Tag

textual criticism

Browsing

Textual criticism is an often misunderstood practice. If the Bible is supposed to be the inspired Word of God, how could discrepancies in the text exist? This excerpt from Textual Criticism of the Bible tackles this concern head-on. A properly aligned doctrine of Scripture recognizes the authority of the Bible while also acknowledging the human imperfections introduced over thousands of years of transmission.

A longtime Christian and student of the Bible posted the following comment about Romans 8:1:

“View the difference in versions here! You may want to add this to your NIV. I have an NIV Bible, but when I study, I always compare it to the KJV:

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1 NIV).

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit” (Rom 8:1 KJV).

Big difference, huh?”

This comment concerns an issue that surfaces throughout the Bible: differences in Bible versions that may affect the meaning. While some Bibles include footnotes to indicate when such differences exist, these notes are not always helpful for readers with no background knowledge of the preservation and transmission of the Bible from its original authors to the current day.

What should we think when we find disagreement between English versions? Which translations are right? Why would translators “change” the biblical text? How can readers make good decisions about these discrepancies between versions?

These questions are important for every student of the Bible, and textual criticism contributes part of the answer.

Many people are uncomfortable with the idea that discrepancies exist in the biblical text. Why wouldn’t God have preserved his Word with greater care? How can we really know what God has said when there are variations in the wording? These are important questions for people who believe the Bible to be God’s inspired, authoritative Word. To answer them, we must consider what Christians believe and have believed about the nature of the Bible—our doctrine of Scripture.

The doctrine of Scripture has developed over time, as have all theological doctrines. Early on, the church fathers recognized variants among their biblical manuscripts. However, they did not seem to view these variants as damaging to Scripture’s authority. Differences in texts became more problematic after the advent of the printing press. For the first time, Christians were able to have a fixed text—but which text should be fixed? Later, as European scholars in the eighteenth century sifted through a plethora of newly discovered biblical manuscripts, they began to understand how the biblical text had developed over time.

Read the Whole Article

Do you find these posts helpful and informative? Please CLICK HERE to help keep us going!

In an analogy from the world of education, teachers are translators. Using textbooks and other resources, they try to find the best possible way to translate the information to their students. The teachers’ primary concern is not verifying the validity of the material in their resources; their concern is presenting the material in a clear way. On the other hand, scientists, linguists, mathematicians, and historians are continually adjusting and updating the information in textbooks as better information becomes available: Their primary concern is the text. This analogy breaks down quickly since such scholars are dealing with broad fields of research and not one sacred preserved book. However, by way of general comparison, teachers are translators, and scholars are text critics.*

*This excerpt is adapted from Textual Criticism of the Bible by Amy Anderson and Wendy Widder.


Do you find these posts helpful and informative? Please CLICK HERE to help keep us going!

By Aaron Brake

Biblical inerrancy may be defined as follows:

[W]hen all the facts are known, the Scriptures in their original autographs and properly interpreted will be shown to be wholly true in everything that they affirm, whether that has to do with doctrine or morality or with the social, physical, or life sciences.1

One important element of this definition is that inerrancy only applies to the original autographs. But since we no longer have possession of the original autographs, the question is often raised, “Of what use or importance is the doctrine of biblical inerrancy? Is biblical inerrancy even relevant?” Some conclude that inerrancy is altogether ir_relevant. In his book _Misquoting Jesus, Bart Ehrman states,

I kept reverting to my basic question: 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? What good is it to say that the autographs (i.e., the originals) were inspired? We don’t have the originals! We have only error-ridden copies….”2

This objection, left unanswered, may undermine our confidence and trust in Scripture, leading some to reject the doctrine of biblical inerrancy and others to conclude it is wholly irrelevant.

Let’s Get Metaphysical

But I believe our confidence in Scripture is not misplaced and biblical inerrancy is relevant. To help explain why this is so, let us consider the distinction commonly made by metaphysicians between word tokens and word types.3 Consider the following words:

RED BLUE RED

Now ask yourself this question: “How many words are there?” The question is ambiguous because there is a sense in which it looks like there are two words (RED and BLUE), and another sense in which it looks like there are three words (RED, BLUE, and RED).  The question receives clarification when we distinguish between word tokens and word types and specify which of the two we are interested in.

If we are asking how many word tokens _there are, then we have three: two tokens of the word RED and one token of the word BLUE. A _token is an individual, particular kind of thing. It is a specific thing that can only exist in one place at one time. If, on the other hand, we are asking how many word types there are, then we have two: the word type RED and the word type BLUE. A type in this case is a universal. It is repeatable and can be in more than one place at one time. It is the same word, which carries with it the _same_meaning.

Back to Biblical Inerrancy

What does this have to do with biblical inerrancy? When it is asserted that biblical inerrancy is irrelevant because we do not possess the original autographs, there is a failure to distinguish between the text tokens and the text type. We do have the original text type, even though we may not possess the original text tokens.

To help think about this further, consider that it is the word as a type that conveys meaning, not the word as a token. When we think of the word as a token we are thinking of it as a material object (i.e., black ink scribbled on a parchment). But when we think of the word as a type, we are thinking of it as a bearer of meaning. It becomes a shareable thing that we can have, for example, both in our mind and in a book in front of us at the same time.

Now, this is where textual criticism comes into play. When it comes to the text of the New Testament, even though we do not have the original text tokens(the original autographs as material scribbling on parchment), we are able to reconstruct with great confidence the original text type. Without going into a full-length treatment on the topic of textual criticism, Daniel Wallace notes the following concerning the New Testament text:

Read the Whole Article

Do you find these posts helpful and informative? Please CLICK HERE to help keep us going!


  1.  Paul D. Feinberg, “The Meaning of Inerrancy,” in Inerrancy, ed. Norman L. Geisler (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980), 294. 
  2.  Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (New York: HarperOne, 2007), 7, emphasis his. 
  3.  I am indebted to J.P. Moreland for much of the following insight and commentary (used with his permission), with some additions of my own. Any mistakes are mine.