What to Say When Someone Says "The Bible Has Errors"

Christian Post ^ | 03/07/2012 | Jonathan Dodson

[SeekAndFind]

What to Say When Someone Says "The Bible Has Errors"

By Jonathan Dodson

Most people question the reliability of the Bible. You’ve probably been in a conversation with a friend or met someone in a coffeeshop who said: “How can you be a Christian when the Bible has so many errors?” How should we respond? What do you say?

Instead of asking them to name one, I suggest you name one or two of the errors. Does your Bible contain errors? Yes. The Bible that most people possess is a translation of the Greek and Hebrew copies of copies of the original documents of Scripture. As you can imagine, errors have crept in over the centuries of copying. Scribes fall asleep, misspell, take their eyes off the manuscript, and so on. I recommend telling people what kind of errors have crept into the Bible. Starting with the New Testament, Dan Wallace, New Testament scholar and founder the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, lists four types of errors in Understanding Scripture: An Overview of the Bible’s Origin, Reliability, and Meaning.

Types of Errors

1) Spelling & Nonsense Errors. These are errors occur when a scribe wrote a word that makes no sense in its context, usually because they were tired or took their eyes off the page.Some of these errors are quite comical, such as "we were horses among you" (Gk. hippoi, "horses," instead of ēpioi, "gentle," or nēpioi, "little children") in 1 Thessalonians 2:7 in one late manuscript. Obviously, Paul isn’t saying he acted like a horse among them. That would be self-injury! These kinds of errors are easily corrected.

2) Minor Changes. These minor changes are as small as the presence or absence of an article "the" or changed word order, which can vary considerably in Greek. Depending on the sentence, Greek grammar allows the sentence to be written up to 18 times, while still saying the same thing! So just because a sentence wasn’t copied in the same order, doesn’t mean that we lost the meaning.

3) Meaningful but not Plausible. These errors have meaning but aren't a plausible reflection of the original text. For example, 1 Thessalonians 2:9, instead of "the gospel of God" (the reading of almost all the manuscripts), a late medieval copy has "the gospel of Christ." There is a meaning difference between God and Christ, but the overall manuscript evidence points clearly in one direction, making the error plain and not plausibly part of the original.

4) Meaningful and Plausible. These are errors that have meaning and that the alternate reading is plausible as a reflection of the original wording. These types of errors account for less than 1% of all variants and typically involve a single word or phrase. The biggest of these types of errors is the ending of the Gospel of Mark, which most contemporary scholars to not regard as original. Our translations even footnote that!

Is the Bible Reliable?

So, is the Bible reliable? Well, the reliability of our English translations depends largely upon the quality of the manuscripts they were translated from. The quality depends, in part, on how recent the manuscripts are. Scholars like Bart Ehrman have asserted that we don't have manuscripts that are early enough. However, the manuscript evidence is quite impressive:

• There are as many as eighteen second-century manuscripts. If the Gospels were completed between 50-100 A.D., then this means that these early copies are within 100 years. Just last week, Dan Wallace announced that a new fragment from the Gospel of Mark was discovered dating back to the first century A.D., placing it well within 50 years of the originals, a first of its kind. When these early manuscripts are all put together, more than 43% of the NT is accounted for from copies no later than the 2^nd C.

• Manuscripts that date before 400 AD number 99, including one complete New Testament called Codex Sinaiticus. So the gap between the original, inerrant autographs and the earliest manuscripts is pretty slim. This comes into focus when the Bible is compared to other classical works that, in general, are not doubted for their reliability. In this chart of comparison with other ancient literature, you can see that the NT has far more copies than any other work, numbering 5,700 (Greek) in comparison to the 200+ of Suetonius. If we take all manuscripts into account (handwritten prior to printing press), we have 20,000 copies of the NT. There are only 200 copies of the earliest Greek work.

• This means if we are going to be skeptical about the Bible, then we need to be 1000xs more skeptical about the works of Greco-Roman history. Or put another way, we can be 1000 times more confident about the reliability of the Bible. It is far and away the most reliable ancient document.

What to Say When Someone Says “The Bible Has Errors”.

So, when someone asserts that the Bible says errors, we can reply by saying: “Yes, our Bible translations do have errors, let me tell you about them. But as you can see, less than 1% of them are meaningful and those errors don’t affect the major teachings of the Christian faith. In fact, there are 1000 times more manuscripts of the Bible than the most documented Greco-Roman historian by Suetonius. So, if we’re going to be skeptical about ancient books, we should be 1000 times more skeptical of the Greco-Roman histories. The Bible is, in fact, incredibly reliable.”

