There are bound to be errors in copying that make it impossible to know what the original meaning was

The Bible as we know it today contains 31,173 verses and even if scribes (the people who copied it) were extremely careful, it’s inevitable they would make simple copying errors. People say we can place no reliance on the infallibility of the Bible and many go even further, dismissing it as inaccurate and unreliable.

Jesus said ‘not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.’ (Matt 5:18) The ‘jot’ and the ‘tittle’ (as they are referred to in older versions of the Bible) were small symbols in the Hebrew alphabet which could alter the meaning of a word considerably (think of the English p and q or b and d, for example.) Clearly, a scribe had a difficult job when copying words when such tiny marks could alter the meaning of a word radically. Nonetheless, the most common mistakes (haplography, when a letter, word or phrase is missed out; dittography, when a letter, word or phrase is repeated and metathesis, when something is inverted by mistake) were generally quite easy to spot by those checking work (as indeed any proof-reader nowadays would say.) Because of the great reverence the Jewish scribes held toward the Scriptures, they exercised extreme care in making new copies of the Hebrew Bible. The entire scribal process was specified in meticulous detail to minimise the possibility of even the slightest error. The number of letters, words, and lines were counted, and the middle letters of the Pentateuch and the Old Testament were determined. If a single mistake was discovered, the entire manuscript would be destroyed.

As a result of this extreme care, the quality of the manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible surpasses all other ancient manuscripts. The 1947 discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls provided a significant check on this, because these Hebrew scrolls antedate the earliest Masoretic Old Testament manuscripts by about 1,000 years. But in spite of this time span, the number of variant readings between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic Text is quite small, and most of these are variations in spelling and style (like the difference between the American spelling of color and the English spelling colour.)

The fact that we have more than one manuscript of the whole Bible and lots of manuscripts which have parts of the Bible means that we can compare the manuscripts and if there are copying errors, we have enough manuscripts to work out what the correct version is likely to have been. The Old and New Testaments enjoy far greater manuscript attestation in terms of quantity, quality, and time span than any other ancient documents and since the Scriptures continually refer to historical events which are verifiable, their accuracy can be checked by external evidence as well.

Last night in our series ‘The Bigger Picture’, we looked at how the Bible actually came to be handed down to us. We believe that ‘all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.’ (2 Tim 3:16-17), but the process by which God gave us His word often seems to us mundane and even confusing. Why couldn’t He just write it out for us, word for word, to ensure there was no dispute about it? Why entrust fallible humans with such an amazing job? As Casting Crowns say, ‘The Bible was inscribed over a period of 2000 years in times of war and in days of peace by kings, physicians, tax collectors, farmers, fishermen, singers and shepherds. The marvel is that a library so perfectly cohesive could have been produced by such a diverse crowd over a period of time which staggers the imagination. Jesus is its grand subject, our good is designed and the Glory of God is its end.’ (‘The Word Is Alive’)

Not everyone believes this, of course, and many people say that the Bible is full of contradictions and errors and therefore can’t be relied on. How did people decide over the years what books to include in the Bible and what books to leave out? How can we be sure that what we read today hasn’t been corrupted or changed?

The first Bible[1] containing both Old and New Testaments ever to be printed was an edition in Latin published in Mainz, Germany in 1456 known as the ‘Gutenberg Bible’, but the Latin version printed in that edition had been circulating in Europe for more than a thousand years. Jerome completed this version (known as the ‘Vulgate’, because it was the ‘common’ edition) in 404 AD.

The three oldest, fairly complete, manuscripts of the Bible known to be in existence are not in Latin, however, but in Greek and it’s thought that two of them were written probably at least two generations before Jerome was making his Latin version. Latin and Greek were, of course, the key languages of the world at those times, for the Romans and the Greeks were the conquerors of that day, in much the same way that English has become the lingua franca of the world in the 20^th and 21^st centuries because of the spread of the British Empire in Victorian times.

Those 3 manuscripts are now:

• In the Vatican library in Rome (‘Codex Vaticanus’)
• In the British Museum in London (‘Codex Sinaiticus’ & ‘Codex Alexandrinus’)

The Greek version of the Old Testament (known as the ‘Septuagint’) was done at Alexandria in Egypt, but the Old Testament was written down long before this and even before it was written down was handed down orally so that by the time Jesus lived, there was a recognised order to the Old Testament. The books in the New Testament were named by Origen in AD 240, although it was not until AD 367 that Athanasius provided us with an actual list of New Testament books identical with ours. However, long before we have that list, the evidence shows that the 27 books, and only those, were widely accepted as Scripture.

