How Do We Know The Bible is Accurate?

[stasiu1982]

I have a question regarding The Bible’s accuracy. I am a believing Catholic and I believe The Bible is the Word of God, but this question was on my mind as I read this article: independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/fragment-from-worlds-oldest-bible-found-hidden-in-egyptian-monastery-1780274.html

It says:

"In studying the early history of the New Testament, historians have about 5,650 handwritten copies in Greek on which they can draw, many of which are distinctly different. As Christianity consolidated its power through the first millennia, the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John came to form the key elements of the New Testament.

But other apocryphal writings were discarded along the way. The Shepherd of Hermas, for instance, is a Christian literary work of the 2nd century which appears in the Codex Sinaiticus and was considered part of the Bible by some early Christians but was later expunged. The most well-known apocryphal gospel is that of Thomas, a collection of 114 numbered sayings attributed to Jesus that was discovered in 1945. As it never refers to Jesus as “Christ”, “Lord” or the “Son of Man” (and lacks any mention of the miracles attributed to Jesus in the other gospels) it is perhaps not surprising that it never made it into later versions of the Bible."

Questions: How do we know that books such as The Gospel of Thomas or other books are not supposed to be included in The Bible? How was it decided what to include and not to include?

How do we know that what is contained in The Bible is completely accurate, given The Gospels were written a while after Jesus’ time? How would those writing the Gospels been able to remember everything that happened and how could what they wrote not have been changed later (given we don’t have the the original copies of what was written)?

I appreciate everybody’s views on these questions.

 

[NHInsider]

Well, first and foremost we accept the Bible because our faith is not in the words but in the Word - the Living Logos, Jesus, who gave His authority to the Apostles and their successors. Those successors were the ones who decided which books would be considered canonical, authoritative Scripture, which were useful and beneficial but not inspired/canonical, and which were in fact in error, reflecting heresy or simply inaccurate. So accepting Scripture is ultimately about accepting the authority of the Church.

The second issue has to do with “accuracy” and is a little difficult because as moderns we have the idea that True = historically/scientifically factual, which is not a standard of Truth that applies to genres like poetry or apocalyptic or even, frankly, gospel. What we believe is not that the gospels or the chronologies of the Old Testament are the equivalent of a modern video transcript but that they are stories that reveal God’s truth.

Having said THAT, I would also observe that there are numerous examples of things in the Bible which historians have suggested were made up that have later proved to be true in the sense of human accuracy - for example the reign of King David, who was dismissed by some moderns as a legend until a stele was found with his name on it just a few years back . . .

 

[Newbie2]

Good answer.

While it begs the question about self-authentication of Scripture, that is another discussion. However, we know that Scripture is accurate in terms of the information we need for salvation because it’s a matter of our faith, and the Church, which Christ established, authenticates it.

 

[Watchman]

As an aside, I found their numbers interesting. They claim that there are 5,600 copies of the texts. How many copies do we have of Plato’s works? Seven. And the earliest is from about 1,300 years after his death. Why do these amateur scripture historians never call the existence of Plato into question?

And why are the Carthaginian writers completely silent about their “greatest leader”, Hannibal? Why are the earliest documents that mention him written many years later by a Roman historian? Could Hannibal be a convenient fiction to justify Rome’s ongoing aggression against Carthage? Elephants crossing the Alps?! Right.

Yet 5,600 documents are insufficient.

Obviously I do not believe that Plato and Hannibal are fictitious. I just find it interesting that the vigorous historic skepticism applied to Jesus is seldom used elsewhere.

 

[stasiu1982]

Well, first and foremost we accept the Bible because our faith is not in the words but in the Word - the Living Logos, Jesus, who gave His authority to the Apostles and their successors. Those successors were the ones who decided which books would be considered canonical, authoritative Scripture, which were useful and beneficial but not inspired/canonical, and which were in fact in error, reflecting heresy or simply inaccurate. So accepting Scripture is ultimately about accepting the authority of the Church.

The second issue has to do with “accuracy” and is a little difficult because as moderns we have the idea that True = historically/scientifically factual, which is not a standard of Truth that applies to genres like poetry or apocalyptic or even, frankly, gospel. What we believe is not that the gospels or the chronologies of the Old Testament are the equivalent of a modern video transcript but that they are stories that reveal God’s truth.

