Over the years God has given me the opportunity to discuss Christianity and the Bible with a number of individuals from a wide array of beliefs and religious backgrounds. In that time, one of the most common objections to Christianity that has been presented to me has been the issue of biblical inerrancy and the infallibility of God's Word. On more than one occasion, people have rejected the Bible as God's Word simply because it was written by human authors. "How," they often ask, "could the bible be the word of God when it was written by men and changed over time?"
This objection is essentially based on the premise that in order for the Bible to be God's Word it would therefore need to be written by God Himself and would likewise need to be absolutely perfect, containing no errors, additions or variation between manuscripts.
When positing this argument, the skeptic's case against the Bible appears solid. After all, the Bible is comprised of 66 books written by approximately 40 different authors over a span of about 1,400 years. This is no secret, and even most Christians will acknowledge this as a fact of history. What some Christians will not concede however, is that the manuscripts of the Bible do in fact contain "errors" and interpolations.
A popular slogan today is that the New Testament contains over 400,000 errors. However, what many skeptics don't realize is that this figure is based on a comparison between the entire collection of ancient New Testament manuscripts—totaling well over 5,000 documents in all. Of the 400,000 alleged errors within these documents, 99% of them are simply variations in spelling, word order or expansions of piety. (ie. The name "Jesus" expands to become "The Lord Jesus Christ" in later manuscripts.) The remaining 1% of variations contain some of the more serious interpolations.
For example, it is doubtful that the long and short endings of the Gospel of Mark (Mark 16: 8-20) and the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11) were part of the original gospels. The long and short endings of Mark seem to have been added in later centuries by scribes attempting to give Mark's gospel a less abrupt ending. That said, while it is unlikely that these divergent endings were part of the original document, none of the information presented by the additions is inherently false or even at odds with the rest of the Bible. In fact, the additional details found in the long and short endings of Mark can all be found in the other three gospels and the Book of Acts. This seems to suggest that these other New Testament works were used as sources by later scribes to created a more fluid summary at the end of Mark.
The story of the woman caught in adultery only appears in about 12 ancient manuscripts and does not always appear in the same place within John's gospel, or even in John's gospel exclusively. However, the story does remain unaltered wherever it is found in the New Testament manuscripts. This has led many scholars to conclude that this event did in fact occur during the life and ministry of Jesus, but that it was not part of the original document. Rather, the evidence suggests that this story was an oral tradition within the Christian community that later scribes wanted to preserve. Since the Gospel of John concludes by stating that there were many other things Jesus said and taught that were not written down (John 20:30, 21:25) it makes sense why this particular story eventually found its way into the John's gospel even though it was not part of the original document.
In any case, through carefully investigating the alleged errors in the Bible, one can clearly see that any interpolations were done out of a desire to preserve something of great importance to the early Christians, and were not clandestine attempts to change the meaning of the text. There was nothing nefarious or dishonest about it. Furthermore, every interpolation or disputed passage in the biblical manuscripts is clearly noted in modern translations, thus making it incredibly difficult for the skeptic to maintain their position that the "Church" is actively trying to deceive its members. (If you are trying to deceive people, you don't usually make it a point of habit to declare your deception to your audience!)
So then, does the existence of interpolations, spelling mistakes and copyist errors prove that the Bible and Christianity are false? Hardly. Even skeptical scholars like Dr. Bart Erhman acknowledge that "essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament."
Therefore, the only so-called doctrine threatened by variations within the biblical manuscripts is the ridged, literalistic belief that the Bible is absolutely perfect. But is this belief biblically founded? Do Christians really believe that the Bible is absolutely perfect, or is it the skeptic that believes that the Bible was literally written by the hand of God and has been perfectly preserved, word-for-word from the day it was written until now?
If one believes that the Bible is true, then one must also believe that the Bible changed over time. 1,000 years before Christ, the entire Bible consisted of no more than 11 books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua and Judges; possibly Ruth, Job, and First and Second Samuel. Since much of the Bible is descriptive (describing historical events as they happened) rather than prescriptive (prescribing a moral code of conduct for one to live by) we would expect the Bible to change over time as history unfolded. Likewise, the New Testament wasn't finished until about AD 70. Most of the New Testament is made up letters written to the Churches between AD 40 and AD 64. The earliest gospels were written after the Book of James and Paul's letter to the Galatians between AD 45 and AD 55, which means that there were Christians and Churches before there were gospels.
When dealing with the issue of Bible translations the changes are even more apparent. For example, every word in the King James Bible written in italics marks a place where an English word was added to the text in order to make the translation easier to read. Likewise, punctuation and quotation marks, verse numbers and chapter headings are all latter additions, and are not present in the original text.
Add to this the previously addressed issues of interpolations and manuscript variants and you will soon realize that it is logically impossible for a Christian to maintain the position that the Bible has not changed over time. Which is why so few Christians actually hold to this belief. Instead, we find that it is the skeptic who must assume that the Bible is perpetually unchanging in order to support their objections.
If the Christian must admit that the Bible has changed over time as a matter of historic necessity, what impact does this have on the Christian claim that the Bible is the Word of God?
