Article by: Kenneth J. Ester
Is the Bible the Inerrant Word of God?
Many Christians say the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. There are no mistakes in it. It is perfect. Many atheists like to point out minor contradictions and say, “See? Your bible is not inerrant so it proves your religion is fake.” As is too often the case, I have to play the bad guy and tell both sides they are wrong.
The truth is, the original manuscripts are the inerrant word of God. They are perfect and have no errors. No contradictions! However, we do not have any of the original manuscripts. All we have are copies of the original manuscripts and the people who copied them by hand in the first century and after? They were absolutely not inspired by the Holy Spirit.
The Bible we have today was created by comparing all of ancient manuscripts (copies) that we have found and trying to eliminate the mistakes by the copyists. There were far more than you think. Often they would take breaks from their writing and when they picked it up again, would miss a part of a sentence. Sometimes they would make the simplest mistakes of writing numbers backwards. Instead of 437, they may write 473. Other times they seem to take liberties and eliminate verses and worse, they added verses. What really made those tough are that quite often when a copyist copied a manuscript, he would be copying from another manuscript. So mistakes and liberties taken in the first copy, will be made in the new copy.
A common mistake by many Christians is to believe the myths that the King James Version is the only trustworthy version of the Bible. They see that other versions left some verses out and believe that is proof that the other versions were changed. The truth is that the other versions were cleaning up mistakes the KJV did not catch.
When the KJV was translated a little over 600 years ago, they used all of the manuscripts (copies) that we had at the time. They did an awesome job of it too. However, today we have many more copies we have found, and many of those copies are much older than the ones we had when the KJV was translated. When comparing them, they found that the oldest manuscripts we have today are missing some of the verses the newer ones have. There is no reason to believe the older ones are wrong and every reason to believe the newer one are wrong. The stance is that the closer you get to the original dates, the fewer chances copyists have had to make changes. The fewer mistakes that would carry over. So the older ones are given more authority as to being more accurate. Those who translated the KJV used these same rules, but they did not have the oldest manuscripts we have today, so they had to go with what they had.
The thing is, this was not the only problem they were dealing with. As time has gone on, we have learned more about Greek and Hebrew as well. Sometimes words of those languages could have multiple meanings just as some words in English do. Only with Hebrew and Greek, there were masculine and feminine usage of words and some words could mean something different just by the words used around it.
When studying the Bible, you need to be looking for these mistakes by copyists as well as comparing translations from the other languages.
The fact is, there are too many minor mistakes by copyists and translators to say the word is inerrant today. It is believed what we have on the shelves today, if you compare them as you study, is about 99.5% accurate to the originals.
Yes! The Bible is the true word of God!
I have had many supposed contradictions given to me by others. I have even found an atheist website that had an enormous list of them. I myself, have looked at over 100 so called contradictions and have yet to find even one that is legitimate.
After going through a hundred from the list on that one website, I grew irritated over literally wasting my time as I was. The level of trouble that 95% of those contradictions were ridiculous. Many I could answer without looking into them. Some I only needed to read the next couple verses or just read the context of the verse to know it was not a real contradiction. Only one had me stumped for more than a few minutes. That one took me about 15 minutes of investigation to find a logical answer and just to clarify it, I sent it to a friend and he replied with a similar answer. To this day, in studying God’s Word on a consistent basis for over two years now, I have not found even one true contradiction.
Just as importantly, the vast majority of what atheists like to call contradictions are what I would call meaningless problems. They try to point out that one writer says the robe that the soldiers placed on Jesus was scarlet and another said it was purple. The truth is the soldiers would not have placed a valuable robe on Him. They would have used an old faded and dirty robe. One writer’s opinion of it from his view was purple. The other writer seeing it from a different angle with different lighting may have thought it was closer to scarlet. Its not a contradiction, but only a different view of it. Atheists will say that one writer says there were two angels in His tomb and another says there was one. The truth is that one says there were two angels and the other never says how many there were, but only focuses on the one angel that spoke. The thing is, what does it matter?
Whether one writer says there were two angels and the other doesn’t, what does it matter? This answer could also simply be the copyist thought purple was close enough to scarlet and sounded more like a royal color. But what would it really matter anyway? Would it mean the story was not true? Would it mean that all of Christianity is a lie? All it would mean is there is one minor contradiction that was likely a mistake in translation, or a mistake by a copyist.