Having said THAT, I would also observe that there are numerous examples of things in the Bible which historians have suggested were made up that have later proved to be true in the sense of human accuracy - for example the reign of King David, who was dismissed by some moderns as a legend until a stele was found with his name on it just a few years back . . .

Thanks for your answer NHInsider - Only question is, by saying “What we believe is not that the gospels or the chronologies of the Old Testament are the equivalent of a modern video transcript but that they are stories that reveal God’s truth”, does that mean that they may not all be literally true ie some things in The Gospels may have happened and some may not have?

Watchman - I think the issue there is that there are 5,600 copies “many of which are distinctly different”, that is what got me thinking.

Newbie 2- I am wondering how I would explain the authenticity of The Bible to a hypothetical person who doesn’t believe in the Catholic faith, in which case saying that we believe it is accurate because “it’s a matter of our faith” probably wouldn’t be sufficient.

Thanks for everybody’s views so far.

 

[NHInsider]

Thanks for your answer NHInsider - Only question is, by saying “What we believe is not that the gospels or the chronologies of the Old Testament are the equivalent of a modern video transcript but that they are stories that reveal God’s truth”, does that mean that they may not all be literally true ie some things in The Gospels may have happened and some may not have?

I think we need to accept the Gospels for what they are - the written accounts of the testimonies of the apostles and other eyewitnesses - without trying to force them into a concept of “historical accuracy” that is a modern construct. For example - there are multiple Gospel accounts of the feeding of a multitude. The precise details vary somewhat among the accounts. Were there 5,000 or 4,000? Or multiple, similar miraculous events? And does that number mean “total people” or “total men, plus women and children”? And is it a precise head-count, or is it a “crowd estimate” such as we get after rallies on the Washington Mall, or is it a term used to convey the size of the crowd, not an actual “count”?

I don’t think it matters. I think there are many Truths revealed in the retelling of this miracle (and the applications of it, particularly, obviously, John’s account), and the question of what the number was is meaningless. On the other hand, I would reject the modernist interpretation that says “Jesus didn’t multiply the loaves, but He moved the many people in the crowd who had food to share what they brought.” I think the insistance that He broke and distributed the food and that there was a great deal left over, as well as the observation that people started following Him because they wanted to be fed (physically) again makes it pretty clear that this was in fact a miracle not explanable by some “natural” means.

Other, similar issues would include - the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew) and the Sermon on the Plain (Luke). Two different presentations of the same information? Very possibly. Or two different accounts of the same event, handed down through different branches of the Church? Also very possible. How about those post-Resurrection events? Do the apparent discrepancies mean that the story is fake? Or do they actually lend credence to the accounts because they reflect the way different people experienced and then passed on their memories?

Newbie 2- I am wondering how I would explain the authenticity of The Bible to a hypothetical person who doesn’t believe in the Catholic faith, in which case saying that we believe it is accurate because “it’s a matter of our faith” probably wouldn’t be sufficient.

Probably not - but the truth is, we believe the Bible because we believe Jesus, and we meet Jesus through His Visible Body which is the church. (Even someone who picked up a Bible and read it without ever meeting another Christian would still be encountering Jesus in the Gospels which exist because the Apostles and their successors preserved them.) The support of non-Biblical sources like Josephus only prove the existence of Jesus the man. Belief in Jesus the Christ comes by faith - and that is the gift of God!

 

[chaunceygardner]

The 5,600 handwritten copies of NT scripture were written over hundreds of years, and many are just fragments or portions of entire “books”. Most are obviously copies of copies of copies, hand copied from an earlier written version, or from dictation (a monk reading passages to scribes who would then write them out, for example).

Most of them have various differences. They may have different words, missing words or lines, added words or lines, and even whole chapters being tacked on. As mentioned in the UK article, there can be significant variations between the various copies. One of the problems is that the earliest copies we have are generally from the 2nd or 3rd centuries, and some even later. So there is a strong likelihood that in the interim, as the Gospels were passed on first orally, and only later in writing, that stories were altered, passages were dropped or added, and wording was changed.