Contrary to popular assertion, that as time rolls on we get further and further away from the original with each new discovery, we actually get closer and closer to the original text. As Wallace puts it, we have "an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the biblical documents." Therefore, we can be confident that what we read in our modern translations of the the ancient texts is approximately 99% accurate. It is very reliable.

For Further Study (order easy to difficult):

• My sermon & manuscript “Is the Bible Inerrant?”
• Can I Trust the Bible? (free preview)

• Understanding Scripture: An Overview of the Bible’s Origin, Reliability, and Meaning.

• The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible

• Text of the New Testament

[tjd1454]

I indeed owe you an apology. Terribly sorry. I had replied to someone else (who talked about God’s justice in condemning him as an unbeliever), and somehow got him mixed up with you. Things like this happen when I try to type and chew gum at the same time.

[GonzoGOP]

No problem. When it comes to creation of the universe, the writing of the Bible and the rest I'm looking at the how, not the if. I'm, as should be obvious, not a literalist when it comes to Genesis. I have to ask the questions, if that makes me a bad Christian, so be it. But I have always thought it better to express a doubt, it might get answered.

As for my use of the word illiterate, it was not in the condescending, but literal use. There was a time before writing was available. If you tell something someone who can't write you are limited to their memory and ability to communicate the thought. The original post dealt with errors of translation and transmission. If such errors exist, the part of the Bible which was of necessity an oral traditon would be the most likely spot to find them. Does this contribute to my doubts, sure. But details, not the big message.

And if God wants to judge me on that, well his universe, his call.

[tjd1454]

The oldest known Hebrew text was found in November of 2008. it is a 3,000-year-old pottery shard with five lines of text was found during excavations of the Elah Fortress.

I am aware of (and have examined) a number of inscriptions dating from that period, most notably the Davidic inscription at Dan in northern Galilee. (I left Israel prior to 2008)

The Elah text certainly does not "prove" that there is no writing prior to that particular find. It is merely the earliest extant example of Israelite writing that has been found to date.

Indeed, it would be folly to claim that no prior writing exists, as further excavations are likely to reveal earlier examples. Only a tiny fraction of the archaeological sites in Israel and the Middle East have been excavated (and those which have been excavated have only been partially excavated).

Indeed, the whole theory of the Israelites existing for centuries without writing is based on a largely discredited 19th century German theory known as the Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis. This "Documentary Hypothesis" was taught years ago as unquestioned truth, but in reality the hypothesis has split into many squabbling factions as archaeological evidence renders it increasingly untenable.

BTW Wellhausen's original Documentary Hypothesis held that there was no Israelite writing prior to the sixth century BC. - much later than the theory to which you are referring.

[DaveMSmith]

1) Spelling & Nonsense Errors. These are errors occur when a scribe wrote a word that makes no sense in its context, usually because they were tired or took their eyes off the page.Some of these errors are quite comical, such as "we were horses among you" (Gk. hippoi, "horses," instead of ēpioi, "gentle," or nēpioi, "little children") in 1 Thessalonians 2:7 in one late manuscript. Obviously, Paul isn’t saying he acted like a horse among them. That would be self-injury! These kinds of errors are easily corrected.

Statements like this are dangerous.

As we all have a interior, spiritual self so does the Word. It's internal sense is that known in heaven and is written in correspondences. As for horses, Swedenborg writes:

That a horse means the understanding is derived from no other source than from representatives in the spiritual world. Horses are seen there frequently, and persons sitting upon horses, and also chariots. And in that world everyone knows that they indicate intellectual and doctrinal things. I have often observed, when any there were thinking from their understanding, that they appeared as if to be riding on horses. Their meditation represented itself in such a manner before others, they themselves being unconscious of it. There is also a place there, where many come together who think and speak from the understanding concerning truths of doctrine. And when others come to that place, they see that entire plain filled with chariots and horses and novitiates, who are curious to know whence this comes about, are taught that this is an appearance resulting from their intellectual thought. That place is called the assembly of the intelligent and wise. I have even seen shining horses and fiery chariots when some were taken up into heaven, which was a sign that they were then instructed in the truths of heavenly doctrine, and had become intelligent, and were thus taken up. As I beheld this attentively, there came into my mind what was signified by the chariot and horses of fire by which Elijah was taken up into heaven, and also by the horses and chariots of fire seen by Elisha's servant when his eyes were opened. ~ White Horse #3

[moonhawk]

The body of Christ.

[GonzoGOP]

Indeed, the whole theory of the Israelites existing for centuries without writing is based on a largely discredited 19th century German theory known as the Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis.

