Page 47 - Apologetics Student Textbook

Study Section 6: More Questions about the Bible

6.1 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.

6.2 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.

6.3 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 manuscripts came from the 11 or 12 centuries. Since the days
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of Erasmus, we have discovered 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
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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.

Those individuals to hold to the position that the KJV Bible is the only accurate copy of God’s Word have
a real problem when it comes to Bible translation into other languages. The translators use the best
tools possible to translate original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts into the most accurate word or
phrases of a foreign language, and that language is not Elizabethan English. Are not any of the
thousands of translations into languages other than English accurate? Are they not God’s Word to these
people?

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