NHInsider said that we need to accept the Gospels as “the written accounts of the testimonies of the apostles and other eyewitnesses.” Yes, that is true, but one should not then assume that they were written by the 12 Apostles or even companions of the Apostles, which is a common belief. It is highly unlikely that the Apostles wrote anything, with the obvious exception of Paul. The “Good News” was initially handed down and spread around orally. It was only later that these stories were put into writing, and many different versions of those stories existed. An obvious example is the Gospel of Luke, where the author of that Gospel clearly states that there were other accounts and that his version is an attempt to re-tell the story, based on his own research.

Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us,
just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have handed them down to us,
I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received.

So it is clear that this author was NOT an eyewitness to the ministry of Jesus, and the account being introduced is based on stories handed down through others. So whoever Luke is, he is relying on second or third hand information, some of which are earlier writings (the Source Q, the Gospel of Mark?) and possibly oral histories. The last phrase also is confirmation on how the “teachings” were originally verbal instructions, since Theophilus is now receiving a written record to go along with the oral instructions he received earlier.

Another aspect of Luke’s Gospel is that it was not written for all the people of the Church. It was intended as instruction for ONE person, or perhaps that person and others in their household or community. This is likely true of the other synoptic Gospels as well as Paul’s letters, which are directed at particular churches and generally address specific issues and concerns.

It was only much later that Church authorities came to an agreement on which writings should be included in the NT, and not without considerable struggle. As the article mentioned, earlier versions of the NT have books that our current version does not. Some of the early Church Fathers also mention books that were considered “scripture” in their communities at that time that later were not included in the Canon.

So As NHInsider correctly states, “accepting Scripture is ultimately about accepting the authority of the Church.” That is the only way that some people can accept it, since “scripture” as approved by the Church may not make it on its own merits. The problem is that what we know about the process of choosing the Canon, the great advances in bible scholarship that have occurred in the past 200 years, the many discrepancies in the Gospels, Acts and Letters, and new discoveries of ancient manuscripts, all indicate that one should not accept all of the New Testament at face value.

 

[Newbie2]

I think we need to accept the Gospels for what they are - the written accounts of the testimonies of the apostles and other eyewitnesses - without trying to force them into a concept of “historical accuracy” that is a modern construct. For example - there are multiple Gospel accounts of the feeding of a multitude. The precise details vary somewhat among the accounts. Were there 5,000 or 4,000? Or multiple, similar miraculous events? And does that number mean “total people” or “total men, plus women and children”? And is it a precise head-count, or is it a “crowd estimate” such as we get after rallies on the Washington Mall, or is it a term used to convey the size of the crowd, not an actual “count”?

I don’t think it matters. I think there are many Truths revealed in the retelling of this miracle (and the applications of it, particularly, obviously, John’s account), and the question of what the number was is meaningless. On the other hand, I would reject the modernist interpretation that says “Jesus didn’t multiply the loaves, but He moved the many people in the crowd who had food to share what they brought.” I think the insistance that He broke and distributed the food and that there was a great deal left over, as well as the observation that people started following Him because they wanted to be fed (physically) again makes it pretty clear that this was in fact a miracle not explanable by some “natural” means.

Other, similar issues would include - the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew) and the Sermon on the Plain (Luke). Two different presentations of the same information? Very possibly. Or two different accounts of the same event, handed down through different branches of the Church? Also very possible. How about those post-Resurrection events? Do the apparent discrepancies mean that the story is fake? Or do they actually lend credence to the accounts because they reflect the way different people experienced and then passed on their memories?

Probably not - but the truth is, we believe the Bible because we believe Jesus, and we meet Jesus through His Visible Body which is the church. (Even someone who picked up a Bible and read it without ever meeting another Christian would still be encountering Jesus in the Gospels which exist because the Apostles and their successors preserved them.) The support of non-Biblical sources like Josephus only prove the existence of Jesus the man. Belief in Jesus the Christ comes by faith - and that is the gift of God!

Um, that’s not my quote.

 

[stasiu1982]

Thanks for your views everybody, much appreciated.