My point was about the creation narrative. If the world is 6,000 years old, and writing is any less than 6,000 years old there was of necessity a period of oral tradition. The oldest Hebrew writing found was 3,000 years old. So to avoid translation Hebrew writing would need to predate the earliest known writing by 3,000 years for there to have been no period of oral tradition.

I'm not saying that writing didn't exist earlier than the find. It might even get pushed back centuries further, but we are talking the necessity to push it back millenia.

Even then you introduce a translation problem. As the language found on the pot shard was quite different than classic Hebrew.

If writings as massive as the Torah were common 6,000 years ago. Common enough to be distributed to every wandering tribe. And if literacy was common enough to use them we should be finding more evidence of writing. As it is the finds drop of precipitously thousands of years short of the mark.

[tjd1454]

Appreciate your forebearance. As alluded to in another post, the so-called late dating of the Hebrew Bible was required to "fit" into a hypothesis regarding the formation of the text that dates to the 19th century, and which has increasingly proved to be untenable. There existed numerous cultures in the ANE which possessed some form of writing in the third millennium BC. The assumption that a "minor" nomadic and pastoral people such as the Israelites lacked writing is an assumption which to my mind at least is unwarranted.

I would also make one observation regarding Creationism versus Evolution. I do not claim to know how "old" the Earth is. It is evident that there has been a degree of "development" within species. However, for me it comes down to a question of authority. The modern age has bestowed absolute authority upon "Science" in place of medieval ecclesiastical authority.

As a Christian I believe that to the extent that Science is truly objective (and not governed by anti-supernatural bias), there is no conflict with Scripture. However, "Science" is composed of scientists, with their own prejudices, e.g., either for or against the possibility of the miraculous.

In short, while there is room for disagreement regarding the "how" of Creation, Christians are bound to affirm God as Creator, as confessed in prologue of the Apostles Creed: "I believe in God the Father, Maker of heaven and Earth..."

[tjd1454]

My point was about the creation narrative. If the world is 6,000 years old, and writing is any less than 6,000 years old there was of necessity a period of oral tradition.

There's an assumption here that in my view needs to be questioned: that oral tradition is necessarily flawed. This is a typically modern Western way of thinking borne of a world with the printing press and computers. However, having lived in the Middle East and having studied ANE culture, it is evident to me that Eastern peoples transmitted "sacred knowledge" very accurately and reliably - orally. Texts were committed to memory with a level of accuracy unknown to us, and there were methods of checking the accuracy. A more modern example would be in Islamic culture in the East, where it is common for the entire Koran to be committed to memory in the Madrassas (Islamic schools).

But I mention that only as another aspect of the issue which many Western scholars ignore. The more important question is one of Biblical inspiration. As Christians, our entire understanding of the Bible is predicated on the belief that it is the product of Divine inspiration.

Now, inspiration is different from interpretation - which I gather is the nexus of your questions. Genesis needs to be properly interpreted according to it's genre. However, when all is said and done, it is incumbent upon Christians to affirm the Diving inspiration of Genesis along with the rest of Scripture.

But back to inspiration: if God inspired the Biblical writers (as I believe He did), he guided them to accurately write down His Truth. So, we do not have to worry about a long period of oral transmission: either God preserved that tradition as known by Moses, or the inspiration was more direct, as in "Thus saith the Lord..." In either case, I have full confidence that the final product accurately expressed God's Truth.

[freedumb2003]

I don’t think you are picking up what I am putting down. When I say God guided the translations, I mean just that. If someone approached the task with malice in mind, God’s gift of free will certainly takes over.

But in general, God gave us an owner’s manual — I am certain He is involved (He is, after all, omniscient), in its distribution.

Are the translations literal and infallible? Certainly not. But that isn’t the correct question. The question is: “what does God want from His children?” Taken in its entirety, across the many translations (and re-translations and re-re-re-translations), the Bible answers that better than any other book extant.

Once we pass from this mortal coil, we can ask Him ourselves and maybe the larger picture will be made clear. How God works is a mystery to us all but much is revealed if we look with a good and open heart.

But maybe I am just a naive fool who thinks God loves us, wants us to be happy, and sent His Son to die for us so we could have eternal life.

[Verginius Rufus]

Did Moses have the same intents as Homer? Judging from the text...

Judging from the text, I don't think Moses cared one bit about the Trojans or their heroism.

(It's possible that the "Javan" of Genesis 10.2 and 10.4 means the Ionians = Greeks.)

