Lesson 12: Mormonism

Thus far we’ve looked at several movements and philosophies that are highly antagonistic toward biblical Christianity. Unfortunately, some movements exist that claim to be Christian but are really anti-Christian. Such groups are often called “cults.” One of the most successful and influential of the pseudo-Christian cults is Mormonism.

Historical Background: Joseph Smith, the father of Mormonism, was born in 1805 in Vermont. In 1820, Smith allegedly received a marvelous vision in which God the Father and God the Son appeared to him and announced that a restoration of true Christianity was needed, and that Smith had been chosen as the leader of this new dispensation. He was told that all other churches were wrong and that their creeds were an abomination. A few years later, the angel Moroni supposedly revealed that golden plates had been buried in Smith’s neighborhood near Palmyra, New York, back in AD 421. Smith supposedly found the plates by using “peep stones,” magical rocks he put in a hat. The characters on the plates were supposedly written in “reformed Egyptian” hieroglyphics. Smith claimed he translated the plates by using “Urim and Thummim,” a set of miraculous glasses. The golden plates supposedly disappeared soon thereafter. This book was published in 1830, and is known as the Book of Mormon.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) was organized in 1830 with six members. The group moved to Ohio, then Missouri, then Illinois, where they established the city of Nauvoo. In 1844, Smith was jailed after he ordered his followers to burn down the local newspaper press. A mob broke into the jail and killed him. Afterwards, the church broke up into several factions, the largest of which followed Brigham Young, who led the Mormons on the trek to Utah, which was then Mexican territory. They settled in Salt Lake City, the current headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The temple and many administrative buildings are there. That whole area of the country is heavily Mormon.

The Book of Mormon: The Book of Mormon contains the story of two migrations to America, one in 2250 B.C. and the other in 600 B.C. The first group traveled from the tower of Babel to Central America, but later all perished. The second group, including Lehi (a Jewish prophet) and his family, migrated to South America and prospered. Nephi and Laman, were two of Lehi’s sons. Because the Lamanites rebelled against God they were cursed with dark skin. These are the ancestors of the American Indians. The Nephites obeyed God. The Lamanites killed all the Nephites, except Moroni, in AD 421. Moroni’s father, Mormon, was the writer of the golden plates.

Mormons claim that the Book of Mormon is “another witness” to the truths of the Christian gospel. Upon investigation, one will find that the Book of Mormon is one grand myth. It’s full of plagiarism, anachronisms and false prophecies. All the evidence points to the unavoidable conclusion that the Book of Mormon is really a piece of nineteenth-century fiction. Whatever else it is, it cannot be divine revelation.

Smith also wrote two other books, The Pearl of Great Price and The Doctrines and Covenants. The key points of Mormon doctrine taught in these books are absent from, or contradicted by, both the Bible and the Book of Mormon. In addition, since Mormons believe in continuing revelation, new books approved by the President can be published by or for the church and be considered authoritative.

Mormons not only claim to be Christians, but to be the only true Christians. According to them, the early Christian church went through an apostasy, lost the true teaching of God, and is built on a Bible that, they say, is translated incorrectly and missing many books. Interestingly, while LDS Church president Gordon Hinckley assured the press that ‘‘[t]he New Testament is a fundamental scripture for us,’’ he failed to point out the Mormons’ bias against the Bible. Article 8 of the Mormon Articles of Faith says, “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it has been translated correctly.” This approach allows Mormons to ignore key Bible passages which refute Mormon doctrines. Bible verses used to counter Mormon teachings are brushed off in favor of passages from the Book of Mormon and other Mormon scriptures (as well as ongoing revelation that may change previous LDS Church teachings).

The LDS Church has published its own version of the King James Bible, incorporating footnotes from Joseph Smith’s “inspired version” of the Bible. This version supposedly edits and corrects the King James text. However, in spite of their efforts at revisionism, Mormons have not been able to support their claims as to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. History and archeology refute Mormon allegations regarding the Bible and the course of Christianity. Far from showing us so-called “restored truth,” the Book of Mormon is filled with anachronisms, and the names of cities and coins that have never been found to have existed.

Distinctive Mormon Practices: baptism for the dead; holy underwear; polygamy (Smith had about 50 wives; Young had 27); eternal marriage; the ability of humans to become gods; the Trinity as three separate Gods; mother goddesses (heavenly mothers); temple marriages as a requirement for exaltation to receive eternal life; and salvation in the spirit world after death. They portray a lifestyle of clean-living, family-orientation, and conservative politics. They abstain from caffeinated drinks. Many college-age Mormons go on a two year proselytizing “mission.”

Organization: The Mormon Church is directed by its General Authorities. At the top is the First Presidency assisted by a Counsel of Twelve “apostles,” the First Quorum of the Seventy, and other administrative groups. Mormonism recognizes two priesthoods, the Aaronic (lesser) and the Melchizedek (higher). Every male Mormon 12 years old and over belongs to one of the priesthoods. Church administration is divided into territories made up of “wards” and “stakes.” Each ward is presided over by a bishop and two counselors. The Mormon Church is a very large, well-organized, wealthy organization. They usually go into a community, build a very nice building, and start services. Mormon congregations are often made up of former members of Protestant churches.

Mormon False Doctrine: Mormons want you to think they are very similar to mainline Christian groups. They’ll use familiar words and assure you that they are Christians. However, Mormonism has little in common with genuine Christianity. It is a dangerous cult that is leading millions of people down the path to hell.

1. There are many gods. The gods have appointed one to be God over the earth. He has a physical body. A popular Mormon saying is “As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become.” The god of the earth gradually attained godhood by living a perfectly righteous life. Each god has a father and a grandfather, etc.

2. Jesus is the first of God’s many children. Jesus is the physical son of God. He is also the spirit brother of Lucifer. There is nothing in Jesus’ life more than what is attainable by anyone else.

3. Prior to physical birth, everyone had an existence in heaven as a spirit-child. Each spirit is then born physically into a family on earth and is kept from remembering their former existence.

4. Salvation is through faith and works. General salvation is provided for all men through Christ by grace alone whether they believe in God or not and includes resurrection. Individual salvation to receive eternal life is only attained through faith plus works.

5. Everyone will be resurrected and spend eternity in one of three kingdoms or heavens, the Celestial (highest–only for devout Mormons), the Terrestrial (middle–for non-Mormon Christians and “good” people in general), or the Telestial (for dishonest and immoral people). They believe there is a hell reserved for Satan and the “sons of perdition,” that is, those who have committed the unpardonable sin (identified mainly as those who leave the Mormon Church). Devout Mormons can progress to become gods themselves and rule over and populate a planet just like Heavenly Father does on earth.

Refutation of Mormon Doctrine: These ideas are so obviously unbiblical that they are easily refuted.

1. There is only one God, not many (Isa 43:10-11, 45 [show]Isaiah 43:10-11 [10]"You are my witnesses," declares the LORD, "and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. [11]I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior.
   :21-22).

2. God is an eternal Spirit (John 4:24 [show]John 4:24 [24]God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." (ESV)
   ). He has never been a man and does not change.

3. Jesus is the eternal, not the physical, Son of God (Col 1:15-18 [show]Colossians 1:15-18 The Preeminence of Christ [15]He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. [16]For by(1) him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things were created through him and for him. [17]And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. [18]And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. (ESV) Footnotes 1. [1:16] That is, by means of; or 'in'
   ). He is not the spirit brother of Lucifer, but rather created him.