But I am still not satisfied in my mind about this issue - What is “official” Catholic teaching on the accuracy of The Bible, on how it was compiled etc?

I’m sure it has been challenged by people of other faiths, by people of no faith. So I’m also sure that there is a body of Catholic teaching intended to defend the accuracy of The Bible, to address issues such as early Bibles having different books in them etc.

 

[Watchman]

Watchman - I think the issue there is that there are 5,600 copies “many of which are distinctly different”, that is what got me thinking.

Differences can mean any number of things, including transcription errors and intentional modifications. This is a common issue with historical documents and not unique to scripture. The fact that there are so many copies allows us to discern the message from the modifications. Sort of like a primitive digital CRC check.

As for what was included and what was excluded, this is a very good book. There are also many free resources on this topic.

 

[stasiu1982]

Differences can mean any number of things, including transcription errors and intentional modifications. This is a common issue with historical documents and not unique to scripture. The fact that there are so many copies allows us to discern the message from the modifications. Sort of like a primitive digital CRC check.

As for what was included and what was excluded, this is a very good book. There are also many free resources on this topic.

Thanks for the tip about the book, I just ordered it!

 

[Randy_Carson]

I How do we know that what is contained in The Bible is completely accurate, given The Gospels were written a while after Jesus’ time? How would those writing the Gospels been able to remember everything that happened and how could what they wrote not have been changed later (given we don’t have the the original copies of what was written)?

Proving Inspiration
catholic.com/library/Proving_Inspiration.asp

The Catholic method of proving the Bible to be inspired is this: The Bible is initially approached as any other ancient work. It is not, at first, presumed to be inspired. From textual criticism we are able to conclude that we have a text the accuracy of which is more certain than the accuracy of any other ancient work.

An Accurate Text

Sir Frederic Kenyon, in The Story of the Bible, notes that “For all the works of classical antiquity we have to depend on manuscripts written long after their original composition. The author who is the best case in this respect is Virgil, yet the earliest manuscript of Virgil that we now possess was written some 350 years after his death. For all other classical writers, the interval between the date of the author and the earliest extant manuscript of his works is much greater. For Livy it is about 500 years, for Horace 900, for most of Plato 1,300, for Euripides 1,600.” Yet no one seriously disputes that we have accurate copies of the works of these writers. However, in the case of the New Testament we have parts of manuscripts dating from the first and early second centuries, only a few decades after the works were penned.

Not only are the biblical manuscripts that we have older than those for classical authors, we have in sheer numbers far more manuscripts from which to work. Some are whole books of the Bible, others fragments of just a few words, but there are literally thousands of manuscripts in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Coptic, Syriac, and other languages. This means that we can be sure we have an authentic text, and we can work from it with confidence.

The Bible as Historical Truth

Next we take a look at what the Bible, considered merely as a history, tells us, focusing particularly on the New Testament, and more specifically the Gospels. We examine the account contained therein of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

Using what is in the Gospels themselves and what we find in extra-biblical writings from the early centuries, together with what we know of human nature (and what we can otherwise, from natural reason alone, know of divine nature), we conclude that either Jesus was just what he claimed to be—God—or he was crazy. (The one thing we know he could not have been was merely a good man who was not God, since no merely good man would make the claims he made.)

We are able to eliminate the possibility of his being a madman not just from what he said but from what his followers did after his death. Many critics of the Gospel accounts of the resurrection claim that Christ did not truly rise, that his followers took his body from the tomb and then proclaimed him risen from the dead. According to these critics, the resurrection was nothing more than a hoax. Devising a hoax to glorify a friend and mentor is one thing, but you do not find people dying for a hoax, at least not one from which they derive no benefit. Certainly if Christ had not risen his disciples would not have died horrible deaths affirming the reality and truth of the resurrection. The result of this line of reasoning is that we must conclude that Jesus indeed rose from the dead. Consequently, his claims concerning himself—including his claim to be God—have credibility. He meant what he said and did what he said he would do.

Further, Christ said he would found a Church. Both the Bible (still taken as *merely a historical *book, not yet as an inspired one) and other ancient works attest to the fact that Christ established a Church with the rudiments of what we see in the Catholic Church today—papacy, hierarchy, priesthood, sacraments, and teaching authority.

