(upbeat music) - A long time listener to the podcast writes and asks this, Pastor John, how can I trust the Bible if there have been so many add-ins, such as Mark chapter 16, verses nine to 20, and John chapter seven, verse 53, to chapter eight, verse 11, and of course, first John five, verses seven and eight.

If these verses have been added into the Bible and should not have been, how do we know that other things have not been added into the Bible as well? - The answer precisely to the question as it's posed is that we use the same criteria to know about other passages that we used to know that these three texts were additions.

In other words, if there is a science that can spot these three texts that he mentioned as not part of the original biblical manuscripts, then that same science, in the same way, can perform the same function for all the other passages. There's the answer. Now, let's step back and paint the larger picture.

The Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek centuries before the printing press, right? Printing press invented about 1450 AD. First original language biblical manuscript printed 1516. That means that these handwritten documents called manuscripts were handed down for by human copying for centuries. And the question really is, do we have today the same Greek and Hebrew text in front of us to translate into English or whatever language or to read in Greek and Hebrew?

Do we have the same text that corresponds essentially with the original documents that God inspired when they wrote them down? Now, the science of textual criticism, there's the phrase, textual criticism. That's what this branch of scholarship is called. That science is devoted to answer that question. It specializes in comparing thousands of Greek and Hebrew manuscripts and deducing from those comparisons where there are differences between two or more, dozens, and which reading, where there are differences, which reading is the more likely to be original, which one is original.

Now, here's the reason we may have strong confidence that the science of textual criticism is successful in discerning the original wording of the manuscripts. There are over 5,800 Greek manuscripts. Just leave aside the Old Testament for a moment and just think Greek. 5,800 Greek manuscripts, either whole New Testament books or fragments.

This is incredible, incredible, if you know your manuscript history. In other words, when the text critics sit down to do their work, they are not comparing three or four or 50 manuscripts which might leave us wondering what the original wording was. They have thousands of texts from different places in different times that function as confirmations of what the original wording was.

So here's the way Daniel Wallace, who's a very prominent text critic, puts it. This is a quote now. "New Testament scholars face an embarrassment of riches "compared to the data of classical Greek "and Latin scholars have to contend with. "The average classical author's literary remains "number no more than 20 copies.

"We have more than 1,000 times the manuscript data "for the New Testament than we do "for the average Graeco-Roman author. "Not only this, but the extant manuscripts "of the average classical author "are no earlier than 500 years after the time he wrote, "but for the New Testament, we wait a mere decades "for surviving copies." But here's the real clincher, and this I think is the bottom line answer to the question.

Even where there remains some uncertainty about which wording in a particular text, which wording is original and which is not, those places don't have, and they're very few, they don't have any effect on the essential truths of the Christian message. So listen to Paul Wegner, and I would recommend his book.

It's called "A Student's Guide "to Textual Criticism of the Bible," and here's what he said. "It is important to keep in perspective "the fact that only a very small part of the text "is in question, approximately 10% of the Old Testament, "7% of the New Testament, and of these, "most variants make little difference "to the meaning of any passage." And Daniel Wallace, who has debated Bart Ehrman, who is quite skeptical about the reliability of the New Testament, he's debated him, and here's what he says.

"For more than two centuries, "biblical scholars have declared "that no essential affirmation of Christian doctrine "has been affected by the variants. "Even Ehrman," he says, "has conceded this point "in three debates that I have had with him." And so Don Carson sums it up like this. "What is at stake is a purity of text "of such a substantial nature "that nothing we believe to be doctrinally true "and nothing we are commanded to do "is in any way jeopardized by the variants." So the real question becomes then, and here's where I would leave us, the real question becomes not do we have the original words of the biblical authors.

Virtually all of us agree that we do with the variants that we're not sure about affecting no manner of doctrine or ethics. The question now is do you see the peculiar glory of God shining through those words and confirming to your own mind and heart that these are the very words of God?

That's the crucial question. - Yeah, that is crucial, the most pressing question for every Bible reader. Thank you, Pastor John. And speaking of peculiar glory, Pastor John recently published a book by that title, and the quotes referenced in this episode are all taken from chapter four of that book, a chapter titled, "Do We Have the Very Words of the Biblical Authors?" And to get that chapter, download the entire book, "A Peculiar Glory," in full, free of charge, at desiringgod.org/books.

Well, how can we not waste our lives? Tomorrow, Pastor John is gonna point our attention to Proverbs chapter three, verses five and six, in search of the answer to that vital question that we cannot ignore. How do we not waste our lives? I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and I'll see you tomorrow.

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