4. Man has no existence prior to conception.

5. Salvation is by grace through faith, not through works (Eph 2:8-9 [show]Ephesians 2:8-9 [8]For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, [9]not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (ESV)
   ).

6. Those who trust in Christ for salvation will spend eternity with God in heaven. Those who reject the gospel will suffer eternal torment in hell (Matt 25:46 [show]Matthew 25:46 [46]And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." (ESV)
   ; Rev 20:15 [show]Revelation 20:15 [15]And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (ESV)
   ). There is only one heaven, not three.

Conclusion: The strength of the Mormon church is in the commitment of its adherents, in the positive image projected by its dedicated young missionaries and in the healthy family life displayed by the Mormon community. However, people who take the Bible as their sole authority in matters of faith and practice can readily conclude that Mormonism is a dangerous cult that contradicts genuine Christianity in many significant ways.

Discussion:

1. Who was the founder of Mormonism? Joseph Smith

2. Who led the Mormons to Utah? Brigham Young

3. What is the book that details the lives of the Nephites and the Lamanites? The book of Mormon

4. What makes Mormonism attractive? Family-orientation, conservative politics, good administration, overall positive reputation, nice buildings, entertaining activities, etc.

5. How close is Mormonism to genuine Christianity? Not too close. It contradicts historic Christian doctrine on most points. Mormonism is hostile to Christianity.

Is the Text of the New Testament Reliable?

The average person in the pew probably does not spend much time thinking about the texts underlying the Bible in his hands. He may have no idea what historical events led to the publication of his translation. He only knows that his Bible is reliable and authoritative, and for most people, that is enough. Critics of the Bible claim that the Bible is defective and unreliable. They may charge that untrained, careless scribes inserted or deleted certain sections of the text to the extent that we no longer can be certain of what the original writings said. If that were true, it certainly would be a significant challenge to the Christian faith. However, careful examination of the facts will reveal that the text of the New Testament (NT) is reliable.

1. Historical facts regarding the text of the NT

   1. Most people recognize that the Bible they use did not drop straight out of heaven in the same form that we have it today. A historical process is responsible for giving us the Bible in its current format. The Bible was not originally written in modern languages like English, German or Spanish. Bibles in such languages are translations from the original languages. Our modern Bibles are the result of a long tradition of preservation and propagation.

   2. The NT was originally penned in the Greek language.¹ Alexander the Great and his heirs successfully Hellenized the holy lands so that by the time the NT was written, Greek was commonly spoken in that region. Biblical scholars used to think that the Greek dialect of the NT was some sort of special, “heavenly” language, but archaeological findings have proven that the Greek of the NT is common, marketplace language. Virtually any educated person living in the Roman Empire at that time could speak or at least understand both Greek and Latin, and likely other languages as well.

   3. Once the NT authors wrote their works, copies of these books slowly began filtering throughout the Roman Empire and eventually found their way around the world. How did that happen? Remember that the printing press was not invented until the 1400s, so all copying done before that was done by hand. A hand-written copy of the NT is called a “manuscript” (MS).

   4. As you might imagine, as churches began to proliferate, they all wanted copies of the NT for themselves. Eventually all the authorized NT books were assembled into one work. The process of canonization is responsible for giving us the Bible in the form we have it today. The word “canon” means an authorized list, and the process whereby the various books were added to the canon is called “canonization.” It took some time for the early church to recognize and affirm all the books of the NT.

   5. The four Gospels, the Acts, thirteen Epistles of Paul, the first Epistle of John, and the first Epistle of Peter, were universally recognized as canonical by 175 AD, while the Epistle to the Hebrews, the second and third Epistles of John, the second Epistle of Peter, the Epistle of James, and the Epistle of Jude were by many disputed as to their apostolic origin, and the book of Revelation was doubted by reason of its contents. But in 367 AD Athanasius wrote a widely circulated letter containing the exact list of twenty-seven NT books we have today. The churches in the eastern part of the Mediterranean world accepted this list of books by that time. Thirty years later, the Third Council of Carthage (397 AD), which represented the western part of the Mediterranean world, recognized the same list of books as inspired and authoritative.²

   6. Because all copying done before the invention of the printing press was done by hand, differences (or variants) came into the MSS quite early on. The only MSS free from errors were the originals, the “autographs.” Once the process of hand copying began, slight errors were introduced into the text. In fact, there are no two copies that are exactly the same in every detail. As you might imagine, it would be virtually impossible to hand-copy a book of the Bible, let alone the whole NT, without making a few errors. Most such errors were small and of little consequence. Examples of typical variations that scribal errors introduced into the text:

      1. Spelling and word order

      2. Substituting synonymous words

      3. Dropping out words

      4. Adding words

      5. Transposing or repeating words

   7. How would one go about correcting such errors? The easiest way is to compare several copies. The reading that is reflected in the majority of MSS, or the one that comes from the highest quality copy, is probably the right one. It’s unlikely that different scribes in different places and at different times would make the same error in the same place. So by comparing readings, we can usually find which one was original, or at least rule out those that are probably erroneous. The process of sorting through the various readings and selecting the one that is most likely original is called textual criticism.

   8. Today over 5,600 Greek MSS exist. Most of these are fragments of the NT, some no larger than a credit card. Other MSS include the entire NT. The oldest MSS are written on papyrus and vellum (animal skins). Papyrus is a rather fragile material, and few MSS written on it have survived until now. Vellum, on the other hand, is a relatively sturdy material, and most MSS available today were written on it.

   9. The oldest known Greek manuscript, a small portion of the Gospel of John, is dated to about AD 125, only a few decades after the original was written.³ In 1994 a scholar found a papyrus fragment of Matthew that may be dated as early as AD 70. Most MSS of the Bible date from the third century on.

   10. Scholars have examined most of the available MSS and have divided them up into various “families” or types of texts.⁴

       1. The traditional text, also known as the Majority or Byzantine text—a family of texts that was used commonly until the late 1800s. The majority of existing MSS, around 90%, fit into this family, but little evidence of this text type exists before the fourth century AD. The so-called “Textus Receptus” (TR) fits into this category. Most English versions of the Bible, including the King James Version, were based on this family of texts until the late 1800s. Many Bible students still argue that this family of texts most closely reflects the original readings of the Greek NT.

       2. The critical text, also known as the Alexandrian text—the oldest representations of the Greek NT (most papyrus evidence) come from this family. Readings from this family tend to be shorter and rougher, which suggests that it did not go through a process of smoothing and editing by scribes. Most Bible scholars believe that this family of texts retains the readings closest to the originals.

       3. The Western text—this family of texts contains slightly different readings than found in the other two types. Western readings tend to be longer and somewhat unusual when compared to the other families. There are no English translations that follow the Western tradition.

Note: The fact that a certain MSS is categorized within a certain family of texts does not imply that all the MSS of that family agree uniformly. Variants do exist within the texts of the same family, but the MSS within a family agree to a large degree. The differences within families are far less than those between the families. Remember that no two MSS agree in every detail.

Another Note: Biblical scholars continue to debate which family of Greek MSS is most authoritative, reliable, and closest to the originals. Some hold that older texts must be closer to the originals, while others argue that the majority of MSS probably reflect the original readings the best. As you might guess, this is a very technical and detailed field of inquiry. Those untrained in biblical languages and in the history of the texts and textual criticism would be wise to hold their opinions tentatively.