We have thus taken the material and purely historically concluded that Jesus founded the Catholic Church. Because of his Resurrection we have reason to take seriously his claims concerning the Church, including its authority to teach in his name.

This Catholic Church tells us the Bible is inspired, and we can take the Church’s word for it precisely because the Church is infallible. Only after having been told by a properly constituted authority—that is, one established by God to assure us of the truth concerning matters of faith—that the Bible is inspired can we reasonably begin to use it as an inspired book.

A Spiral Argument

Note that this is not a circular argument. We are not basing the inspiration of the Bible on the Church’s infallibility and the Church’s infallibility on the word of an inspired Bible. That indeed would be a circular argument! What we have is really a spiral argument. On the first level we argue to the reliability of the Bible insofar as it is history. From that we conclude that an infallible Church was founded. And then we take the word of that infallible Church that the Bible is inspired. This is not a circular argument because the final conclusion (the Bible is inspired) is not simply a restatement of its initial finding (the Bible is historically reliable), and its initial finding (the Bible is historically reliable) is in no way based on the final conclusion (the Bible is inspired). What we have demonstrated is that without the existence of the Church, we could never know whether the Bible is inspired.

The advantages of the Catholic approach are two: First, the inspiration is really proved, not just “felt.” Second, the main fact behind the proof—the reality of an infallible, teaching Church—leads one naturally to an answer to the problem that troubled the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:30-31): How is one to know which interpretations are correct? The same Church that authenticates the Bible, that attests to its inspiration, is the authority established by Christ to interpret his word.

 

[stasiu1982]

Randy - Thanks for the link and extract, exactly what I was looking for.

 

[Spirithound]

godandscience.org/apologetics/bibleorg.html

This source says that there are 24,000 manuscripts of the New Testament, which have an internal consistency rate of 99.5%. This flatly contradicts the article you read.

Also:
Gospel of Thomas:

Jesus said, “I myself shall lead her (Mary) in order to make her
male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you
males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the
Kingdom of Heaven.”
sacred-texts.com/chr/thomas.htm

…that’s why.

But really, we need to have faith that the Holy Spirit was guiding the Early Church Fathers, the Doctors, the Popes, and the Councils, because these are the men responsible for compiling the canon of the Bible.

 

[NHInsider]

Um, that’s not my quote.

Sorry, it was someone else’s comment addressed to you - should’ve stripped that out.

 

[DOShea]

But I am still not satisfied in my mind about this issue - What is “official” Catholic teaching on the accuracy of The Bible, on how it was compiled etc?
.

These are two distinct questions that require two separate lines of research for you to find the answers to.

There are resources on this site and many other Catholic sites that can guide you to the first answer. As to how it was compiled, that has also been discussed at length many times on this site, at least twice in the last month. Search in the Apologetics/Scripture section and you will find many discussions on it.

The process was not one that was planned like a modern-day project, where someone said, “Let us have a Bible,” and everything happened from there. What happened, as you could presume would logically happen with thousands of manuscripts floating around, is that churches over here (<–) used one collection of writings as sacred documents of their faith, while other churches over there (–>) used a different set. Over roughly 3 centuries of time, these sources were shared, discussed, critiqued, accepted, rejected, or questioned, and the result of those long years of back-and-forth was an official “formulation” of an approved list. This list we call the canon. It was officially accepted by a Synod in 397 AD, followed over the next 20 years by similar acceptance in two other Synods.

Some gospels like Thomas contained so many elements that promoted (specifically) the Gnostic viewpoints that it was rejected outright. Most rejected books fell into this category, that is, they were rejected long before the Synod as they contradicted the faith in blatant ways. Likewise, most of the books that were accepted were widely accepted and had been for years. It was really only about some few books and a question of their authenticity, authorship, and inspiration. Revelation was one such book, and there were about 5 or 6 of them that the discussion really focused on.

