“Most Christians will affirm that the Bible is our rule of faith and practice. It is a little self contradictory to stand in the pulpit and say the word of God is inspired, when in his heart the pastor knows he is not referring to any book here on this earth that people can hold in their hands and believe. He really should say what he believes - that the word of God WAS inspired at one time but we no longer have it, so the best we can do is hope we have a close approximation of what God probably meant to tell us.” (
geocities.com/brandplucked/transinsp.html)
“It also seems a bit inconsistent to say he believes the originals were inspired, when he has never seen them, they never were together in one single book and they no longer exist anyway. How does he know they were inspired? He accepts this by faith. Yet he seems to lack the faith to actually believe that God could do exactly what He said He would do with His words. God said He would preserve them and that heaven and earth would pass away but His words would not pass away.” (
geocities.com/brandplucked/transinsp.html)
Yet, this same person writes:
"How Old Was Ahaziah, 22 or 42?
This is an apparent contradiction that frequently is thrown in the face of Christians who believe we have an inspired Bible. Many Atheist, Islam and Bible dubunker sites bring up this example. Sad to say, most of the “Christian” apologetic sites which promote the new bible versions cave in here and say the number 42 is a copyist error.
Here is a typical response by those Christians who use and promote the modern versions. This one comes from Techtonics Apologetics. This “defender of the faith” answers: “ Was Ahaziah forty-two or twenty-two (per 2 Kings 8:26) when he ascended the throne? More likely 22, and 2 Chronicles has been hit by a copyist error. See our foundational essay on copyist errors for general background. In favor of the “22” reading in 2 Chronicles: The 2 Kings reading; some LXX and Syriac manuscripts.
This typical Christian response is not limited to this one example, but in many objections brought up by the infidels or the curious, this same rote answer is given. There is a copyist error. There is a typo in God’s book. The skeptics laugh and the modern version proponent looks like a fool.
2 Chronicles 22:2 tells us that Ahaziah was 42 years old when he began to reign. The Hebrew texts, plus Wycliffe 1395,Coverdale 1535, Bishop’s Bible 1568, Geneva Bible 1599, the Revised Version, the American Standard Version, Douay 1950, the Spanish Reina Valera 1960, Italian Diodati 1602, NKJV, RSV, NRSV, the Jewish translations of 1917 and 1936, the 1998 Complete Jewish Bible, Hebrew Names Bible, Rotherham’s Emphasized Bible, Webster’s 1833 translation, the New English Bible 1970, the New Jerusalem, KJV 21st Century, and the Third Millenium Bible all say Ahaziah was 42 years old when he began to reign.
The inspired Hebrew text clearly says Ahaziah was 42 years old. The masoretic scribes were very scrupulous in copying their sacred trust. No word or number was written from memory but each word was carefully checked before he recopied it. The copies were checked and checked again and if there were a single error, the whole was discarded and and new one begun......" ([geocities.com/brandplucked/22or42.html](http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/22or42.html))