As it happens, there are only two instances in the entire Bible where God literally wrote something Himself. The first time we find God writing something down is in Exodus 24:12 when He instructed Moses to climb Mount Sinai and receive the Ten Commandments. The second time God physically wrote something is found in Daniel 5 when a hand appeared and wrote a pronouncement of judgment on the wall of King Belshazzar's palace. Aside from these two occasions—and their various reiterations—God did not physically write anything else. Naturally this raises the question of what Christians mean when they say that the Bible is the Word of God. Are they speaking literally or figuratively?
Much of the confusion over the authorship of the Bible stems from a misunderstanding or misrepresentation of the Doctrine of the Trinity. Within Christianity, God is not a monad. (ie. One person existing as one being.) Instead, the Judeo-Christian God exists as three distinct, eternally co-equal persons with in a single divine being: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus) and God the Holy Spirit. Each person of the Godhead is unique and distinct from each other in person, yet one in nature. God the Father is fully God, but is not the Son or Holy Spirit. The Son is fully God but is not the Father or the Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is fully God, but is not the Father or the Son. It is this third person of the triune God—the Holy Spirit—that Christians believe is responsible for the authorship of the Bible.
According to 2 Timothy 3:16-17 all Scripture was inspired by God. The word used in the Greek is theopneustos (θεόπνευστος) and literally means: "breathed out by God." Thus, it is the Christian belief that it was God's Spirit who stirred the hearts and minds of the Bible's human authors and inspired them to write down those truths that God wanted to convey in their own words. God did not "possess" them or force them to write the Bible like someone channeling a demonic spirit. Nor did God literally write the Bible himself. Instead God used regular people, shepherds and fishermen; kings and cup-bearers; priests, tent-makers and tax-collectors, each with their own personal experiences and writing styles to write down a single, unified message spanning over 1,400 years of history. In this sense the Christian view of the Bible is that it is a work of dual authorship written by the Holy Spirit working through human authors. Additionally, the Christian position on devine inspiration does not promote the view that our modern, printed Bibles were themselves inspired by the Holy Spirit. Rather, the Christian position states that the original autographs of the Scriptures were inspired. Therefore, it is the goal of Bible translators and textual critics to ensure that the Bibles in our possession today accurately reproduce the original autographs as closely as possible, so that the message of God's Word remains true to the original.
So once again, it is the skeptic who must maintain a pretext in order to justify their objection. The skeptic must believe that God literally wrote the Bible with His own hand in order to justify their skepticism toward Christianity, when in fact Christianity makes no such claim.
Finally, there is the issue of the inerrancy and infallibility of God's Word. If the Christian recognizes that the Bible has changed over time and was written by human authors inspired by the Holy Spirit, how can they believe that the Bible is without error or fault?
Again, this objection is nothing more than a gross misrepresentation of what Christians believe. Christians do not view the physical matter of the Bible as holy. The paper and ink is just that: paper and ink. Likewise, the words themselves are also seen as fallible. (As previously noted, there are spelling mistakes in the ancient manuscripts.) What Christians mean when they say that the Word of God is inerrant or infallible is that the message of the Bible is completely true, without fault or error. There is a fundamental difference between information and the medium by which that information is stored and transmitted.
For example, the information in the article you are currently reading came from my brain. It was transmitted through my body via electrical impulses in my muscles to the keyboard on my computer. The information was then converted into electrical signals again which were then interpreted by my writing software and converted into a digital display before being uploaded to the internet. If you have printed this article, then that digital medium has also been converted into a physical medium as paper and ink. Regardless of how you are reading this article, the information presented changed form many times before it reached your brain. Yet the message was faithfully preserved and understood by you when you read it.
Similarly, there is more than one way to write down a particular thought or idea. I could say, "I am going to the store for some milk." Or I could say, "I'm out of milk. I guess I am going to the store today." Likewise I could say, "I am getting milk at the store today" or say simply, "I'm running to the store to get some milk." In each of these cases, the truth that I am going to go to the store to get milk today can be deduced even though the words themselves are different.
This is a very simple explanation for what Christians mean when they say that the Bible is the Word of God. There is a difference between believing that a book is the inerrant and infallible Word of God and saying that the information contained within the book is the inerrant and infallible Word of God. The later claim being made by Christianity, while the former is the position of the skeptic.
In conclusion, Christians do not believe that the Bible is perfect. At least, not in the same way that the skeptic does. The skeptic is required to believe that the Bible was literally written by God; that the paper and ink are themselves holy, perfect, without flaw or error, and that the biblical manuscripts have been perfectly preserved, word-for-word and letter-for-letter from the time they were written until now in order to object to the Christian's belief in the infallibility and inerrancy of God's Holy Word.
The Christian however is free to acknowledge the fact that the Bible was written by human authors and that there are variations within the ancient manuscripts without abandoning their belief in the inerrancy and devine inspiration of the Scriptures. As a book, the Bible itself is finite and fallible. But the Word of God within its pages is eternal, true and without flaw.
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