In the end, three different Synods accepted the same list. That should say something about the veracity of who believed what and when, and that veracity should carry over into the texts those Synods accepted. Much of the work had already been done by early Church Fathers who wrote about these texts and argued their content in favor of many of the heretical beliefs that took root in their time. So this process was more of a compilation than an invention.

In modern times, musical groups, after releasing several recordings, often release a “Greatest Hits” type of recording. When they do that, they don’t then sit down and consider which of their songs, at that moment, are “greatest.” They look back on their history, their use or record sales, and where those songs might have placed on the Top 100 charts. Same kind of process. It’s accepting what has already established itself, then putting those songs into one release.

Such a process does not say a particular song is not “good,” though some songs clearly aren’t. It only stresses what songs are the best. In the case of the Bible and its canon, the level of the bar was set at inspired texts that reflect the faith. A text like the Gospel of Thomas didn’t make that cut, for obvious reasons previously discussed.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Questions: How do we know that books such as The Gospel of Thomas or other books are not supposed to be included in The Bible? How was it decided what to include and not to include?

How do we know that what is contained in The Bible is completely accurate, given The Gospels were written a while after Jesus’ time? How would those writing the Gospels been able to remember everything that happened and how could what they wrote not have been changed later (given we don’t have the the original copies of what was written)?

There are two answers to this question (I think):

Answer #1

We know that the Bible is accurate because the infallible Church founded by Jesus Christ tells us that it is so. Here are the details (follow the link for the full text):

Proving Inspiration
catholic.com/library/Proving_Inspiration.asp

The Catholic method of proving the Bible to be inspired is this: The Bible is initially approached as any other ancient work. It is not, at first, presumed to be inspired. From textual criticism we are able to conclude that we have a text the accuracy of which is more certain than the accuracy of any other ancient work.

An Accurate Text

Sir Frederic Kenyon, in The Story of the Bible, notes that “For all the works of classical antiquity we have to depend on manuscripts written long after their original composition. The author who is the best case in this respect is Virgil, yet the earliest manuscript of Virgil that we now possess was written some 350 years after his death. For all other classical writers, the interval between the date of the author and the earliest extant manuscript of his works is much greater. For Livy it is about 500 years, for Horace 900, for most of Plato 1,300, for Euripides 1,600.” Yet no one seriously disputes that we have accurate copies of the works of these writers. However, in the case of the New Testament we have parts of manuscripts dating from the first and early second centuries, only a few decades after the works were penned.

Not only are the biblical manuscripts that we have older than those for classical authors, we have in sheer numbers far more manuscripts from which to work. Some are whole books of the Bible, others fragments of just a few words, but there are literally thousands of manuscripts in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Coptic, Syriac, and other languages. This means that we can be sure we have an authentic text, and we can work from it with confidence.

The Bible as Historical Truth

Next we take a look at what the Bible, considered merely as a history, tells us, focusing particularly on the New Testament, and more specifically the Gospels. We examine the account contained therein of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

Using what is in the Gospels themselves and what we find in extra-biblical writings from the early centuries, together with what we know of human nature (and what we can otherwise, from natural reason alone, know of divine nature), we conclude that either Jesus was just what he claimed to be—God—or he was crazy. (The one thing we know he could not have been was merely a good man who was not God, since no merely good man would make the claims he made.)

We are able to eliminate the possibility of his being a madman not just from what he said but from what his followers did after his death. Many critics of the Gospel accounts of the resurrection claim that Christ did not truly rise, that his followers took his body from the tomb and then proclaimed him risen from the dead. According to these critics, the resurrection was nothing more than a hoax. Devising a hoax to glorify a friend and mentor is one thing, but you do not find people dying for a hoax, at least not one from which they derive no benefit. Certainly if Christ had not risen his disciples would not have died horrible deaths affirming the reality and truth of the resurrection. The result of this line of reasoning is that we must conclude that Jesus indeed rose from the dead. Consequently, his claims concerning himself—including his claim to be God—have credibility. He meant what he said and did what he said he would do.

Further, Christ said he would found a Church. Both the Bible (still taken as *merely a historical *book, not yet as an inspired one) and other ancient works attest to the fact that Christ established a Church with the rudiments of what we see in the Catholic Church today—papacy, hierarchy, priesthood, sacraments, and teaching authority.

