Sanctify them
by Your truth,
Your word
is truth.
John 17:17
In the beginning of Christianity the people of those times relied upon the spoken word and they spoke the truth without embellishment. This culture of ancient times gave great honor to the fact that the narratives remained intact as and held truth, speaking in truth, to be one of the most important features so that they would not blaspheme God and that they would not bring condemnation upon themselves. In time those people died and the narratives with them making it necessary that those events, the words of Jesus Christ could be transmitted to the following generations. This they did with great care for when they wrote, they wrote in times when those ancient Christians were still alive and could scrutinize what was written: what was truthful. The culture was changing but the need for God to speak to men remained and this He did by the power of the Holy Spirit causing men to write what God intended as the necessary narratives. Furthermore, God has always used men, the prophets of old, to write His words to His people; nothing had changed, people needed a written account of Jesus Christ and of His precepts, laws, commandments. The Bible was and is the written rule of life, and a source we go to for our faith. This God did by inspiration, He did not leave this important necessary book to chance: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2Timothy 3:16). Notice this one thing: "...is profitable for doctrine" making it necessary to have exactly what God inspired men to write as the very doctrines of the Church are to be found in His inspired written word. Unfortunately, heresy began to invade the Church and with heresy came corruption of the written word as they inserted their belief, their doctrinal positions. In time when the original manuscripts disappeared and many copies where being submitted to the Church some had deviated from the original making it hard for those seeking the truth to come to the truth. Confusion abounded, and that confusion is still with us today as there are many versions of the Bible. Most of the confusion is with the New Testament as there is a general consensus about the manuscripts of the Old Testament; they hold that the manuscripts we have of the Old Testament as intact and had been carried forward in time with little corruption or variants. This is not true of the New Testament, we have some 24,000 pieces of manuscripts and there are many places within those manuscripts that the heretics inserted their doctrines, or simply left out portions of Scripture that did not conform to their way of thinking, their doctrinal positions. This is true of some textual criticisms today, there has been adherence to manuscripts that have some heretical insertions but have come to the Church as though they have the truth, that the word of God is to be found in those manuscripts that they have come to believe are closely translated to the original manuscripts. Are they? This we must examine so that we can have solid and sound faith that the book, the Bible, we hold in our hands is the preserved word of God, so that we can be sanctified by His word, that is to be set apart in truth as this is what sanctification will do for a person.
The parameters one uses determines much of the outcome, and one's presuppositions, or theories, those belief systems control how a word, or verse, is to be translated. It does not matter so much how fluent a person is in the original languages, Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic, it is important but is not the total important feature. It is not to be construed that just because there are a large number of manuscripts that belong to a family of manuscripts, for anyone can go to a copying store and copy many thousands of copies claiming that just be the sheer number of manuscripts that they contain the truth. Or, as some have propagated, the oldest is the most sure to be directly similar to the original texts. If I wrote a letter and set it aside and it never was read, or handled very little, and yet another person wrote a letter, and this letter was read and copied as the older copies were unusable, but was to the people reading this letter to be a copy of the original letter, does not make a letter that has not been worn over time, has not been copied and read so that it would be worn out, make it to be truer than one that is newer and is read by the people. Yet, this is the very reason that some hold to certain manuscripts as being closer to the original. Are they? Is the oldest the best? Some of the modern textural critics hold a somewhat uncritical reliance upon the text' antiquity. This antiquity is held above everything else.These scholars give more weight to the age of a manuscript causing those manuscripts that are not considered to be older, a newer copy making the newer copies to be inferior. Are they? This issue of age, the age of a manuscript sound to be plausible until one examines the existing manuscripts. Remember those scholars that give such weight to an older text could easily be assumed to be correct, that these older manuscripts are more closely approximate to the original autographs. Sounds logical, right? When the manuscripts are tested this argument will be found not to hold up under this examination.
Using antiquity as the parameter or rule that those interpretations, those translation falls under the microscope and is to be found that these modern scholars have left out an important feature so that we can come to a correct conclusion. This feature is that the corruptions to be found in the New Testament occurred in the greatest way in the first two centuries (roughly 80-200 A.D.). It has been argued and with some very important certainty that the majority of corruption came within a century after their composition.
Further, Colwell states that "The overwhelming majority of readings were created before the year 200..." (E.C. Colwell, "The Origin of Texttypes of New Testament Manuscripts," Early Christian Origins, ed. A. Wikgren, p. 138). It was during the early stages of Christianity that many heresies attempted and succeeded in some cases, to infect the Church. This infection or invasion by those heretics made it necessary that there be a written statement, such as the Creeds, and that the Bible be composed into one book. There as a filtering out of those books that were being written, such as those Apocryphal books, and a determination as to which books were to be canonized. It was in these early days that the heretics would have the advantage to insert their doctrines and pass off their beliefs as legitimate Scripture. When the era of the third century came there came with it a nearly impossibility to change the text of the New Testament in a way that would cause the people to accept or that those insertions of change would go unnoticed by Christians at large.
Most Churches speak little of anything about the various texts and how the Bible came to be in existence and whether or not the Bible you have come to accept is really a preserved text of the original autographs. For instance, have you heard of the Critical text? The Byzantine text? The Textus Receptus? Which one of those texts is your Bible founded upon and which one is correct? Remember, this is important for it is the Bible that determines our doctrine and our doctrine determines our religion and our religion determines our character, how we act and apply God's truth in our lives. I believe that any honest person will want the truth. I will in the future blogs attempt to give to you information so that you can determine for yourself, which one of the versions is best, the one that you should read and adhere to, the one that God has preserved throughout the ages.
But you must continue in the
things which you have learned
and been assured of, knowing form
whom you have learned them.
2Timothy 3:14
Grace be with your spirit
Richard L. Crumb
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