A Third Note: How did the above families develop? As Christianity expanded and developed, copies of the NT were carried throughout the Roman Empire. In places where the church was strong and well-organized, one particular type of text prevailed and became standardized. For example, in Egypt the Alexandrian family of texts dominated, and around Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey) the Byzantine family became the “received” text. Both of these cities contained scriptoria wherein the NT was copied and disseminated, so the “official” readings were most widely published. Eventually the Latin language replaced Greek in the western part of the Empire, while Greek remained the common language in the east. Western scribes began copying the Bible mostly into Latin (by about AD 250), while eastern scribes continued making copies in Greek, which explains why this type of text is now the “Majority” of Greek texts. Most scholars believe that editors and scribes “polished” or smoothed out the readings of the Byzantine text type over the centuries. This process did not occur in the west because they stopped using Greek there.

11. Given all the above facts, some might question how reliable the text of the NT is. After all, we admit that hand copying inserted many variants into the text, and we admit that at least three families of text exist, and each of these families support different readings. This might suggest to some people that we are not sure what the NT really says. So is the NT reliable?

This is not a question of which English translation is most reliable, but of whether the original documents of the NT, written in Greek, were transmitted to us in an essentially reliable, uncorrupted form. That is, can we recover the original readings from the available MSS? While skeptics, critics and liberals no doubt would deny it, most conservative scholars believe that we can distill the original readings from the available MSS in an essentially uncorrupted form.

2. Facts supporting the reliability of the NT

   1. Inspiration and preservation guarantee that the original contents of the NT is available within the manuscript evidence.

      1. Variants in the text do not preclude inspiration or preservation. Remember that inspiration applies only to the original process in which God “breathed out” His word. Inspiration occurred as the author’s pen hit the paper. If we had access to the originals, we would find them to be error free (inerrant). Unfortunately, the originals almost certainly no longer exist. All we have are copies, but within these copies the wording of the originals still exists.

      2. Inspiration does not technically apply to subsequent copying or translating of the Bible. God has promised to preserve His word (Psalm 119:152, 160 [show]Psalm 119:152 [152]Long have I known from your testimonies that you have founded them forever. Psalm 119:160 [160]The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.
         ; Isaiah 40:8 [show]Isaiah 40:8 [8]The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.
         ; Matthew 5:18, 24 [show]Matthew 5:18 [18]For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. (ESV) Matthew 5:24 [24]leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. (ESV)
         :35; John 10:35 [show]John 10:35 [35]If he called them gods to whom the word of God came--and Scripture cannot be broken-- (ESV)
         ), but this preservation has been carried out providentially, not miraculously. Normal human means of copying has preserved the documents as we have them today. God no doubt could have miraculously preserved his word in some particular location in an error-free condition, but He chose not to. Based on God’s promise to preserve His word, we have confidence that it has not been essentially lost or corrupted.⁵

      3. We do not believe that any one particular text or even family of texts perfectly preserves the original readings of the NT. In fact, the Bible says nothing about the means of its own preservation or the location of its preservation. There is no biblical evidence that the Bible must be preserved without error in one particular MS or family of MSS. Those who believe such things have no biblical basis for such an opinion.

      4. The presence of variants and imperfections does not imply that a text is unreliable or less than Scripture. As the King James Version translators clearly stated in the preface of their work, a translation may rightly be called the Word of God even though it may contain some “imperfections and blemishes.” Just as the King’s speech which he utters in Parliament is still the King’s speech, though it may be imperfectly translated into French, Dutch, Italian, and Latin; so also in the case of the translation of the Word of God. Translations will never be infallible since they are not like the original manuscripts, which were produced by the apostles and their associates under the influence of inspiration. However, even an imperfect translation like the Septuagint can surely be called the Word of God since it was approved and used by the apostles themselves. “We affirm and avow that the very meanest [i.e., lowest quality] translation of the Bible in English set forth by men of our profession . . . containeth the word of God, nay, is the word of God.”⁶

“The Old Testament in Hebrew, . . . and the New Testament in Greek . . . being immediately inspired by God, and by his singular care and Providence kept pure in all Ages, are therefore authentical; so as in all controversies of Religion the Church is finally to appeal unto them.” – London Baptist Confession (1677)

2. Many manuscripts lend support for the text.

   1. As mentioned above, over 5,600 separate MSS exist supporting the NT text. And some of these MSS were copied only a few decades after the originals were written. This situation is unique to the NT; no other ancient document can claim the same level of support. Most existing works from that period in history have only a handful of documents supporting them, and many of these are no older than the middle ages. The NT has no lack of textual support.

   2. Where can we find the original, perfect wording of the NT? We can only affirm that it exists within the available MSS. Choosing the most probable reading is the domain of textual (or “lower”) criticism. Biblical scholars examine and evaluate the available readings and choose the one they think is most likely to be original. If they are not sure, they will often insert a marginal note suggesting that a variant reading might be right. The original King James Bible had hundreds of marginal notes and many optional readings. Because significant variants affect such a small percentage of the text, we can have great confidence that the readings in our versions accurately convey the original words. Where the reading is doubtful, a marginal note may retain the original.

3. Most of the variant readings are minor and affect meaning only slightly or not at all.⁷

   1. As noted above, most of the differences among Greek texts are minor matters of spelling, word order, word choice, and small additions or deletions. Most of them do not alter the meaning of the passage whatsoever. If we look at the whole of the NT, the significant variations affect only about 2% of the text. The small NT book of Jude contains about 450 words. About 6% of the words in Jude are affected by variants, and most of these are minor. A couple of minor variants:

      1. In verse 3, one text reads “the common salvation” while another has “our common salvation.”

      2. In verse 12, one family of texts have “carried about” while a different text has “carried along.”

      3. In verse 23, one text moves “with fear” to the end of the verse.

      4. In verse 25, one text reads “glory and majesty” while another reads “glory, majesty.”

None of these variants change the meaning of the text in any significant way. Like most variants, they are very minor.

2. Some of the variants are more substantial and could change the meaning of a passage somewhat. More examples from Jude:

   1. In verse 1, one reading has “sanctified” while another text has “beloved.”

   2. In verse 22, one reading is “making a difference” while another is “who are doubting.”

   3. In verse 23, one reading has “on some have mercy” while another does not contain those words at all.

   4. In verse 25, one reading has “the only wise God” while another has “the only God.”

You can see in cases like these there is a difference in meaning depending on what reading is chosen. But again, such variants do not make a substantial difference in understanding the passage, nor do they affect the general teaching of the Bible.

4. In a few instances, variant readings make a significant difference in the meaning of a text.

   1. Examples of significant variants: In John 1:18 [show]John 1:18 [18]No one has ever seen God; the only God,(1) who is at the Father's side,(2) he has made him known. (ESV) Footnotes 1. [1:18] Or 'the only One, who is God'; some manuscripts 'the only Son' 2. [1:18] Greek 'in the bosom of the Father'
      , some texts have “only begotten son” while others have “only begotten God.” In Matthew 6:13 [show]Matthew 6:13 [13]And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.(1) Footnotes 1. [6:13] Or 'the evil one'; some manuscripts add 'For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen'
      , the entire phrase “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen” is not found in some MSS. In 1 John 5:13 [show]1 John 5:13 That You May Know [13]I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. (ESV)
      , the repeated phrase “and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God” is not found in some MSS. Acts 8:37 [show]Acts 8:36-38 [36]And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, "See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?"(1) [38]And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. (ESV) Footnotes 1. [8:36] Some manuscripts add all or most of verse 37: 'And Philip said, "If you believe with all your heart, you may." And he replied, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God."'
      reads, “And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” These words are not found at all in some Greek MSS.

