Day Five - A Bible You Can Trust
The way in which early Christians copied the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts was learned from their Jewish forefathers. Scribes were the Xerox machines of their day but they certainly weren’t as perfect. So, the early church did exactly what their predecessors did; they compared copies to copies and where they found differences, opted for the majority report. Such ongoing quality control insured that the agreed-upon text remained free of errors.
There are well over 5,000 New Testament manuscripts verifying that such a process as I’ve just described, worked wonderfully well. (By the way, that’s an exceedingly greater number of manuscripts and evidences than any work of Plato, Socrates or Aristotle. Shouldn’t we be questioning their authenticity?) In fact, it was so effective that there is no indecision among biblical scholars concerning any text with regard to any major doctrinal issue. The English translation you read from today (not a paraphrase but a translation) can be trusted to say exactly what its author intended to transmit to his audience. Further, our trust in the inspired and inerrant texts are more dependent on our understanding of God’s sovereignty than a scribe’s ability. Remember, God oversaw the entire process! Since God is a God of truth, He would not allow Himself to be represented by error.
Most unbelievers want some kind of assurance other than “I just believe” without a reason to believe. They expect Christians to know and understand how God insured His Word would be preserved. It’s not complex to explain it to them. After this week, you can. Knowing how the process worked not only builds your faith but also helps you defend the faith. It enables you to “give an answer….for the hope that you have” (I Peter 3:15).
Remember, Christianity is well founded on documented historical facts. Christianity is rooted in factual, undeniable, history. Faith is built upon reason that is reasonable and reasons that are reliable. In a world swamped with tabloid stories that prove you can’t believe everything that you read, you can believe everything you read in the Bible!