IS THE BIBLE DEPENDABLE? PT 3 ERRORS?

BUT WHAT ABOUT ERRORS??

Inquiring minds want to know about errors in the Bible translations. Yes, there are errors in all these 15,000 copies, there are some errors, about 400,000. Yes, 400,000! However, the errors are found in the manuscripts, not in the doctrine or teaching of scripture. As we will see at the end of this article the meaningful errors even in the ancient hand-written copies of the Bible are remarkably few. So few that the only real reason to mention them is the attacks of the critic!

We need to understand that these manuscripts are not professionally copied. And they are copied by hand sometime by memory. Sometime scribal notes were placed in sometime words transposed. The vast majority of these are spelling and grammatical errors. Over 70% are like this. If I forgot a period that would be a grammatical error. If I transposed the "i" and "e" in "friend" and wrote instead "freind" that would be a spelling error. These types of errors account for 70% of the errors in the manuscripts that we have in the nearly 15k extant copies today.

SO, WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER 30%?

Twenty percent (20%) are a change in word order. This is something you could get away with in the Greek. Not in English. So, when it is being translated that is considered a variant, an error. 9% of the remaining 10% is "meaningful but not viable". Here is an example.

I Thessalonians 2:9 For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail: for labouring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God. This is the 3rd century reading that comes from one of those fragments or a quote by an early church father. In at least one of the 13th century copies someone thought it made more sense to write For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail: for labouring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of Christ.

Lastly, the 1% that is meaningful and viable. Let me give you an example. This one percent affects only three passages but does not affect any doctrine of the gospel. Here is one example. In John 7 beginning in verse 53 we read about the woman caught in adultery. We see how the Pharisees brought this woman to Jesus to test him. And how he wrote in the sand and said, "Let him without sin cast the first stone". The problem is that this story doesn't show up in any manuscript until the beginning of the 5th century. Then it floats around depending on various languages sometime even into Luke. But what happens if you take it out. Nothing. NOTHING AT ALL!! We know that Jesus is merciful and compassionate to sinners. And we know the Pharisees were mean spirited from a multitude of other passages.  (the other two are 1 John 5:7-8, called the Johannine comma; and the longer ending of Mark in 16:8-20.) Again, these are the only passages that are not certified until many years even centuries after Christ. But they change nothing.