   2. Examples of the most significant variants: The most consequential variants in the NT are found in John 7:53-8 [show]John 7:53-8:59 [The earliest manuscripts do not include 7:53-8:11.](1) The Woman Caught in Adultery [53][[They went each to his own house, I Am the Light of the World [12]Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." [13]So the Pharisees said to him, "You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true." [14]Jesus answered, "Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. [15]You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. [16]Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father(2) who sent me. [17]In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true. [18]I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me." [19]They said to him therefore, "Where is your Father?" Jesus answered, "You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also." [20]These words he spoke in the treasury, as he taught in the temple; but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come. [21]So he said to them again, "I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come." [22]So the Jews said, "Will he kill himself, since he says, 'Where I am going, you cannot come'?" [23]He said to them, "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. [24]I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins." [25]So they said to him, "Who are you?" Jesus said to them, "Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. [26]I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him." [27]They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father. [28]So Jesus said to them, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. [29]And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him." [30]As he was saying these things, many believed in him. The Truth Will Set You Free [31]So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, [32]and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." [33]They answered him, "We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, 'You will become free'?" [34]Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave(3) to sin. [35]The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. [36]So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. [37]I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. [38]I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father." You Are of Your Father the Devil [39]They answered him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, [40]but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. [41]You are doing the works your father did." They said to him, "We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father--even God." [42]Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. [43]Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. [44]You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. [45]But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. [46]Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? [47]Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God." Before Abraham Was, I Am [48]The Jews answered him, "Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?" [49]Jesus answered, "I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. [50]Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and he is the judge. [51]Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death." [52]The Jews said to him, "Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, 'If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.' [53]Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?" [54]Jesus answered, "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, 'He is our God.'(4) [55]But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. [56]Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad." [57]So the Jews said to him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?"(5) [58]Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." [59]So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. (ESV) Footnotes 1. [7:53] Some manuscripts do not include 7:53-8:11; others add the passage here or after 7:36 or after 21:25 or after Luke 21:38, with variations in the text 2. [8:16] Some manuscripts 'he' 3. [8:34] Greek 'bondservant'; also verse 35 4. [8:54] Some manuscripts 'your God' 5. [8:57] Some manuscripts 'has Abraham seen you?'
      :11, Mark 16:9-20 [show]Mark 16:9-20 [Some of the earliest manuscripts do not include 16:9-20.](1) Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene [9][[Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. [10]She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. [11]But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it. Jesus Appears to Two Disciples [12]After these things he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. [13]And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them. The Great Commission [14]Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. [15]And he said to them, "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. [16]Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. [17]And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; [18]they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover." [19]So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. [20]And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.]] (ESV) Footnotes 1. [16:9] Some manuscripts end the book with 16:8; others include verses 9-20 immediately after verse 8. A few manuscripts insert additional material after verse 14; one Latin manuscript adds after verse 8 the following: 'But they reported briefly to Peter and those with him all that they had been told. And after this, Jesus himself sent out by means of them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation'. Other manuscripts include this same wording after verse 8, then continue with verses 9-20
      , and 1 John 5:7-8 [show]1 John 5:7-8 [7]For there are three that testify: [8]the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree. (ESV)
      . Each of these texts is disputed because they are found in some MSS and not in others. Various arguments can be made either supporting or denying their inclusion in the canon. Whether we retain them in the text or remove them from the text, it does not radically alter the message of the NT. Of themselves they do not affect our faith and practice in the least.

   3. It is beyond the scope of this lesson to examine the processes and strategies involved with choosing the most likely reading from among the options reflected in the various MSS. Such tasks should be left to experts in the field, not amateurs. Any concerned Bible student can check the range of readings found within the better English translations. Most of the newer versions will include even those passages that are disputed, often setting them off with some indicator or sign, linked to a marginal note explaining why the reading is debatable. Whether or not the debated reading is original, it is included in the text in some fashion, at least in the case of the most significant variants.

5. Uncertainty does not equal unreliability.

   1. We must admit that we find different readings among the various MSS of the NT—that is beyond dispute. We must also avoid the error of picking one text and proclaiming that it and only it has miraculously preserved all the original readings in a pristine, error-free state. Such a claim will not withstand historical evaluation. The only way to determine the original readings is to compare and analyze the MS evidence.

   2. The original readings do exist within the MS evidence. As noted above, our uncertainty about the correct reading affects only about 2% of the entire NT, and in those cases we have options that do retain the original reading. We may not be sure which reading is original, but we can be confident that one of them is.

   3. Modern versions are reliable in that they are the result of careful research and analysis of the potential readings. Committees of experts examined the possible readings and selected those that they thought were most likely to be original. Even if they selected the wrong reading in some cases, that does not ruin the overall impression of the work. The truthfulness of the Bible does not rest on translators picking the right word in every case.

   4. Every translation is the result of the translators picking the readings that they thought most accurately reflected the originals. Unless you can read Greek fluently, you must rely on the scholarship and honesty of the people who translated the Bible you read. Unless you are reading a sectarian version (e.g., New Word Translation) or a free paraphrase (e.g., The Message), you have no reason to doubt what your Bible says. And consulting a couple of different versions will usually keep you on the right path.

6. None of the variants change the overall teaching of the NT. Not a single variant altars what Christians believe and practice. Variants certainly do alter our understanding of individual passages, but not a single variant teaches heresy, and all of them combined do not reduce the NT to an unreliable condition.

Note the Quote: [F]or over 99 percent of the words of the Bible, we know what the original manuscript said. Even for many of the verses where there are textual variants, … the correct decision is often quite clear, and there are really very few places where the textual variant is both difficult to evaluate and significant in determining the meaning. In the small percentage of the cases where there is significant uncertainty about what the original text said, the general sense of the sentence is usually quite clear from the context…. [T]he study of textual variants has not left us in confusion about what the original manuscripts said. It has rather brought us extremely close to the content of those original manuscripts. For most practical purposes, then, the current published scholarly texts of the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament are the same as the original manuscripts.⁸

Conclusion: The reliability of the text of the NT is a significant issue for anyone who claims to believe the Bible. You may find some of the above information surprising and challenging. As much as we might wish we had access to a perfectly preserved edition of the NT, we simply do not. The original contents of the NT are available to us, but it is presently reflected in the totality of the textual record. Finding the best readings and incorporating them into modern translations is the task of textual scholars. It is a difficult task but not an insurmountable one. As the translators of the King James Bible stated, any translation that faithfully reproduces the original language texts may be considered to be the Word of God.

1 Some suggest that the NT may have been originally composed in Aramaic and translated into Greek very early on, but this claim cannot be verified. The oldest manuscripts of the NT are in Greek, and most scholars believe that is the language it was originally written in.

2 Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 64.

3 p⁴⁵, as it is called, measures only 2.5” x 3.5” and contains John 18:31-33, 37-38 [show]John 18:31-33 [31]Pilate said to them, "Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law." The Jews said to him, "It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death." [32]This was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken to show by what kind of death he was going to die. My Kingdom Is Not of This World [33]So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" (ESV) John 18:37-38 [37]Then Pilate said to him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world--to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice." [38]Pilate said to him, "What is truth?" After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, "I find no guilt in him. (ESV)
. It resides at the John Rylands Library at Manchester, England. The existence of this fragment proves that the NT was known and used far from its place of composition during the first half of the second century.

4 The text types reflect the region of the people who quote from or use the texts, not where the MSS were found.

5 By “essentially,” I am conceding that in some cases are we not entirely confident about what the original wording was. But even in such cases, we are confident that the original wording must be retained in one of the variant readings. Thus it is important to provide optional readings.