For books to be accepted as ‘God-breathed’, several criteria had to be fulfilled. These are often referred to as the ‘5 As’:

1. Authorship (who wrote these books? The authority of the writers was paramount to accepting the authority of what was written)
2. Authentic (did the writings have the ring of truth about them – ‘This is what the Lord says’ is the prophetic ring of Scripture.)
3. Ancient (most of the New Testament, for example, was written by eyewitnesses in a relatively short time after the life of Christ)
4. Accepted (Jesus said He came to fulfil the Law and the Prophets, and the Old Testament was widely accepted by all Jews in the form we know by the time He was born; with regard to the New Testament, it took time for letters to circulate among the churches, so it is all the more significant that 23 of the 27 books were almost universally accepted well before the middle of the second century. When tradition carries the weight of the overwhelming majority of churches throughout the widely scattered Christian communities across the vast Roman Empire, with no one church controlling the beliefs of all the others, it has to be taken seriously.)
5. Accurate (did it conform to the general teaching of the church overall?)

Although this process may have taken a long time and may seem rather ordinary to us (where’s the inspiration in debating and discussing?!), it shows us how God is willing to work with people. 1 Cor 3:9 says we are God’s fellow workers, His co-workers. There is no need for God to include us in His work at all. He has the power and authority to do whatever He likes, but somehow He chooses to use us, a mystery that combines our imperfections with His perfection, another example of His completely undeserved grace

[1] See ‘The Making of the Bible’ (Geddes Macgregor), P 2ff

Here are a few more photos of Jade’s baptism:

Setting up the baptistery beforehand, heating the water:

Jade answering questions before the baptism and listening to verses given to her (John 15:9/ Col 2:6-7):

Everyone watching!

The joy of a baptismal service is great, but the advantage of this portable baptistery is that we can be ready to do another baptism at very little notice! So if anyone else wants to be baptised, just let us know – this is one service we are very happy to repeat!

In photography, the photographer focuses on a particular object and draws the eye to certain things; how a photograph is framed or composed gives a definite focus to how we look at the photo.

In this photo, the rose is the focus of our attention, with the rest of the church (including the cross) intended as background:

In this photo, however, the church hall is the focus of our attention, with the rose as background.

All too often, we spend our lives in the now, focussing only on what is immediately before us, failing to see the ‘bigger picture.’ Luke 12:16-21 tells a parable about a rich man whose focus was wrong. By focussing only on the prospect of riches and a life of ease, he failed to contemplate eternity. We can focus on riches, reputation or other people, and fail to think about God. The present reality we see, however, is only part of the picture. Ps 40:4 in the Message Version says ‘Blessed are you who give yourselves over to God, turn your backs on the world’s “sure thing,” ignore what the world worships; the world’s a huge stockpile of God-wonders and God-thoughts.’ We have to refuse to buy the lie that the world sells as our main focus and refocus on God.

Col 2:22-3:4 reminds us that the things of this world are destined to perish, and we need to fix our hearts and minds on things above. We have to know what our goal or purpose is in life and we need to allow God to direct our focus. A good way of discerning where our priorities lie is to look at where we willingly spend our time. As Jesus reminded us (Matt 6:19-21), where our treasure is, there our heart is. We are called to love God whole-heartedly (Mark 12:30) and must have a clear focus on God, for it is all too easy not to have in mind the things of God (see Matt 16:21-23).

God works with each one of us both individually and collaboratively, rather like a conductor directs and holds the orchestra together. We can’t see the whole picture, but must rely on the Holy Spirit to have that bigger picture in view and to direct us into what we should be doing. We have to be single-minded in our pursuit of God, allowing both what we seek and think to be focussed on God. A zoom lens on a camera can focus on even the smallest detail, but sometimes in the process, it’s easy to lose sight of the whole. We need to allow God to be at the centre of our lives so that our focus is on Him; that way, we can be sure not to get lost and lose our focus.

Everyone enjoyed singing about the love of Jesus tonight!

It’s so high…

… and so low…

… and so wide…

We also enjoyed hearing other people’s testimonies of how they had come to know God and how their baptisms had led to times of blessing:

After the service, there was time to eat and share fellowship as we all celebrated this great occasion.

Tonight we held our first baptismal service in our building on Market Street, an occasion for great celebration!

We held the service in the community room in order to be able to accommodate the baptistery, starting with a time of worship:

Dave then explained about baptism. In our church, we don’t baptise babies, but baptise believers who want to obey Jesus and live for Him. Baptism is by full immersion, since this was the way that this was done in the Bible, and does not save anyone; it’s a sign of the salvation that Jesus has already given to us. Rom 6:1-12 explains that as we go down into the water, this is symbolic of the death of Christ to take away our sins and symbolic of our own death to our old way of living. As we rise up from the water, this is symbolic of the resurrection of Christ and the new life He brings. Baptism is our identification with Christ and a public proclamation of our allegiance to Him.

Then it was time for the actual baptism, with various shades of apprehension on Jade’s face!

Dead to sin…

… but alive in Christ!

A truly joyous occasion!