We have thus taken the material and purely historically concluded that Jesus founded the Catholic Church. Because of his Resurrection we have reason to take seriously his claims concerning the Church, including its authority to teach in his name.

This Catholic Church tells us the Bible is inspired, and we can take the Church’s word for it precisely because the Church is infallible. Only after having been told by a properly constituted authority—that is, one established by God to assure us of the truth concerning matters of faith—that the Bible is inspired can we reasonably begin to use it as an inspired book.

A Spiral Argument

Note that this is not a circular argument. We are not basing the inspiration of the Bible on the Church’s infallibility and the Church’s infallibility on the word of an inspired Bible. That indeed would be a circular argument! What we have is really a spiral argument. On the first level we argue to the reliability of the Bible insofar as it is history. From that we conclude that an infallible Church was founded. And then we take the word of that infallible Church that the Bible is inspired. This is not a circular argument because the final conclusion (the Bible is inspired) is not simply a restatement of its initial finding (the Bible is historically reliable), and its initial finding (the Bible is historically reliable) is in no way based on the final conclusion (the Bible is inspired). What we have demonstrated is that without the existence of the Church, we could never know whether the Bible is inspired.

The advantages of the Catholic approach are two: First, the inspiration is really proved, not just “felt.” Second, the main fact behind the proof—the reality of an infallible, teaching Church—leads one naturally to an answer to the problem that troubled the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:30-31): How is one to know which interpretations are correct? The same Church that authenticates the Bible, that attests to its inspiration, is the authority established by Christ to interpret his word.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Answer #2

We can know that the text we have today is accurate by comparing multiple copies.

Each author of a NT book wrote an original manuscript which I’ll call “M”. Using M, copies were made and sent to various Churches in the NT era. I’ll call these second-generation copies, C1, C2 & C3. The number of copies is not important for this illustration. Now, imagine that copies of the copies were made as the Christian Church expanded since every local congregation wanted to have a copy of these important texts. I’ll call the copies of C1, C1a, C1b & C1c. There would also be C2a, C2b, and so forth. With me so far? I sure hope the following diagram reproduces well…think of each column as a generation. The copies which have not been lost are in bold.

M—C1—C1a—C1a1
-------------C1b—C1b1
----------------------C1b2
-------------C1c—C1c1
----------------------C1c2
------C2—C2a—C2a1
-------------C2b—C2b1
------C3—C3a—C3a1
----------------------C3a2
-------------C3b—C3b1
-------------C3c—C3c1
----------------------C3c2
----------------------C3c3

Now, imagine further that M, C1, C2 & C3 along with C1a, C2a, C3a & C3b have all been lost, but that C1b, C1c, C2b & C3c are all in museums scattered around the world - Moscow, London, the Vatican, etc. Additionally, all of the copies of those copies still exist (I’m simplifying, of course).

We know that M must have existed, and logic dictates that C1, C2 & C3 must have existed (though we may be unsure of the number of first-generation copies). We can learn that both C1 & C2 must have existed by comparing the extant copies C1b & C2b and discovering subtle variations in the texts - copyists glosses or “typos”, if you will. If C1 was slightly different from C2, then those differences will be reflected in C1a and C2a along with all of the subsequent copies of those copies. Variations were passed on from generation to generation. Make sense?

So, how can we know with certainty what the Bible actually said if we don’t have the original autograph (M) or if errors (variations) crept into the text? By comparing the existing texts, scholars can work backwards to determine what M actually said. This process can never be perfect since humans are involved (along with the Holy Spirit!), but we can have a high degree of confidence that the Bible we have to day contains the message that the original authors intended to convey.

+++

At least that’s how I understand it. I welcome any corrections to this explanation.

 

[Spirithound]

So, how can we know with certainty what the Bible actually said if we don’t have the original autograph (M) or if errors (variations) crept into the text?

An important question to ask on this front is whether the discrepancies actually make a difference. It is my understanding that the vast majority of the discrepancies really don’t make any difference to the correct understanding of the text, and none of them affect doctrine.

 

[stasiu1982]

Thanks for the answers everybody, they are really helping me understand!