6 William W. Combs, “The Preface To The King James Version And The King James-Only Position,” Detroit Baptist Seminary. (1996; 2003). Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal (Vol. 1, Page 257-258). The Septuagint (LXX) is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. It is a rather free and periphrastic translation.

7 From Mark Minnick, “How Much Do the Differences Make?” in God’s Word in Our Hands (Greenville, SC: Ambassador Emerald, 2003).

8 Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 96.

Is the Text of the Old Testament Reliable?

No book in the literature of the world has been so often copied, printed, translated, read and studied as the Bible. It stands uniquely as the object of so much effort devoted to preserving it faithfully, to understanding it, and to making it understandable to others.¹ The Bible is one of the few texts of antiquity that is still popular today. How many other books from three thousand years ago do people still read? Not many. Other books from that period are seldom held in such high esteem as the Old Testament of the Bible is. Of course, few other books claim to be the very words of God. It is because so many people consider the Old Testament to be inspired by God that people still read and study it. The Bible is not like other books. Here “flows the fountain of life, because God himself speaks in it.”²

Critics and skeptics would have us believe that the Old Testament (OT) is not trustworthy because so many years stand between us and the original writings. Dr. C. A. Briggs confidently asserted, “We will never be able to attain the sacred writings as they gladdened the eyes of those who first saw them, and rejoiced the hearts of those who first heard them. If the external words of the original were inspired, it does not profit us. We are cut off from them forever. Interposed between us and them is the tradition of centuries and even millenniums.”³ Are we truly “cut off” from the original words given by inspiration?

We must admit that none of the originals still exist; they have dissolved into the dust of the Middle East long ago. All we have are copies of copies, and many of the copies date back no earlier than the middle ages. No extant (existing) copies of the OT can be dated from before about 400 BC, and most of them are much later than that. So how can we be confident that the text of the OT is reliable? How true to the originals are the existing copies?

The study of the manuscripts (MSS) of any book in an attempt to find the original readings is called textual or lower criticism.⁴ This is not criticizing the text, but an effort to find the best MSS and the best readings in the MSS. No one MS perfectly preserves the entire text of the OT. Because there are multiple copies of the books of the OT, scholars seek to compare the copies to weed out scribal errors and to find the readings which are most likely original. While some people claim that the available copies no longer convey the content of the originals, there is little cause for concern that the OT is somehow no longer available in its original form. It has not been lost or so corrupted that we no longer know what the original wording was. We can be confident that we have access to the OT as it was given thousands of years ago.

Consider the following in defense of the reliability of the OT text:⁵

1. Background

   1. The OT was written mostly in Hebrew and a little in Aramaic. Hebrew used to be written in all consonant without any vowels. That may seem like it would be hard to read, but those familiar with the language and the text can read Hebrew without the vowels inserted. Not until well after the time of Jesus did Jewish scribes develop a system of vowels inserted into the text that we still use today. Since the vowel “points” (many vowels look like little dots) were not original to the language, they are not of primary significance when considering the original wording.

   2. The very fact that the Hebrew Scriptures persistently survived the most deleterious conditions throughout its long history demonstrates that indefatigable scribes insisted on its preservation. The OT books were copied by hand for generations on highly perishable papyrus and animal skins in the relatively damp, hostile climate of Palestine in contrast to the dry climate of Egypt, so favorable to the preservation of these materials. Moreover, the prospects for their survival were uncertain in a land that served as a bridge for armies in unceasing contention between the continents of Africa and Asia—a land whose people were the object of plunderers in their early history and of captors in their later history. That no other writings, such as the Book of Yashar or the Diaries of the Kings, survive from this period shows the determination of the scribes to preserve the OT books. But the worst foes of Hebrew Scripture were the very heirs of its treasures, because they sought to kill many of its authors (cf. Matt 23:35 [show]Matthew 23:35 [35]so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah,(1) whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. (ESV) Footnotes 1. [23:35] Some manuscripts omit 'the son of Barachiah'
      ) and destroy their works (cf. Jer 36 [show]Jeremiah 36 Jehoiakim Burns Jeremiah's Scroll [36:1]In the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD: [2]"Take a scroll and write on it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel and Judah and all the nations, from the day I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah until today. [3]It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the disaster that I intend to do to them, so that every one may turn from his evil way, and that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin." [4]Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah, and Baruch wrote on a scroll at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the LORD that he had spoken to him. [5]And Jeremiah ordered Baruch, saying, "I am banned from going to the house of the LORD, [6]so you are to go, and on a day of fasting in the hearing of all the people in the LORD's house you shall read the words of the LORD from the scroll that you have written at my dictation. You shall read them also in the hearing of all the men of Judah who come out of their cities. [7]It may be that their plea for mercy will come before the LORD, and that every one will turn from his evil way, for great is the anger and wrath that the LORD has pronounced against this people." [8]And Baruch the son of Neriah did all that Jeremiah the prophet ordered him about reading from the scroll the words of the LORD in the LORD's house. [9]In the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, all the people in Jerusalem and all the people who came from the cities of Judah to Jerusalem proclaimed a fast before the LORD. [10]Then, in the hearing of all the people, Baruch read the words of Jeremiah from the scroll, in the house of the LORD, in the chamber of Gemariah the son of Shaphan the secretary, which was in the upper court, at the entry of the New Gate of the LORD's house. [11]When Micaiah the son of Gemariah, son of Shaphan, heard all the words of the LORD from the scroll, [12]he went down to the king's house, into the secretary's chamber, and all the officials were sitting there: Elishama the secretary, Delaiah the son of Shemaiah, Elnathan the son of Achbor, Gemariah the son of Shaphan, Zedekiah the son of Hananiah, and all the officials. [13]And Micaiah told them all the words that he had heard, when Baruch read the scroll in the hearing of the people. [14]Then all the officials sent Jehudi the son of Nethaniah, son of Shelemiah, son of Cushi, to say to Baruch, "Take in your hand the scroll that you read in the hearing of the people, and come." So Baruch the son of Neriah took the scroll in his hand and came to them. [15]And they said to him, "Sit down and read it." So Baruch read it to them. [16]When they heard all the words, they turned one to another in fear. And they said to Baruch, "We must report all these words to the king." [17]Then they asked Baruch, "Tell us, please, how did you write all these words? Was it at his dictation?" [18]Baruch answered them, "He dictated all these words to me, while I wrote them with ink on the scroll." [19]Then the officials said to Baruch, "Go and hide, you and Jeremiah, and let no one know where you are." [20]So they went into the court to the king, having put the scroll in the chamber of Elishama the secretary, and they reported all the words to the king. [21]Then the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and he took it from the chamber of Elishama the secretary. And Jehudi read it to the king and all the officials who stood beside the king. [22]It was the ninth month, and the king was sitting in the winter house, and there was a fire burning in the fire pot before him. [23]As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a knife and throw them into the fire in the fire pot, until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the fire pot. [24]Yet neither the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words was afraid, nor did they tear their garments. [25]Even when Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah urged the king not to burn the scroll, he would not listen to them. [26]And the king commanded Jerahmeel the king's son and Seraiah the son of Azriel and Shelemiah the son of Abdeel to seize Baruch the secretary and Jeremiah the prophet, but the LORD hid them. [27]Now after the king had burned the scroll with the words that Baruch wrote at Jeremiah's dictation, the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: [28]"Take another scroll and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll, which Jehoiakim the king of Judah has burned. [29]And concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah you shall say, 'Thus says the LORD, You have burned this scroll, saying, "Why have you written in it that the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land, and will cut off from it man and beast?" [30]Therefore thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: He shall have none to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat by day and the frost by night. [31]And I will punish him and his offspring and his servants for their iniquity. I will bring upon them and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem and upon the people of Judah all the disaster that I have pronounced against them, but they would not hear.'" [32]Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah, who wrote on it at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the scroll that Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire. And many similar words were added to them. (ESV)
      ). One must assume, however, that from the first the OT Scriptures captured the hearts, minds, and loyalties of some in Israel who at risk to themselves kept them safe. Such people must have insisted on the accurate transmission of the text even as those of similar persuasion insist on it today.⁶

