Page 48 - Apologetics Student Textbook

There is NO ONE translation that is inerrant (without error). Only the original
manuscripts were without error. You must select the translation that most closely
reflects the words of God which where penned in the original manuscripts. When in
doubt, consult parallel translations and do word studies to determine which is most
accurate to the “original Greek and Hebrew” manuscripts. You must be like the
Bereans who “received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily,
to see whether these things were so.” Acts 17: 11

Has the Bible changed over the years of being copied?

In the Scriptorium, a master scribe would read from a passage of Scripture while other scribes wrote
what they heard on vellum for sometimes 12 hours or more during the day.

Words were misspelled, omitted. Sometimes whole phrases were omitted.

Harmonization occurred: Ex., Eph 1:2 in Greek says: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ whereas Col 1:2 in Greek says: Grace to you and peace from god our Father.

Sometimes a scribe would miss a phrase when it was being read, he would realize he has left the phrase
out, so rather than throw away a very expensive piece of Vellum and loose his work to that point, he
would add the missing word in the margin.

Other scribes would make personal comments about a verse or passage or write a parallel passage in
the margin. That manuscript would then be sent to another scriptorium hundreds of miles away and be
used as the mother script. When a copyist would come to a marginal note, word, or phrase, most often
it was added into the text (better safe than sorry). As a result, later copies of the Bible became “fuller”
or longer.

Examples of marginal notes appearing in later manuscripts:
Mark 16: 9-20 – Conclusion of Mark
John 7:53 – 8:11 – The woman caught in adultery
John 5:4 – The angel stirring the water

Problem of pietism: When the Catholic Church became the majority church of the Middle Ages, monks
and scribes began inserting more descriptive phrases. For example, in the place of the name of Jesus,
“Lord Jesus Christ” was often inserted. The later Byzantine manuscripts have the “Lord Jesus Christ”
occurring in 86 places in the New Testament, where the older manuscripts have it occurring 61 times.
Most of the time, Jesus is replaced by Lord Jesus or Lord Jesus Christ.

Does this mean that the copy of the Bible we have today is laced with errors and discrepancies? NO!
Here is why:

99.5% of all the manuscripts agree 100%. That means that the copyists were careful not to change the
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text throughout the ages of time. Also, there are only 400 variants that affected the sense of the
passage, and only 50 of these have doctrinal significance. We have over 5,300 copies ancient

27 https://www.str.org/w/is-the-new-testament-text-reliable-

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