[tjd1454]

But maybe I am just a naive fool who thinks God loves us, wants us to be happy, and sent His Son to die for us so we could have eternal life.

Amen!

[PieterCasparzen]

The Jews ... * memorized * Scripture.

That was why it was a big deal to speak on Scriptural issues in a way that contradicted Scripture - there was an ample supply of men who knew Scripture by heart. If one walked in the synagogue and started saying something blasphemous, one could not get away with it for 2 seconds.

The more we discover in our little “modern world”, the more amazing the “oral tradition” becomes, i.e., how accurately the text was transmitted.

We simply live in a society today that does not value memorization - students don’t memorize anything any more, to speak of - so it’s difficult for us to grasp the idea of fathers teaching sons Scripture word-for-word.

There were no modern public schools back then, just fathers, teachers/priests and of course the occasional prophet.

As far as modern science goes, we think, as all prior generations, that people from more than our parents generation ago were hopeless idiots, that we live in “modern” times and all prior peoples were ignorant.

We vastly underestimate the intelligence of men from thousands of years ago.

IMHO, as far as the Bible’s inerrancy and divine inspiration, if one simply looks at the sophistication of the philosophical concepts that are being dealt with in Scripture, and in such a supremely elegant way, and then considers the fact that the entire document was written over many centuries, it’s fairly readily apparent that mankind could not have developed such a document. There are no contradictions between all the abstract ideas presented, i.e., the doctrine, or teaching. A comprehensive moral law is described. It is complete, non-contradictory and unambiguous. Think of the U.S. Constitution. It has glaring logical holes in it, things that are ambigous. Interpretations of it have done 180 degree reversals in only a few decades. Any comparison of the Bible to Greco-Roman philosphers makes their work pale in comparison. While they struggled with questions of morality, the Bible presents a complex and cohesive moral law that is without a flaw. Who were these men who wrote something that codified such a document; how can this be ?

Every thing that we think we discover about science, we label it a theory and it starts to be assumed to be true by scientists and then by the general public. Inevitably, when the truth does come out through scientific discovery, we find that it is consistent with Biblical doctrine. Our theories are just that, theories. They are not facts. Pride is why we cling to our own ideas of truth. What does the businessman say to the scientist ? “I can’t make money on a theory, come back to me when you have something working”. Well, more people should have the good sense to not simply take what a university researcher says for truth. If they have a theory, I say fine, prove it. And don’t prove it by assuming it to be true, or prove it by relying on other theories that are not proven, but assumed to be true.

Logic is a funny beast that most people have a difficult time with. I took a class in logic at Rutgers years ago. Since I was a decent programmer, I cruised through it easily; everyone else was hopelessly confused by it, and many actually got argumentative, not being able to “deal with” a binary system of logic. I also had a class in probability. Same thing. People could not get past the idea of “separate trials with replacement”. That is why people gamble, they do not understand probability. That is also why they have no idea if something like “evolution” is plausible or implausible. Also, they don’t fact check anything they are told about such theories. If they read what is not presented to them in high school textbooks, they’d see just how perplexed those who are publishing the “theories” are - and the theorists admit this readily in the documents they publish. All the parts where they basically admit they have no clue are simply sanitized by the time the text gets to high school textbooks or the news media - the parts where the theorists say “it just must be ___ because this had to have happened ___ years ago”.

In economics, one makes assumptions - in order to solve equations. The economist (if they actually know their field) must be extremely careful in their assumptions to avoid the ecnomic models they develop being sheer fantasy. In science, on the other hand, there is precious little that can be assumed. In no way would I presume to know the “age” of a rock. I was not there when it was created, I have no video of the event, nor do I have 2 witnesses. I’ve made assumptions when troubleshooting computer programs and have been very surprised by the truth - which I came to only after dropping my assumptions.

Job 26:7

“He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.”

At even the latest estimates of it’s authorship, this would have been written hundreds of years before Christ. This sentence proves an understanding of the fact that the earth is in space. Did men of the day know this ? Interesting...

[Lucas McCain]

“If I fell in love with a woman who did not love me back and refused to be with me does that make me any less loving?”

I think your analogy falls way short. If you fell in love with a woman who did not love you back, and you decided as a result to kidnap her and torture her to death, that would make you less loving. Would any reasonable person not deem you a monster?

But even that doesn’t adequately state the case because at least when she dies, you can hurt her no more. The Biblical God tortures forever and ever without end.

[what's up]

I didn't say Moses cared anything for the Trojans. My point was that his purpose for writing was different than Homer's.

BTW...Moses probably lived 200 years before the Trojan War.