   3. Until recently, very few copies of OT books from before the middle ages were available. There is a good reason for this. The Rabbis regarded their copies of the Scripture with almost superstitious veneration, and when the MSS were too old and worn for regular use, they replaced them with new copies. The old copies would often be reverently destroyed, buried or hidden. It was better, they thought, to give them an honorable burial than to run the risk that the materials might be improperly used. Synagogues would often have a special storage room, called a genizah (literally, “hiding place”), where old MSS would be stored. One such genizah was found in Cairo in 1896. The sealed, dark room in the dry Egyptian climate allowed for the preservation the documents. The rich store of linguistic works found there shed light on Hebrew grammar and lexicology.⁷

   4. Jewish scribes were very careful and meticulous in their copying duties. They had various means of making sure that their copies were accurate and not full of errors. They knew how many letters and words were supposed to be in each book. They even knew the word that should be in the middle of each copied page. Since the scribes were so careful in their duties, we can have great confidence that they did not essentially alter or corrupt the original readings. They conveyed the OT to succeeding generations as they found it. Because the scribes did such an excellent job, most of the available MSS agree very closely. Most MSS are virtually identical.⁸ Small differences, such as changes in the vowels or spelling changes, did occur, but most are of very little consequence. A particular group of scribes called the Masoretes did their work from about AD 500 to 1000, and the text that they produced is called the Masoretic text (MT). There were schools of Masoretes at work in both Babylonia and Palestine; the school whose method was ultimately adopted was that of Tiberias in Palestine. Most conservative scholars believe that the Masoretes and their forebears handled the MSS with such care that very few errors crept into the text. However, a great deal of copying occurred before the Masoretic scribes began their stewardship of the text, and scholars are not sure how well early scribes handled the text. Additionally, the Jews were driven out of the Holy Land in AD 70, various wars and dispersions occurred, and the Jewish religion declined considerably by AD 200. Such events could have had a negative impact on how well the text was preserved. Nevertheless, the evidence suggests that the pre-Masoretic scribes were very careful and diligent stewards of the MSS. That is not to claim perfection for their copying skills, because scribes could never totally eradicate slips of the pen. The following types of scribal errors produced variations in the MSS:

      1. Writing a letter once when it should have been written twice, or writing a letter once that should have been written twice

      2. Reversing the position of letters

      3. Combining separate words into one, or dividing one word into two

      4. Substitution of one homonym for another

      5. Misreading similar letters

      6. Omitting a section due to the copyist’s eye skipping from one ending to a similar ending

      7. Accidental omission of words

   5. How do scholars deal with such phenomena? Over the years, textual critics developed rules, or “canons,” that they apply to variant readings in an effort to find the right one. These rules help them determine which reading is most likely to be original. Sometimes discovery of the proper reading is easy; sometimes it is very difficult. In some instances we must admit that two or three options exist, and one of them is correct, but we are unable to tell which one it is. Do variations in the text render it unreliable? By no means. As noted above, most variants are minor and have little impact on the meaning or application of a passage. Even those variants that do affect meaning do not adversely affect the general meaning or teaching of the OT. We may not always be able to tell with absolute certainty which reading is correct, but the correct reading is available somewhere within the MS evidence.⁹ In most cases, the MT will retain the correct reading, and one should follow a variant only rarely and for good reasons.

2. The Dead Sea Scrolls

   1. Archeologist W. F. Albright called the original discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) “the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times.”¹⁰ These scrolls were apparently used by a Jewish sect living near the Dead Sea between about 150 BC to AD 70. Around the time the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and exiled the Jews in AD 70, the Jews in that sect sealed their sacred scrolls in clay jars and hid them in nearby caves. In 1947, a shepherd boy looking for a lost goat threw a stone into one of these caves and heard pottery shatter. He went in to investigate and found the scrolls. Within a very short time these scrolls were in the hands of biblical scholars who found some of them to be hundreds of years older than any copies then available. Because of the DSS findings, copies of OT books from before the time of Jesus are now available, so textual critics can investigate how much the text has changed through the copying process over the years.

   2. The DSS contain copies or fragments of nearly every OT book. About 40,000 MS fragments were found in the caves. One very important find was a complete copy of Isaiah from around 100 BC. A comparison of the DSS copy of Isaiah and one from AD 900 reveals very few and insignificant differences between copies separated by about a thousand years. For example, in Isaiah chapter 53, only 17 letters differ from the early copy to the later one, and of these, 10 are simply matters of spelling. Out of the 166 words in the chapter, there is only one significant difference, and it does not change the sense of the passage. In the vast majority of cases, the MSS found in the DSS materials are word-for-word identical with copies dated many centuries later. In the Habakkuk Commentary, which is dated to around 50 BC, variants are fairly numerous though minor in character, and often the obvious result of scribal error. Some of the variants found in the DSS material are helpful in providing better vocalization for some Hebrew words that are perhaps not as well preserved in the MT.¹¹

   3. The MSS dating from the first century BC are essentially the same as those dating from a thousand years later. Comparisons of other MSS found in the DSS lead to the conclusion that the scribes of that time were fully capable of caring for the texts in their hands. The text that scribes were copying a hundred years before Jesus’ time is essentially the same text that we have today. The scribes who copied the text did a wonderful job of preserving it over the years.

   4. Nothing in the DSS discoveries endangers the essential reliability and authority of the MT. They do not indicate that the Septuagint is necessarily to be exalted to a more respected position than it occupied before the finding of the DSS materials, except perhaps in a few locations where the MT seems to be defective (e.g., 1 and 2 Samuel).¹² Scholars believe the DSS comprise “the most phenomenal confirmation of the Hebrew text.”¹³ Textual critics believe that “the presence of a text type among the DSS (c. 200 B.C. to A.D. 100) identical with the one preserved by the Masoretes, whose earliest extant MS dates to c. A.D. 900, gives testimony to the unbelievable achievement of some scribes in faithfully preserving the text.”¹⁴

3. The Septuagint and other versions

   1. Around 200 BC, the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek, which came to be known as the Septuagint, abbreviated LXX. This version probably owes its name to the story recounted in the pseudonymous Letter of Aristeas, according to which seventy-two scholars summoned from Jerusalem by Ptolemy Philadelphus (295-47 BC) rendered in seventy-two days a perfect Greek translation of the Pentateuch. Christian writers credited the translation of the entire Hebrew Bible to these seventy-two interpreters.¹⁵ Copies of the LXX do not go all the way back to pre-Christian times, but they do give us an idea of what the Hebrew text was like around 200 BC. The LXX differs from the MT in many places, and sometimes these differences are significant. Among the DSS fragments were found some OT MSS that seemed to coordinate better with the LXX than with the MT. Scholars believe that by about 200 BC, at least two (maybe three) families or strains of Hebrew text were in circulation. Textual scholars today can compare the various families of MSS to find the readings that have the best support. Many scholars believe that the MT generally provides the correct readings, but in a few places the LXX may retain the original. The process of finding and choosing readings is not an easy task. Unless one has a good working knowledge of both Hebrew and Greek, he would not be qualified to make such decisions. Sometimes it is impossible to be absolutely sure which reading is correct, but at least we can propose a couple of possible options, and one of them is no doubt correct.

