the New King James Version and have never seen even a footnote that alludes to the things discussed in this blog, I know this was a lot to take in. But as Christians, we shouldn't be afraid to seek the truth. Believing blindly is not faith, it's content ignorance. If we are afraid to seek and know truth, then the root of the problem inevitably leads to doubt.

I'm sure you have a lot of questions after putting the time into reading this blog, so I'd like to address the question I assume is in the forefront of your mind. You may be thinking, I thought you've said in the last several blogs that you believe Scripture is perfect and without error? Here, you're saying there are lots of errors in the manuscript tradition, even parts of the Bible you believe aren't supposed to be there!

I'd like to use an illustration that Dr. Wallace uses when evaluating the manuscript tradition. Textual Criticism is like having a 10,000 piece puzzle. In our case, we have 10,010 pieces. We have enough to perfectly complete the puzzle as opposed to having 9,990 pieces. There is nothing missing from Scripture. That doesn't mean that if something does work its way into the text that it also becomes Scripture. Through the study of the puzzle pieces, we can narrow down and find which pieces don't fit.

Inspiration happened when God spoke through Paul, John, Peter, James, Matthew, and the rest of the Biblical writers. Their letters were perfect and infallible. Today, after comparing the manuscripts passed down over 1400 years, we can hold up our conservative, well translated Bibles and say, "This is the Word of God."

The fact that I don't believe Mark wrote the second half of chapter 16 does not mean I don't believe God's Word is perfect. Just because it managed to make its way into English Bibles does not mean I have to accept it as God's Word. The earliest copies of Mark's letter did not include it, and later copies included a variation of it. Therefore, I trust that the earliest copies best reflect what Mark wrote.

If you choose to be offended by a footnote of the textual history, what is your final authority? Do you believe without study? Do you reject without pursuing truth? Don't just cross your arms and insist on believing something. Be a Christian and study it. The evidence is readily available to everyone, and the Bible translators list these variants to allow you to make a decision based on the evidence. Nothing is hidden, no matter what Mormons, King James Onlyists, or Conspiracy Theorists say.

I'll add such as I did in my first blog that there are a lot of bad books and websites that spread misinformation especially on this topic. Tragically, a lot of these bad "resources" come through "Christian" labels. New Age Bible Versions by Gail Riplinger is a bad source. It is full of slander, misquotations, conspiracies, and lies against modern Bible translations. Websites such as av1611.org is likewise a terrible source. It is riddled with lies and misinformation that does so much damage it makes this topic unapproachable. I have seen firsthand the effects sources like this have on someone's mind. They are unwilling to see truth, and they do so in the name of Christ.

Helpful, scholarly books on this topic would include The King James Only Controversy by James White and How We Got the Bible by Neil R. Lightfoot. James White will go into more detail concerning the manuscript textual basis of translation, while Lightfoot covers English Bible history, as well as the canon of Scripture.

I'll also share a few links to a helpful debate between Bart Ehrman and Dan Wallace to give you a broader view of the topic, as well as a lecture given by James White on the history of the Bible.

There is one variant that I didn't cover in this blog that also needs to be addressed. It's attestation in the manuscripts is so weak that it's really not considered a major variant, though the verse may carry a lot of weight with people. I plan to end our study of Bibliology with it, as it will be a good transition into Theology Proper.

I remember after taking my second Bible class in college, two classes that everyone had to take, the teacher told us that we now knew the Bible better than 90% of Christians. The two classes were just surveys of both the Old and New Testaments. We didn't cover topics like this until much later. If you read this blog with detail, putting the time and effort required into understanding this complicated study, you know more now than most Christians will ever know on this subject. There is more to come, and the next two Bibliology blogs will cover the canon of Scripture and the history of the English Bible.

For more information on the topic, check out these resources!

Ehrman vs Wallace - Can We Trust the Text of the NT? - YouTube

New Testament Reliability - Can you trust the Bible? - YouTube