[Lucas McCain]

“You never mention another part of God’s character which is plain in both Old and New Testament. That is His justice.”

No, I never mentioned justice. But again, I can’t square the accepted meanings of the words “love,” “mercy,” or “justice” with the Biblical teaching regarding God. I think of justice as the punishment fitting the crime. If a child is spanked for some infraction, most consider that spanking deserved and necessary. If the parents spanks the child for an hour, non-stop, that would be considered criminal. If the parent spanked the child forever and ever without end, is there any way that could be considered just?

And yet many believe that it is just for God to afflict billions of people with eternal fire, many of whom never heard of Jesus or the God of the Bible. Think, for example of the 40 million people slaughtered by Genghis Khan. Mostly Asian peasants. Never exposed to the Gospel. Never heard of Jesus. Slaughtered like animals by the millions. But according to your theology, if I’m not mistaken, when Genghis Khan got finished with them, God began inflicting them and will continue to do so forever. Justice? At least GK put them out of their misery.

[Lucas McCain]

“I am curious as to what kind of universe do you think you are living in? One created by a loving God, or the result of blind, impersonal chance.”

I admit that’s a hard one. Forty years ago I was a Darwinist. Then I was a anti-darwinist Christian for 30 years, a minister for many of those. I certainly don’t claim to know all the answers, and I still have grave doubts about Darwinism. Perhaps I’m a Jeffersonian deist. I’m not quite sure. In any case, I do see evidence of a benevolent, intelligent Creator.

Re: justice, see my remarks to the other poster, just above.

[Verginius Rufus]

I was just making a lame joke. The date of the Trojan War (if there was one) was probably in the mid-13th century (at least the archaeological evidence at Troy suggests destruction about that time). The Israelites seem to have invaded the land of Canaan before c. 1220 B.C. when Israel is mentioned by the Pharaoh Merneptah. I know some people try to put the Israelite conquest a couple of centuries earlier but I think that is based mainly on a verse in the Bible that suggests 480 years between the Exodus and the Temple (but that could be 12 generations, so maybe a much shorter period). Forty often stands for “a bunch of years.”

[muawiyah]

Homer became the fellow who applied the ancient principles of word structure to create an epic from available materials that would carry the essence of those materials forward in a way that was able to be memorized and then delivered to others.

The Old Testament tells us several ways to create a Memory Palace ~ then gives us the contents of several.

I think I see the essence of the stories and moral lessons in them. Others might not, or be afraid to be open to the idea that someone put those stories together.

[what's up]

What you fail to realize is that every single person on earth has gone astray. None of us in our natural state are in relationship with God, nor are we deserving of His presence because of the sin nature inherent in all of us.

God's mercy is seen in that He has provided access to Him through His one way...and that is Christ. Why Christ? You probably already know...because Christ is the only one who has lived faultlessly as a man without sin (which is why he is described by Paul as the 2nd Adam. It's the 2nd chance God has given for humankind to walk with God by trusting in Christ's righteousness, not our own faulty version).

The torment which one will experience if one rejects the opportunity offered by God is that of being separated from Him. It's not a power-hungry, blood-lust thing like Genghis Khan. Rather, it's just the reality that those still trusting in their own sinful nature cannot live with a pure God and being shut out from His presence will be darkness and torment.

We don't know that none of the millions killed by Genghis Khan had the truth revealed to them before they died. God may have revealed His truth to them through natural law. In the early part of Romans Paul states clearly that God does reveal Himself through nature so that "all men are without excuse" when they reach judgment. Yes, God certainly also provides special revelation of His provision of righteousness as revealed through the Bible (the story of Christ); however there is also enough in nature to show God's righteousness, justice, and mercy to all so that no man will be "without excuse".

We are fortunate to have had the biblical message of Christ revealed to us. But we should understand that that means we have the ability to access God's forgiveness, presence, and mercy through Christ and we need to take full advantage of that great offer sooner rather than later.

[what's up]

My take is that the Merneptah Stele was inscribed when Israel was already well into taking the land (time of Judges) and so the Exodus was before this.

I tend to think that Amenhotep II was the Pharaoh of the Exodus. I think Thutmose III may have been the Pharaoh who tried to kill Moses and forced him to flee and Amenhotep was his son under whose reign Moses returned to Egypt.

Amenhotep also seems to fit almost literally into the "480 years before the Exodus" timeframe. And, if that timeline is accurate, Hatchepsut may well have been the daughter of Pharaoh who took Moses under his wing. My theories are still evolving so I'm not wedded to them but the scenarios seem to make more sense than other theories I've heard.