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By Hank Walker | Pastor at Peach City Fellowship

Today marks our final installment regarding the Authentic, Authoritative, Accurate, and Reliable nature of the Bible. Should we be concerned that a centuries-old Book, claiming divine authorship, is RELIABLE? We should!

Skeptics often cast aspersions on the Scriptures. They argue that the Bible, “having passed through fallible human hands,” is full of inconsistencies and contradictions. They conclude, therefore, that such a book cannot be reliable.

They are wrong! But, despite their misconceptions, they DO raise valid questions about “textual errors.” Most believers have heard that the Bible is INERRANT (without ANY errors), but they are often unaware of what the term means.

When scholars say the Bible is inerrant, they are referring to the “Originals.” When the Holy Spirit inspired the books of the Bible, they were completely free of error.

But, what about now? Weren’t Bibles hand-copied many times over the centuries? Indeed, they were; that’s how most manuscript errors made their way into our Bibles. But, such errors are obvious and rare because of the immense number of manuscripts we now have.

Such “scribal errors” or “scribal additions”—comprising less than 1% of the Canon—affect no major Christian doctrine. We can fix or draw attention to these errors, in modern translations, because of the massive number of much older manuscript sources that agree with each other. Translators of Bibles like the King James (1611) never had access to manuscripts over 600 years old.

Although there are hundreds of small textual errors comprised of misspellings, individual words, and odd sentences, larger errors are EXTREMELY rare. The only larger New Testament passages absent from early manuscripts are John 7:53-8:11 (the woman caught in adultery) and Mark 16:9-20 (taking up snakes and drinking poison). If you have a newer translation such as the New American Standard Bible (NASB), English Standard Version (ESV), or New International Version (NIV), these passages are addressed through [[double-brackets]], marginal notes, or both.

What does this mean for the reliability of our Bibles? Simply this: they are remarkably reliable! Christians need not worry about whether they are reading “God’s Word” when they open their Bibles. Rather than creating doubt, the discovery of errors should give us great confidence that God is providentially preserving His Word for us!

“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever” (Isaiah 40:8).

Grace and peace, y’all.

Soli Deo Gloria