Does the fact that textual variations exist in our biblical manuscripts make you uncomfortable? It certainly made me uncomfortable in a Greek course during my junior year of college when we came across some variant readings in a New Testament passage we were studying. I must have assumed that the manuscripts available to us today were without error and contained no variation. It made me think about how these variations affect the doctrine of inerrancy.
Can we really uphold this doctrine when so many variants occur in our manuscripts? In short, yes, we can. But we must take care to be precise in the way we define inerrancy to avoid confusion caused by being overly simplistic.
First, we should remember that the purpose of textual criticism is not to tear apart the Bible. In fact, it is the exact opposite. Textual criticism is the discipline of recovering the earliest possible form of a text using the manuscripts available. For many years after the Scriptures were first written, the only way the text was preserved was by copying the text by hand. What we have now are copies of copies of the original text. In this process of transmitting texts, a scribe would inevitably make a mistake somewhere along the way. He would misspell words, rearrange words, skip lines, or repeat a line, just to name a few types of errors. Therefore, the goal of textual critics today is to take all of the variations into consideration and piece back together what they believe to be the earliest form of the text.
While maintaining this doctrine, we must be very precise in defining the term inerrant to avoid confusing those who are skeptical about our faith. If we are not careful, we can easily be seen as naïve, ignoring the fact that there are clearly textual variants in the Scriptures. Yes, there are variations in the biblical manuscripts. One may even say that there are in fact errors in some texts. We cannot turn our heads from this fact. Instead, we should fine-tune our definition of inerrancy so we can acknowledge the errors that critics may point out while maintaining our view concerning Scriptures’ reliability.
Bart Ehrman is a perfect example of someone who has misconstrued, and ultimately rejected, the doctrine of inerrancy because of his confusion about the nuances of this doctrine. Ehrman is a well-known text critic who used to be an evangelical but left the faith because of his skepticism regarding the Bible’s reliability. The basis of his skepticism is rooted in the fact that we do not have the very first manuscripts of the Scriptures. He states:
How does it help us to say that the Bible is the inerrant word of God if in fact we don’t have the words that God inerrantly inspired, but only the words copied by the scribes – sometimes correctly but sometimes (many times!) incorrectly? We don’t have the originals! We have only error-ridden copies, and the vast majority of these are centuries removed from the originals and different from them, evidently, in thousands of ways.[1]
Ehrman consistently attempts to shift the burden of proof onto those who wish to maintain the integrity of the Scriptures. He does so by focusing on small areas of uncertainty while ignoring the large areas about which we are certain.
In the end, Ehrman has more to prove here than do those in favor of the Scriptures’ reliability. It does not matter to him that there are more manuscripts of the Scriptures than there are of any other ancient text. Consider the works of the Roman historian Tacitus from the first century of which only three manuscripts exist. Additionally, only three manuscripts exist for the Institutes by Gaius from the second century. And Josephus’ Jewish War has only fifty manuscripts. The New Testament, on the other hand, has over 5,800 surviving manuscripts.[2]
Because of the fact that we do not have the “originals,” Ehrman is unfazed by the astounding number of textual witnesses. Even though we have thousands of biblical manuscripts that have survived, which are overwhelmingly in agreement with one another, Ehrman chooses to focus on small details of the text which may not be consistent; this causes him to doubt the Bible as a whole. The root of his problem is in the fact that he has misunderstood some rudimentary elements of the doctrine of inerrancy and the reliability of the Scriptures. Much of his misunderstanding is based on faulty definitions of common terms used in conversations on this subject.
Peter J. Williams points out three terms that consistently come up in conversations about the Scriptures that tend to be ambiguous and need further clarification. First is the term Bible. As Williams notes, people often interpret the term in one of two ways. It could refer to the collection of books that make up the Holy Scriptures, or it could refer to a physical copy of these books.[3] Because of this potential confusion, one could misinterpret the Christian’s meaning when he or she speaks of the inerrancy of the Bible. Is it a collection of books that God inspired, or is it the actual copy of the Scriptures printed in a book? Those who hold to the Scriptures’ inerrancy would not argue that every copy of the Scriptures, translations included, are all inerrant. Many would say that only the “originals” were inerrant, which brings up the next point for clarification.
Original is the second ambiguous term Williams says may cause confusion.[4] Does original refer to the first words of Scripture or to the first manuscript? Most people have never thought of this distinction, but Ehrman represents a perfect example of how this could be misconstrued if not understood correctly. When the word original is used in discussions on inerrancy, it is the words of Scripture that are being described, not the very first manuscript that existed. The physical document itself is not somehow sacred. However, the words on that physical document were sacred. They were the inspired and inerrant Word of God. So, when a scribe copied the first text and wrote down the exact words that the first document contained, they were no less inspired or inerrant just because they were copies. For example, consider the Ten Commandments. After Moses broke the first tablet of the Ten Commandments, a new one was made. This new copy was no less inspired or inerrant than the first copy.
The third term Williams notes is text. This term causes the same issues as the word original. Text could refer to a physical document with writing on it or to a “non-physical entity of writing abstracted from its physical context.”[5] Again, in most discussions on inerrancy, the concern is not with the first physical document but rather with the words on that document.
In light of these clarifications, inerrancy is not dependent on the existence of the first manuscript on which the Scriptures were written. People such as Ehrman miss this important point. No, we do not have the original physical manuscript, but we do have thousands of manuscripts that give us reason to believe that the words passed down were faithful copies of the original words of Scripture. Because of this, we can be confident in our claim for biblical inerrancy.
Ambiguity undoubtedly arises in these terms, and we should be aware of the confusion that may result in the minds of those with whom we converse on the subject of inerrancy. We should take the time to clarify in our minds what we mean when we say we believe in the inerrancy of the Scriptures. We need to be very precise in how we explain this doctrine to avoid confusing those who did not grow up with the same assumptions. This nuanced understanding of inerrancy should also bring us comfort in knowing that, even though we do not have the very first manuscripts of the Scriptures, we can trust that what was handed down to us still contains the living Word of God.
Some of these things may seem too technical for the average Christian who is not involved in academics, but it is extremely important for everyone to understand. We need to help each other establish a solid understanding of our views on the reliability of Scripture and inerrancy. Since we believe in the authority of the Scriptures on our lives, we should prioritize a robust doctrine of inerrancy in church teaching. Doing so will not only strengthen our faith in God’s Word but also in our sovereign and faithful God.
About the Author
Zach Vickery lives in Gallatin, Tennessee with his wife, Emily. He is currently working on a PhD in biblical studies at the University of Glasgow. He also holds degrees from Welch College and the University of Cambridge. In his spare time, Zach enjoys spending time outdoors hunting and fishing.
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[1]Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005), 7.
[2]Andreas J. Köstenberger, Darrell L. Bock, and Josh D. Chatraw, Truth in a Culture of Doubt (Nashville: B&H, 2014), 85.
[3]Peter J. Williams, “Ehrman’s Equivocation and the Inerrancy of the Original Text,” in The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures, ed. D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016), 391.
[4]Ibid., 394.
[5]Ibid., 396.
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