   2. Many of the differences between the MT and the LXX are due to stylistic concerns like word choice. The LXX is rather free and paraphrastic in some places, quite literal in others. In some places the LXX is a fairly good representation of the underlying Hebrew and at other places the Greek translator evidences a lack of skill. And since the LXX itself has been copied over the years, it may not retain the original Greek readings in some places. Comparing the LXX to the MT, we find mostly small variations that make little difference, but occasionally the differences are dramatic. One place where a significant difference exists between the LXX ant the MT is in the book of Jeremiah, where the LXX lacks some sixty verses found in the MT. Nevertheless, the LXX is in good general agreement with the MT overall. For the first three centuries of the Christian church, the LXX was the only OT that most believers read. Most of the quotations in the New Testament come not from the Hebrew but from the LXX, which strongly suggests that believers around the time of Jesus held the LXX to be the authoritative Word of God, equivalent to the Hebrew. In fact, were the Hebrew Bible to mysteriously disappear from the planet, we could use the LXX without a substantial change in faith or practice. In any particular text, whether one follows the MT or the LXX, he will not go far wrong.

   3. The OT was also translated into other languages, like Aramaic, Latin and Syriac. Versions tend to be of value for interpretation rather than for textual criticism.

      1. Aramaic Targums: “Targum” means “interpretation.” During the Babylonian captivity, the Jews began losing their Hebrew language skills. Aramaic was the language of diplomacy and commerce throughout the empire, and the Jews transitioned into that language. A teacher reading the OT would have to repeat what he was teaching in Aramaic because the people no longer understood Hebrew so well. The Targum of Onkelos on the Torah (produced in the 3^rd century AD) adheres very closely to the traditional MT in most cases. Some of the targums are quite paraphrastic and free in their renderings of the Hebrew.

      2. The OT was translated into Latin starting in about AD 200. Some of these came from the LXX, not the MT. Jerome’s Latin translation did come from the Hebrew and for many centuries was the official Latin translation in the Western Church.

      3. About the same time as the Aramaic Targums were being produced, Syrian Christians began to produce a translation of the Bible into their Eastern Aramaic dialect (called Syriac). The Peshitta (“simple”) Syriac OT must have been composed in the second or third century AD. It was likely originally translated from the MT but was revised over the years to reflect the LXX readings.

      4. If we somehow lost all Hebrew and Greek MSS of the OT, we could still reconstruct the essential form of the OT from the Aramaic, Latin and Syriac (and other) versions.

4. Other factors supporting the faithful transmission of the OT

   1. Much archaeological evidence supports the general outlines of history as recorded in the OT as well as minute details that could easily have been corrupted over the years. The names of kings of Israel and of the surrounding regions, both great and small, are preserved with remarkable accuracy. The Bible accurately records the names associated with certain regions. The Bible accurately describes various officers serving in foreign courts. One scholar asserted that archaeological discoveries have, “shown that not only the main substance of what has been written but even the words, aside from minor variations, have been transmitted with remarkable fidelity, so that there need be no doubt whatever regarding the teaching conveyed by them.”¹⁶

   2. Sometimes the OT records the same information in more than one location. Some of the Psalms are duplicated in other books. Isaiah records the same information as is found in parts of 2 Kings. Samuel, Kings and Chronicles record some of the same information. Although a study of the parallel passages will find some differences, they are generally minor and may be traceable to other factors than scribal error. The accuracy of parallel passages implies that scribes faithfully copied the MSS over the centuries.

   3. A comparison of other works of antiquity shows that ancient scribes in general were quite skilled in their duties. Ages before the advent of mechanical and electrical devices, scribes were well able to maintain the accuracy of copied MSS across vast periods. Scribal practices throughout the ancient Near East reflect a conservative attitude that preserved the text. “The prolonged and intimate study of the many scores of thousands of pertinent documents from the ancient Near East proves that sacred and profane documents were copied with greater care than is true of scribal copying in Graeco-Roman times.”¹⁷

Conclusion: The evidence points to the fact that the text of the OT is reliable. There is no reason to think that the OT is essentially corrupted or lost. Variations do exist among the copies, but most differences are trivial in nature and not one of them substantially affects doctrine or practice. For all intents and purposes, and especially for the layman, the OT is a reliable document that accurately and essentially conveys the original readings to modern readers. As W. F. Albright noted, “We may rest assured that the consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible, though not infallible, has been preserved with an accuracy perhaps unparalleled in any other Near Eastern literature.”¹⁸ As Skilton cogently observes, “[W]e must maintain that the God who gave the Scriptures, who works all things after the counsel of his will, has exercised a remarkable care over his Word, has preserved it in all ages in a state of essential purity, and has enabled it to accomplish the purpose for which he gave it. It is inconceivable that the sovereign God who was pleased to give his Word as a vital and necessary instrument in the salvation of his people would permit his Word to become completely marred in its transmission and unable to accomplish its ordained end. Rather, as surely as that he is God, we would expect to find him exercising a singular care in the preservation of his written revelation. That God has preserved the Scriptures in such a condition of essential purity as we would expect is manifestly the case. The Hebrew text of the Old Testament has survived the millenniums in a substantially and remarkably pure form.”¹⁹

1 Wurthwein, The Text of the Old Testament, p. 121.

2 Wurthwein, The Text of the Old Testament, p. 121.

3 C. A. Briggs, “Critical Theories of the Sacred Scriptures in Relation to their Inspiration,” The Presbyterian Review, II (1881), 573f., quoted in John H. Skilton, “The Transmission of the Hebrew Text” in The Infallible Word: A Symposium by the Members of the Faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary, edited by N.B. Stonehouse and Paul Woolley, revised ed. (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1967).

4 Gordon Fee defines textual criticism as “the science that compares all known manuscripts of a given work in an effort to trace the history of variations within the text so as to discover its original form.” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 1.

5 Some of this material is from R. Laird Harris, “How Reliable is the Old Testament Text?” Covenant Seminary Review 81.

6 Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 1.

7 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Genizah.html

8 Many scholars believe that the consistency reflected in the MT is evidence of an official editorial process (a recension) done between 100 BC and AD 100 that produced a standardized text. Jewish scribes likely consulted their best MSS, produced an official text, and discarded those MSS that did not fit with their work. The Masoretes inherited this standardized text and conveyed it with little variation throughout the centuries.

9 In a very small number of cases, the MS evidence for a reading is so problematic that some scholars think the original reading is no longer available. In such cases, scholars attempt to restore what they think was the probable original reading.

10 Biblical Archeologist, 11:3:55, September, 1948, quoted in Bibliotheca Sacra (Vol. 113, Page 117).

11 Gleason Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, p. 33.

12 Archer, p. 36.

13 Normal Geisler and William Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible, p. 465.

14 Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 1.

15 Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 1.

16 Millar Burrows, What Mean These Stones? American Schools of Oriental Research, New Haven, 1941, p. 42, quoted in Arnold C. Schultz, “The Old Testament,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (Vol. 9, Page 65). Evangelical Theological Society. (1966; 2002).

