Question 7: How did we get our Bible? Is it authoritative? Accurate?

Before I dip into the details of the answer to this question I should really define a few terms to introduce the topic a bit.

Translation: a rendering from one language to another (i.e. any Bible not written in a Biblical language)

Version: a translation from the original language to another (i.e. NIV, NASB, ESV, KJV)

Revision: a version which has been amended and/or improved (i.e. ERV)

Paraphrase: a "free" or "loose" translation (i.e. NLT, TLB)

So now you know what the title of your Bible means.

Now to the meaty stuff; where our Bible came from. Well the Bible was inspired by God and written by men. To clarify, this does not mean that the writers were inspired and then just wrote came to their mind nor were the authors just made so knowledgeable that they just knew what to write. Inspiration means that the Bible was written through the act of the Holy Spirit upon the Biblical writers which produced the divinely authoritative Word of God. So God told the authors of the Bible exactly what to write. They are the words of God not the words of men. There are few important verses to highlight that speak to it's authenticity and inspiration. They are:

II Timothy 3:16 - All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

-"breathed out by God": comes from the Greek word theopnuestos which means "God-breathed" or "the breath of God," so God was talking and literally exhaling like we do when we speak, this gives the words of the Bible authority because they are God's words

I Corinthians 2:13 - And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual

-the words originated in God not in man, the words were taught by the Spirit and not gained through the knowledge of man

2 Peter 1:21 - For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Spirit

-no prophecy (the entire Bible) was made or written from human will

So, according to the Bible, it is the authoritative will of God. I bet you're asking yourself how this isn't circular reasoning and therefore invalid. Well stop trying to figure it how its not because it is. It has to be. You see if the Bible relied on any other source but itself to derive its authority it would then be subject to that authority. But the Bible doesn't do that. The Bible is authoritative all on its own. It's authority is carried within itself. The Bible is the standard, it should not be and cannot be measured by man's standards. Nor does it need the confirmation of man to be authoritative. Many other religious texts subjugate themselves to other texts and this only makes them weaker. But not the Bible! It derives its authority from God not man!

The Bible is also inerrant. Yes, I am taking that viewpoint. Just hear me out. The Bible doesn't claim there are no apparent errors, only real errors. The inerrancy only applies to the original manuscripts that are in the original languages. The Bible is completely truthful. So, Scripture, in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to the facts. If you follow the argument just above me, this next part should be pretty easy to understand. There is Biblical support for the inerrancy of the Bible that is found in the following verses that I will summarize real quick.

-God cannot lie (Numbers 23:19, Titus 1:2)

-God's prophet must speak truth (Deuteronomy 18:22)

-Jesus affirms every letter, even each stroke of the pen (Matthew 5:18, Luke 16:17)

-All Scripture is inspired (2 Timothy 3:16)

These verses show and compel the reader to believe that the Bible is inerrant. Just reading it, you can find proof for this. I'll tell the you most obvious example of this. In the Old Testament you can see well over 3000 years of prophecy in writing (we have papyrus that is dated to be circa 3000 BC) about the birth of Christ and you can see that prophecy fulfilled and expanded upon in the New Testament. Hundreds of different prophecies from different people who never knew each other about the same event and it happened just like they each said it would. That is being inerrant and you won't find that in any other document, ever.

So after it was inspired by God it proceeded to be held onto and sometimes buried to be hidden from conquerors and its certain destruction. Throughout the ages the Bible has lasted. Though it has been copied and translated and copied. Something to understand that this wasn't some lehman who copied these texts and it wasn't just copied once. The Bible was copied by men who lived to copy the Bible. Thats all they did, their entire lives. They wrote on a variety of papers and substances and if they made just one mistake on the page they through out the entire page. When the page was completed they compared each character, each punctuation mark, every stroke to make sure it was accurate. If there was but one mistake the entire page was discarded and recopied.

Then in 393 AD at the Synod (meeting, gathering) of Hippo and later in 397 AD at the Synod of Carthage the Bible that we have today was canonized (approved and finalized) by our church fathers. It should be understood that man cannot canonize anything Holy, such as the Bible, this was ultimately the act of God through the Holy Spirit working in the lives of these men. At each of these two synods every Christian document was thoroughly examined, studied, researched and the result is the Bible we have today. Don't worry, the Bible still carries its integrity because of the high quality copying of the Old Testament thanks to the good people of Israel and because of the high number of copies we have of the New Testament thanks to monks everywhere.

So the Bibles we have today come from the careful translation of many different scholars. It is authoritative because it was the written word of God, and though our copies may not be inerrant they can still be trusted as accurate because they still convey the same meaning of the original texts. This comes from the sheer number of copies we have. It's like when you average lots of number to find an answer, the more numbers you factor into your average the closer it gets to the real number. So it is with the Bible. We have so many copies and texts, some dating way back, that we can say that our Bible today accurately depicts the meaning of the text. Thus we have an authoritative and accurate Bible.

Any questions?