Slandering the Bible’s Reliability to Produce Doubt

Often skeptics and liberal theologians unite in the mass media and as “history” on cable TV to slam the Bible and project doubt on to world. These scholars claim elite and prominent status from each other. They are contrasted as being in opposition in worldviews, but yet they somehow unite in being doubtful about the Bible’s reliability as though the unity of secular and liberal minds are not possible in such speculating. Next, the secular and liberal theological elites proclaim to reveal the “unreliability” of the Bible because of 20,ooo plus “irreconcilable” manuscripts. These critics like to present how the Bible’s originals do not exist. They want you to be doubtful. Doubtful about the 500 significant variants between 5,500+ Greek copies of the New Testament, which is remarkably unique in being uncorrupted. They want you to question the authority of the Bible and wonder that what if even the most fundamental teachings of the Bible are the result of the alterations of men conspiring for an orthodox faith. If only you’d jump to the same conclusions that they did, then you’d agree with them and rely on their conjectures to understand some things that they say you are not capable of addressing. The truth is that middle-schoolers though illiterate of ancient languages have the critical thinking skills to analyze variants between Biblical manuscripts. (See the NET Bible to introduce yourself to such variants.)

What these theologians and their secular friends have not told you is what they are incapable of proving. Their learning and knowledge come unto journal articles that they prefer with a limited reading of a few manuscripts. These men have already bought into accepting an altered Greek Bible with numerous footnotes marking variants from manuscripts scribed by men who did not even know the language that they were writing (see manuscripts known as Sinaiticus and Vaticanus). They do not want you to know that their Bibles are generally a collection of some faulty manuscripts. THESE MANUSCRIPTS ARE BEING USED TO PRODUCE DOUBT, SKEPTICISM, QUENCH THE FAITH IN THE WORD OF GOD! This is an effort the capture the minds of young Christian students. Imagine, if some scholars one thousand years from now dusted off some of our English translations of the Bible and accepted the New World Translation (Jehovah’s Witness altered version), the Message, the Good News Bible, the addition of the Joseph Smith to the King James, and the Jefferson Bible, and then took these as equals to comtrast to the King James, New King James, American Standard, and the English Standard. Then, they listed thousands of variants between these translations, and concluded that the Bible was therefore was polluted and is then untrustworthy. What an outrage and fraud that would be! That is exactly what the secular skeptics and theological progressives of today are doing! PEOPLE ARE BELIEVING THEM BECAUSE THEY’RE ON THE HISTORY CHANNEL!

These skeptics propagate that the Bible is like the “broken telephone” game (see Apologetics Press article on this for more info). The Bible’s ancestry is not a singular group of church leaders, who form orthodoxy through the centuries by altering the Scriptures. The Biblical manuscripts cover multiple groups and their faith. Let’s illustrate the reliability of the Bible’s words, and see if we cannot know the original. I want you to determine the original phrase in the following. I’ll show you 5 concluding messages through the records of 5 lines of passing on one message. This will be as though 5 groups attempted to pass the same message down through 15 centuries to the printing press. Let’s represent each group by the names Syrian (S), Alexandrian (A), Vatican (V), Byzantine (B), and Western European (W). Here are the final messages that were passed down. The Syrian had “God’s Word”. Alexandrian had “The Word”. Vatican had “The Word of God”. Byzantine had “The Word of God”. Western European had “The Word of God Jesus”. Now examine how these received these differing messages from earlier to later, and you determine the original phrase from the messages though three stages (of 5 centuries).

S:  first 5 centuries “The Word of God”; second 5 centuries “God’s Word”; third 5 centuries concluded with “God’s Word”

A:  1st “The Word”; 2nd “The Word”; 3rd concluded with “The Word”

V:  1st “The Word of God”; 2nd “The Word of God”; 3rd concluded with “The Word of God”

B:  1st “The Word of God”; 2nd “The Word of God”; 3rd concluded with “The Word of God”

W:  1st [not known]; 2nd “The Word of God”; 3rd concluded with “The Word of God Jesus”

What do you think was the original phrase? It takes some critical thinking, but the conclusion is clear. The critics look at this and say, “Well, we just can’t know since we don’t have the originals.” I CAN SEE THE ORIGINAL! Can’t you? This is as simple as I can make illustration to show how we can know that original words of the Bible without any lack of faith. See, these secular skeptics and liberal theologians want to muddy the water, because it suits their agenda. Notice how the variants above are minor. I could have thrown in a line of apparently erring (heretical) phrases but none are so significant and do not aid in knowing the original in such contrast. Be sure that we should be honestly examining the manuscripts despite what we may find. These “scholars” should be teaching us to learn and think to gain the truth, and not telling us what to believe. Still, test what you are being told here. Know that these “scholarly” presentations on TV, in magazines, in papers, on sites, and blogs must be tested. A lot of these “assertions” are flat fraudulent lies. These free thinking “scholars” are not any more free from corruption than the agenda that moves them.

Don’t doubt the Bible because of variant synonyms and word order between handwritten Scriptures passed through centuries. What would we expect? The reliable lines of manuscripts will always show the Truth of what was originally written. Jesus said, “My Words will never pass away.” The longer that opponents of the Bible can continue their “debate” then the more they accomplish their mission of muddying water and producing just enough doubt to win their agenda. There are going to be variants just as there are in English translations, but we can distinguish a reliable English translation while not rejecting all the English translations because they vary in reading in such minor ways as synonyms and word order. Word order and varying synonyms just don’t matter to the Truth presented in our English translations or the original Greek Scriptures. We are blessed with so many manuscripts that we can determine the truth between variants and rely on reliable families of manuscripts.

By the way, I may add to this conclusion that it is strange that “truth-seeking” Christian scholars choose the Minority Text, a collection of unreliable manuscripts, over the Majority Text, a collection of reliable manuscripts, because of the appeal to use the oldest and untrustworthy manuscripts that are accepted by agenda-driven secular and liberal scholarship.