17 W.F. Albright, quoted in Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 1.

18 Quoted in Archer, Old Testament Introduction, p. 58.

19 John H. Skilton, “The Transmission of the Scriptures”

A PRESUPPOSITIONAL APOLOGETIC APPLIED TO ISLAM’S TEACHING REGARDING GOD AND SALVATION

A Paper Presented to Central Baptist Theological Seminary

By Bradley G. Anderson, 15 April 2005

Introduction

One and a third billion people subscribe to the following assertion: “There is no other God but Allah and Mohammed is His Messenger and servant.”¹ This confession is often the first sentence Muslim parents whisper to a newborn, and the last words a Muslim hears on his deathbed. When said with full conviction and understanding at least once in one’s lifetime, this simple declaration is all that is required to make one a Muslim. Islam is growing quickly and is currently the world’s second largest religion, behind only Christianity.

Islam has much in common with Christianity and Judaism. All three consider Abraham their progenitor, recognize only one God, emphasize similar moral principles, and stem from the Middle East. Thus, some see Muslims, Jews, and Christians as different branches of the same tree. Some within Christendom even suggest that sincere Muslims do not need to hear the gospel because God accepts all people who sincerely seek him. Islam and Christianity, however, are irreconcilable on many points. Christians should develop a basic understanding of Islam so they will be able to defend Christianity from Muslim claims and effectively point Muslims to Christ. A presuppositional Christian apologetic will be employed to compare and contrast Muslim views on God and salvation with biblical teachings. Both offensive and defensive apologetic elements will be applied in the course of the argument, under the assumption that the reader has a basic knowledge of Islam.

An Apologetic Approach

Christians share some common views with Muslims—monotheism, adherence to standards of morality, belief in an afterlife, and commitment to an authoritative book. In approaching Muslims, therefore, Christians need not argue for the existence of God or undermine the conclusions of secularism as they might do when dealing with atheists. The basis on which the apologetic “game” must be played is the sacred writings of each group. Christians must assert the authority of the Bible and undermine the claims of the Qur’an. One could begin an apologetic encounter by presenting all the reasons the Bible is reliable and all the reasons the Qur’an is not. The aim of such a strategy would be to undercut the Muslim’s confidence in his book and to engender confidence in the Christian book. Such a two-step approach would constitute a monumental task, and few are genuinely qualified to tackle it. An apologist would seek not only to discredit the Qur’an, but also to show that the Bible is trustworthy and qualified to supplant it. A Christian would argue that biblical Christianity accords best with reality and that the Qur’an contains serious flaws rendering it unreliable. The ultimate judge of which set of sacred writings is most trustworthy in this scenario must be the human intellect. No one denies that God can use this approach to draw Muslims to himself, and many apologists find this method fruitful, but a different approach may be even more effective.

A presuppositional strategy requires several assumptions, the first being that Muslims have some knowledge of the true God. This does not suggest they are actually worshiping the true God, but that residing within the heart of every human is some knowledge of the true God. Another assumption of the presuppositional approach is that the Bible is true and authoritative.² All men have some knowledge of God because the Bible teaches such,³ but like other non-Christians, Muslims suppress and corrupt the knowledge of God they have. A third assumption is that “the gospel . . . is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes;”⁴ therefore, conversion is the result of the Holy Spirit convincing a human soul of the truth of the gospel. It is not primarily the result of a good argument or effectively marshaled evidence, although such techniques may play a supporting role in the process. A fourth assumption is that God is sovereign in the salvation of a soul.⁵ All the elect will certainly be saved, because the sovereign, efficacious call of God is what ultimately unlocks the door to an unbeliever’s heart, and not weighty, logical arguments.⁶ The Lord must open the unbeliever’s heart.⁷ A fifth assumption is that the proclamation of the gospel is a necessary element in the conversion process, because the elect will certainly be saved, but not without access to the gospel message.⁸ Muslims, like everyone else, must hear the Word in order to respond to it because “faith comes by hearing.”⁹ God is pleased to use the “foolishness of preaching” to save those who believe.¹⁰ This presuppositional approach will be applied to Muslim teaching regarding God and salvation.

A Presuppositional Approach Applied to Islam

Regarding God

When Mohammed originally entered the Ka’aba in Mecca, he found over three hundred pagan idols. He somehow concluded that none of these idols adequately represented “the God,” Allah. Although Arabs at that time were pagan idolaters, Mohammed, to his credit, rejected such idolatry, perhaps because of his exposure to Christianity and Judaism. When he was about forty years old, Mohammed claimed to have begun receiving revelations about Allah via the angel Gabriel. Miller asserts that the “heart of the message which Mohammed received was that there is no God but Allah, the one true God, who created heaven and earth.”¹¹ Islam is based on the Qur’an, a compilation of these revelations, and the Hadith, traditions based on the life and sayings of Mohammed. Because of the apparent similarities between Allah and Yahweh, many suggest that the two are different representations of the same deity. Muslims, some claim, although gravely mistaken in their worship, are nevertheless seeking after the true God, the God of Abraham, Moses and Jesus.¹² Muslims believe they are worshipping the same God as Christians and Jews because the Qur’an plainly as much: “We believe in what has been sent down to us and in that which was sent down to you; our God and your God is One; and we are submitted to him.”¹³ However, closer examination reveals that Allah is so unlike the true God of the Bible that it is impossible to conclude that Muslims are worshiping the true and only deity. Allah is different from the true God in a number of significant ways.

Absolute Singularity vs. Trinity

The essential natures of the God of the Bible and Allah of Islam are vastly different. According to Miller, “Possibly the greatest theological core value of Islam is tawheed, the unity of God. . . . The oneness of God is considered by many to be Islam’s central theological value. Therefore the concept of the Trinity is repulsive to Muslims.”¹⁴ In fact, the Qur’an denounces Christian trinitarianism as tri-theism, the worship of three Gods.¹⁵ Madany claims that “Muslim theologians ridiculed the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, claiming that it was irrational, and had no basis in God’s true revelation in the Qur’an.”¹⁶ Muslims strongly assert that “Allah does not have a partner or associate, and He did not beget nor was He begotten. Unlike the word God, the word Allah does not have a plural or gender.”¹⁷ In fact, one of the greatest sins Islam can conceive of is shirk, assigning partners to Allah. The Qur’an states: “God forgiveth not the sin of joining other gods with Him. . . . [O]ne who joins other gods with God hath strayed far, far away.”¹⁸ Christians, who assert the Trinity, are committing an unforgivable sin, which in the Muslim tradition is punishable by death.

Muslims obviously misunderstand or simply reject what the Bible teaches about the triune nature of God. For them, any hint of plurality within the Godhead amounts to polytheism. The biblical God is a Trinitarian being Who is one God in three persons, not one God in three Gods. Several Old Testament texts use plural pronouns to refer to God,¹⁹ and God’s name is occasionally applied to more than one person.²⁰ In Exodus 3:1-5 [show]Exodus 3:1-5 The Burning Bush [3:1]Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. [2]And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. [3]And Moses said, "I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned." [4]When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." [5]Then he said, "Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." (ESV)
, the Angel of the Lord is equated with God and worshiped as God. While the Old Testament does not furnish a sufficient basis for the doctrine of the Trinity, it does contain suggestions consistent with the doctrine. The Old Testament stressed the unity of God,²¹ and Old Testament saints were strict monotheists. It is highly doubtful that Old Testament saints held any true Trinitarian ideas.

The revelation concerning God the Son and God the Holy Spirit had to wait until the historical appearance of Christ and the works of the Holy Spirit. Several New Testament texts mention the three persons of the Trinity in close proximity. At the baptism of Christ, the Son was