Is Christianity true (the Bible)?
This blog is part of my series titled “Is Christianity true?” The series addresses four common objections to the truthfulness of the Christian worldview, namely concerns about: (1) the trustworthiness of the Bible; (2) the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection; (3) the compatibility of faith in God with modern science; and (4) the incompatibility of Christian truth claims with those of other worldviews.
IS THE BIBLE TRUSTWORTHY? ARE MODERN TRANSLATIONS TRUE TO THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS?
“All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.”
Knowing Jesus secures a Christian’s identity as a child of God. The Bible, particularly the New Testament, is the cornerstone that supports our knowing Him, including His will for our lives. Christian orthodoxy is based entirely upon the claim that the Bible, while written by human agents, is God-breathed.
However, many question the accuracy of today’s Bible when compared to the original manuscripts (aka autographs). This question can be broken down into two distinct sub-questions. First, are the handwritten manuscripts we have today accurate copies of the autographs? Second, are the translations into other languages and different versions accurate?
Regarding the autographs, the Bible stands alone from all other ancient literary works in terms of the sheer number of manuscripts discovered to date. For example, there are more than five thousand written in the Greek language alone. Since the expert consensus is that the autographs were written in Greek, the majority of scholarly focus is on Greek manuscripts of the New Testament.
Most importantly, they want to determine whether the differences among these copied manuscripts undermine any core Christian doctrines.
When studying these ancient manuscripts, scholars known as textual critics identify differences (variants) between the various manuscripts. Their goal is to unearth what the original authors (as opposed to the copyists) actually wrote. Most importantly, they want to determine whether the differences among these copied manuscripts undermine any core Christian doctrines.
One of the most influential textual critics today is Bart Ehrman, who at one time claimed to be a Christian but today describes himself as an agnostic. Toward the end of his book “Misquoting Jesus,” Ehrman admits that “of all the hundreds of thousands of textual changes found among our manuscripts, most of them are completely insignificant, immaterial, of no real importance for anything other than showing that scribes could not spell or keep focused any better than the rest of us.”
Therefore, based upon Ehrman’s own words, we can have confidence in scholarly opinion as to the content of the autographs. The very few larger passages that are disputed are well known and properly footnoted in any good Bible. Most importantly, none affects any core belief.
Regarding the question of translation from the original language into the so-called target languages like English or French, we rely on committees of scholars who are well-versed in both the original languages and the target languages. Importantly, different translations adopt varying translation philosophies. For example, the New King James Version and the English Standard Version are considered word-for-word translations that attempt to preserve the form of the original language. As a result, they sometimes don’t flow smoothly.
By contrast, the New International Version is based upon a thought-to-thought approach whereby the translators attempt to capture the original thought behind the manuscript text as opposed to the original language structure. As a result, it tends to be easier to read. Many Christians have strong feelings about which is the best translation. Notwithstanding, all three of the aforementioned versions are, in my opinion, good translations upon which to rest one’s beliefs.
Assuming the translations accurately reflect the original manuscripts, let’s turn to the big question. Is the content of the Bible true?
Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash
