It is quite literally the ‘oldest trick in the book’ to make Christians doubt God’s word by introducing doubt, saying ‘did he really say?’. It is no surprise, then, that today the critics of the Scriptures have a whole host of bogus chisels and wedges that they try to jamb in between you and God’s word. The worst part is, they do an awfully good job of it.
Here are some of the claims that you might hear, or might have already heard, and a brief response to each of them. Just some light reading, something to peruse while waiting for a bus, or drinking coffee, or whatever else this esteemed reader finds themselves doing.
“There wasn’t even a Bible until the year 325 when Constantine took all the parts and put the official version together.”
Admittedly, this might be considered a strawman, but that’s because it is a combination of a few claims that sometimes get thrown into the pot all at once, unscrupulously, like three blind bachelors making a grand batch of leftovers soup.
Firstly, there’s confusion about what happened at the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325. Constantine called for this council, and it is known as the first ecumenical council, meaning that it was a meeting of various church leaders (essentially). They discussed a number of things, one of which we will discuss next week (it’s related to Santa!), but they did not do any of the following: (a) create a list of which books should be in the Bible (b) confiscate or in any way adulterate or curate the Bible or any of its parts (c) meet in a dark shadowy room, with power hungry global elites, scheming over wrought iron tables about seeking world domination! We beg your pardon, perhaps we get carried away with all this excitement.
Another historical document that gets mixed up in this discussion is Athanasius’ 39th Festal Letter. It’s not very long, and certainly worth reading. In it, Athanasius expresses concern about fresh Christians being led astray by treating spurious and false books as if they were Scripture. Following on from that, he goes on to list those books which are truly God’s word. This is not Athanasius defining which books are God’s word. Also, even if this was the first time in history that someone had written out the list (this author does not know if that is in fact true), it wouldn’t mean that the church didn’t know which books were God’s word until then.
“The Roman Catholic Church was responsible for collecting and curating the Bible we have today.”
Ah, the Papists and their anachronism. It’s like saying that the James Bond fanbase created the James Bond films. Sure, they received the films, and they might have even been pretty knowledgeable about what was in them, but that doesn’t mean they own them or created them. To put it straight, the Roman Catholic Church that exists today is not something that has existed all the way back to Peter. It’s like how there weren’t Baptist, Anglican or Presbyterian churches in the early church. Those things just didn’t exist yet. Sure, those denominations are trying to adopt the beliefs and practises of the early church, but it just wouldn’t be realistic to say that they existed since the first day of the church. Not only did the Roman Catholic Church not exist in such a fashion that it would be present as an institution to authorise and collect the New Testament, but it simply was not possible for any person or collective to control the writing or spread of the New Testament books. This is because the books weren’t all being written from one guy’s office, with some possibility for a secretary or editor to moderate what gets sent out.
These letters were being written from all sorts of places, even from jail. From there, the letters got hand-copied by other Christians who wanted to get their hands on the authoritative Apostolic teaching in those letters. So, as the letters were sent out to their recipients, and then copied hundreds and hundreds of times, there was an explosion of copies of these letters all around Asia Minor and the surrounding areas. For any one person or collective to edit them, they have had to track down every little copy and partial copy of every letter, and gather them together in one place to edit or curate them. To add some scope to how ridiculous that is, no persecution of the church (and there have been many) has been able to track down and stamp out all the Bibles. Do you really think one guy, or even a council, or even multiple heads of state could have accomplished that?
As it happens, the Islamic tradition records that Uthman attempted to do this with the Qur’an. He attempted to edit and publish one complete version of the Qur’an to be distributed and given to everyone, and have all other fragmentary or complete copies burnt. However, the presence of extant variations in the Qur’an is proof that this level of control was even impossible for the highly powerful and sophisticated Islamic Empire.
One final word on this: God is the author of all 66 books of the Bible. That’s what they have in common. That’s the reason we have those books, when you get down to it. God’s Spirit powerfully used God’s word to teach God’s people, and so it is no surprise that as the church received the Scriptures, she recognised that they were the real deal. It is also no surprise that the church received other literature that was influential, but understood to not be on par with Scripture (e.g. The Shepherd of Hermas).
“The Bible has been translated so many times that we can’t possibly hope to know what it originally said.”
We really like this one. This is a classic ‘Chinese whispers’ argument. If you’ve ever played that game, you will no doubt have been amazed at how your phrase ‘John plays basketball in the morning’ ended up being ‘Some days baskets fall on the awning’. Just imagine, if that level of corruption and degradation could occur for one sentence over a few minutes, what about books and books over hundreds of years?
It seems to be a powerful argument at first, but has two fatal flaws. Firstly, the Bible we have in English today did not have to go through 11 other languages before it arrived in English, each one changing slightly along the way. Our Bibles are translated directly from the original languages (Greek and Hebrew). Additionally, English speakers are blessed with the lion’s share of great translations and copious amounts of Christian scholarship explaining carefully how the Apostles’ words were transmitted and translated to what we have today. We are very lucky, and some of the most important names in the early history of Bible translation (Jerome, Beza, Stephanus, Erasmus) would have killed to have the amount of light and information we have.
Though we do not have the ‘autographs’, that is, the very copy that was written by Paul himself, we have an abundance of fragments and portions of the Scriptures in manuscripts and codices and papyri that give us more than enough information to see what was originally written and what were the spelling mistakes. Some scholars have said it is like we are trying to complete a 100-piece jigsaw puzzle and we have 130 pieces. We have more than enough, not less than enough, to know what was originally written.
“There were lots of different Christian traditions and Scriptures in the early years, the ones we have today are just the ones that were the most popular.”
This is a very postmodern attack, because it seeks to suggest that the Christianity we have today was just ‘one of many Christianities’ in the early centuries, and is therefore not something unique or God-inspired but simply the version that was most dominant. However, it relies on only a brief glance at some facts of the early church, and not an in-depth study. It is true that in the early years of the faith, there were movements that sprung up within and broke off from the Christian faith (e.g. Gnosticism). There are books associated with this line of thought, sometimes called the ‘Gnostic Gospels’. If you hear this, and are now worried that maybe you’ve been missing out on the right books all this time: don’t be afraid. Don’t take our word for it that they’re not God’s word. Read them for yourself. Seriously. The ‘infancy gospel of Thomas’ is genuinely a joke. Read it, and laugh. The books that survived were the books that bore the marks of divine quality, the books that were of apostolic origin, the books that were received by the Church. Yes, there were other popular books, and some people even decided that they were worth preserving, often making copies of them alongside their copies of Scripture, but even then they still knew the difference.
(a) The KJV is the only trustworthy Bible, and (b) there is a grand conspiracy among the translators of modern Bibles to remove doctrines and verses, especially ones about the deity of Christ.”
Whilst the other objections may be ones you have never encountered, this is one that is still alive and kicking in many places today. There is, unfortunately, a brand of Christians who adopt a position we call ‘KJVO’, also known as ‘King James Only-ism’. Make no mistake, this is not like the differences that Christians have about doctrines like God’s sovereignty, and the proper mode and manner for the administration of Sacraments, where there are good cases to be made by opposing sides. King James Only-ism is an anti-intellectual and fantastical position, entirely disconnected from reality and history.
Some hold to this perspective because they are uncomfortable with the fact that there are textual variants in Scripture, and so they look to one version of the Bible and say, ‘There, that’s the one infallible version of the Bible, and that’s the end of the story!’
Some hold to this perspective because they look at the Bible covenantally (that is, they see it as a book that God gave to the church, and that therefore should be preserved and translated within the church), and find it inappropriate that the church should be using a version of the Bible translated by large committees of scholars, rather than a translation seemingly made by the church alone. (This is not a full-throated explanation of the Confessional Text Position, but it gives you a rough idea).
Lastly, some people aren’t KJVO, but just have a preference for that translation because of historical or sentimental reasons. This is perfectly fine, though this author would not go as far as saying that the KJV is ‘just as good’ as any other modern translation. It’s not. In fact, when the first edition of the KJV was being written, they didn’t even have access to Revelation 22:16-21. They had to read a Latin commentary on that section, and extract the verses from the commentary, translate from Latin into Greek, and thereby add words to Scripture. This is the reason that the end of Revelation in KJV is noticeably different in certain sentences from the end of Revelation in most modern translations.
The second part of the objection is the conspiracy claim. To put it briefly, there are places where KJV says ‘Lord Jesus’ where modern translations say ‘Jesus’. KJVO folks will have you believe that this is a slow and sneaky move on the part of some shadowy group to slowly remove the deity of Christ from the Scriptures. If you are currently screwing up your face, deep in confusion, you are spot on. It makes no sense, and in fact reflects a low view of the New Testament’s testimony to the deity of Christ. Doctrines like that aren’t just built on one or two places where Jesus is given the title ‘Lord’. The deity of Christ is basically sewn into every page of the New Testament. His statements about his origins with the father, his self-titling as the Son of Man, his right to forgive sins and his fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy (just to name a few) are all clear and unmistakable evidence of his deity. Let us wrap up this section with some reassurance: if you hold in your hands the 1611 KJV and the NASB, you are holding two translations that teach the same God, the same gospel, and all the same doctrine. These Bibles are not wildly different. Yes, people will always have preferences, and yes there are some mistakes in the translation of the KJV, but at the end of the day we have so many good English Bible translations that we would never need another one created (until the point that the usage of English shifts so significantly that today’s Bibles are no longer fully understandable, like what is happening with KJV).
Dear reader, if this interests you, you should read The King James Only Controversy by Dr James White, or buy any book on Textual Criticism, because that is the umbrella heading for all of these matters.
At the end of the day, aside from the historical details that get us there, we know that God’s word will not be corrupted or lost because it is God’s gift and tool for his people, and he will preserve it for us and through us. We should praise God for his word, and for the marvellous light therein.
Distilled Orthopraxy 