Page 51 - Advanced Apologetics and World Views Revised
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Chapter 7: More Questions about the Bible
Connect …
Have you ever met a Christian who believes that the King James Version of the Bible is the only
“infallible” and correct Bible? They say that all other translations are “anti – God” or at least filled with
errors and unreliable. People who take this view obviously have not studied original languages or
investigated the science of Textual Criticism or the history of the early manuscripts which we have. If
they did, they would discover that their claim is fallacious.
Today we are going to investigate their question to see if we can help them understand how the Bible
has been copied over the ages and to what degree of accuracy.
Objectives …
1. The student should be able to show that many translations are valid for today and accurate to the
original manuscripts.
2. The student will understand how changes have occurred in copies of the Bible, but how we can
determine how these changes have altered the original meaning of the manuscript.
3. The student will be able to demonstrate that the Bible, unless obviously using figurative language,
can be taken literally and at face value.
4. The student will be able to demonstrate how other “holy” books cannot demonstrate reliability as
God’s Word.
The Lesson …
Some say the KJV version of the Bible is the only authoritative and correct translation
of the Bible. What about all the other translations? Are they false translations?
Some believers today claim that the KJV is the only accurate Bible to study and read, and that all other
translations are corrupt. They base their position mainly on the fact that the KJV translators relied on
the original work of Erasmus who relied on the Byzantine family of manuscripts. This family of
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manuscripts came from the 11 or 12 centuries. Since the days of Erasmus, we have discovered
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thousands more whole or partial manuscripts dating back even to the 2 century. By comparing the
earlier manuscripts to the later ones, we can see how the flourishes and additions of scribes can alter or
add to the texts. Therefore, most modern translators choose to use the “Alexandrian manuscripts” and
other older manuscripts as they believe they are closer to the originals than the Byzantine altered texts.
These older manuscripts shed a lot of light on what was originally written in the original manuscripts.
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