(Page from an 11th-century Aramaic Targum manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, courtesy Wikipedia)
By Spencer D Gear PhD
Has the Bible been added to since it was first produced (OT and then NT)?
On a Christian forum, I was responding to a person who stated that
I believe the bible to be the word of God in which case it would be impossible for men to interfere with it if God created the world we live in the universe and all life I am quite sure he can make sure the bible we have today is as He wants it to be.
I did read some time ago that among the dead sea scrolls was a copper scroll of Isaiah dated 200 BC which was word for word as we have it to day So if God can keep the words of his book for over 2000 years why on earth would i doubt its authenticity.
Gods word is Gods word just because we don’t understand it dose not make it untrue.
If as you ask could it be edited by men then it would become mans word not Gods word or a mixture of both which would make it totally unreliable.And we have the sure word of St Paul 2Ti 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
2Ti 3:17 That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.[1]
I replied that[2]
I also believe the Bible to be the Word of God, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be interfered with. See Mark 16:9-20 (ESV) as an example. It is not in the earliest dated MSS (manuscripts) that we have. So someone added to/interfered with the NT.
We may not like to hear this, but all of God’s word has been handed down to us through oral tradition and copied MSS . There can be hundreds of variants (errors and insertions) when they were copied by hand. Many of them are typographical errors because human beings have been the ones doing the copying.
To get God’s word available to us in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, hundreds of people have been copyists and like you and me if we were doing it, copying is not always done accurately. We are blessed that there are many MSS and partial MSS so that we can compare the meaning before translation.
The facts are that in transmission of original MSS, God’s Word has been edited by human beings. Otherwise, we might not have MSS to translate into English.
Dave’s response was:
How do we know that the above verse was not inserted under the guidance of the holy spirit if we need proof of everything in the Bible then to me it would mean I did not believe it was the word of God.
As for translation i have read that the Hebrew OT was copied meticulously then checked for mistakes if any where found the whole scroll was destroyed and the[y] started again so I’m confident that the OT is as was written by those how (sic) gave there (sic) names to the different books.[3]
Examine the last paragraph he wrote on this Christian forum. It contains 3 errors. If it is possible to do this in the 21st century, human beings in the early centuries of the church were just as capable of not copying accurately.
When I was in primary school in Queensland in the 1950s, the curriculum required students to use copy books to copy running writing and CAPITAL LETTERS. I was amazed to see how many mistakes the other students and I made when we had the copy books right beside us. We could check it over and over, but we still made errors.
I indicated to this person online[4] he had provided no documentation for his sources for his statements. I urged him to provide bibliographical information (online info would be most helpful) to confirm what he had stated. There he will find a different picture to the one he has drawn. See the research of Norman L. Geisler & William E. Nix (1986:354):
The Preservation of Manuscripts
Although manuscripts give information as to their date, and their quality is governed by their preparation, the preservation of given manuscripts adds vital support to their relative value for the textual critic and student of the Bible. That may be illustrated by a cursory treatment of manuscript preservation in general.
The Old Testament manuscripts. These manuscripts generally fall into two general periods of evidence.
1. The Talmudic period[ (c. 300 B.C. – A.D. 500) produced a great flood of manuscripts that were used in the synagogues and for private study. In comparison to the later Masoretic period, for the Temple and synagogues there were very few, but they were careful “official” copies. By the time of the Maccabean revolt (168 B.C), the Syrians had destroyed most of the existing manuscripts of the Old Testament. The Dead Sea Scrolls (c. 167 B.C. – A.D. 133) have made an immense contribution to Old Testament critical study. There were many manuscript copies, confirming for the most part the textual tradition of the Masoretes (see chap. 21).
2. The Masoretic period (flourished c. A.D. 500-1000) of Old Testament manuscript copying indicates a complete review of established rules, a deep reverence for the Scriptures, and a systematic renovation of transmission techniques (Geisler & Nix 1986:354).
It is too easy for Christians to join an Internet forum and provide supposed evidence without documentation. We need to hold them accountable for the historical and textual statements they make.
(partial Genesis manuscript, British Library)
Works consulted
Geisler, N L & Nix, W E 1986. A general introduction to the Bible, rev ed. Chicago: Moody Press.
Notes
[1] UK Christian web 2014. ‘I know that God exists because….’, Davetaff#46, available at: http://www.christian-forum.co.uk/index.php?topic=12493.msg149774#msg149774 (Accessed 19 July 2014).
[2] Ibid., OzSpen#50.
[3] Ibid., Davetaff#52.
[4] Ibid., OzSpen#55.
Copyright © 2015 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 8 September 2018.