Page 49 - Doctrine and History of the Preservation of the Bible revised

Chapter 7: The History of the Preservation of the Bible

Connect…

History is a very important subject. Knowing our roots and why things happened in the past the way
they did helps us understand our own personal situations now. The Bible has a history of its own. Over
the years, hundreds of copies have been made and shipped all over the world. Men have attacked it
and tried to destroy it. But God has miraculously preserved its integrity for us today. Wouldn’t it be
fascinating to look over the years to see how God has kept the Bible true for us today? Let’s do that….

Objectives…

1. The student should be able to describe how believers recognized the correct books to place in the
canon of Scripture.

2. The student should be able to describe how the historical characters God were used to preserve the
integrity of God’s Word.

The Lesson ...

How do we know the Bible is completely true?

Inerrancy means that Scripture is without error. It tells the truth. And we believe that the very words of
the original autographs were written without error. However, we do not have any of the original
autographs today. So, we have a problem.

Inerrancy is an issue because some religious “scholars” have repeatedly redefined such terms as
“infallible” to mean the Bible could still have factual historical errors. When inerrancy is not held, one
by one certain Bible doctrines (deity of Christ, etc.), historical facts (such as the literal creation), and
other biblical views (on issues such as homosexuality or women’s roles) are denied.

The science of Textual Criticism is to review the various copies or
manuscripts of the Bible that we have found to see if we can detect
any variants in copies the original autographs. The New Testament
has been preserved in more manuscripts than any other ancient
work, having over 5,800 complete or fragmented Greek
manuscripts, 10,000 Latin manuscripts and 9,300 manuscripts in
various other ancient languages including Syriac, Slavic, Gothic,
xix
Ethiopic, Coptic and Armenian.

47