When all of the contradictions that are pointed out are absolutely meaningless information that will not change anything in the meaning of the story or anything with theology, it means that for being written back in the first century, this book is absolutely amazing!
The fact is, the Bible we read today, is truly the Word of God. The manuscripts we have were written closer to the events than any other religions manuscripts. The New Testament is so accurate with geology, geography and everything else, that even many atheist scholars will use the Bible as a reference when investigating other manuscripts legitimacy. They have had more scholars pour over the manuscripts and translations than any other and nobody has yet to prove them false. There have been some atheist scholars who became Christians for no other reason than how impervious the Word of God is to criticism compared to any other documents.
I have looked for contradictions and checked others contradictions and found nothing that I could not answer with good simple logic. I have taken many other religions and have found a fatal flaw proving them wrong in all but one other. That is Hinduism and only because they do not have any official manuscripts to lay down the rules. They keep changing them to adapt to the problems people find with their religion. That in itself is their fatal flaw. The truth would not need to adapt. Christianity is the only religion there is no fatal flaw.
I have studied every critical doctrine as well as many that are not critical, and not one has had a contradiction in it. Every doctrine allows the entire Bible to align perfectly. No contradictions!
The only flaw I have found with the Bible, is the fact that people try and interpret the scriptures instead of letting the Primary verses guide them to the truth. And that is exactly why we have thousands of denominations in Christianity today. We have enough information to study the Bible and find the truth beyond the minor copyist errors and the simple translation problems. Using Primary verses we can find God’s truth instead of man’s interpretation. Believe me, the one thing I am certain of, is the Bible is truly God’s Word!
The truth is, the original manuscripts are the inerrant word of God. They are perfect and have no errors. No contradictions! However, we do not have any of the original manuscripts. All we have are copies of the original manuscripts and the people who copied them by hand in the first century and after? They were absolutely not inspired by the Holy Spirit.
The Bible we have today was created by comparing all of ancient manuscripts (copies) that we have found and trying to eliminate the mistakes by the copyists. There were far more than you think. Often they would take breaks from their writing and when they picked it up again, would miss a part of a sentence. Sometimes they would make the simplest mistakes of writing numbers backwards. Instead of 437, they may write 473. Other times they seem to take liberties and eliminate verses and worse, they added verses. What really made those tough are that quite often when a copyist copied a manuscript, he would be copying from another manuscript. So mistakes and liberties taken in the first copy, will be made in the new copy.
A common mistake by many Christians is to believe the myths that the King James Version is the only trustworthy version of the Bible. They see that other versions left some verses out and believe that is proof that the other versions were changed. The truth is that the other versions were cleaning up mistakes the KJV did not catch.
When the KJV was translated a little over 600 years ago, they used all of the manuscripts (copies) that we had at the time. They did an awesome job of it too. However, today we have many more copies we have found, and many of those copies are much older than the ones we had when the KJV was translated. When comparing them, they found that the oldest manuscripts we have today are missing some of the verses the newer ones have. There is no reason to believe the older ones are wrong and every reason to believe the newer one are wrong. The stance is that the closer you get to the original dates, the fewer chances copyists have had to make changes. The fewer mistakes that would carry over. So the older ones are given more authority as to being more accurate. Those who translated the KJV used these same rules, but they did not have the oldest manuscripts we have today, so they had to go with what they had.
The thing is, this was not the only problem they were dealing with. As time has gone on, we have learned more about Greek and Hebrew as well. Sometimes words of those languages could have multiple meanings just as some words in English do. Only with Hebrew and Greek, there were masculine and feminine usage of words and some words could mean something different just by the words used around it.
When studying the Bible, you need to be looking for these mistakes by copyists as well as comparing translations from the other languages.
The fact is, there are too many minor mistakes by copyists and translators to say the word is inerrant today. It is believed what we have on the shelves today, if you compare them as you study, is about 99.5% accurate to the originals.
Yes! The Bible is the true word of God!
I have had many supposed contradictions given to me by others. I have even found an atheist website that had an enormous list of them. I myself, have looked at over 100 so called contradictions and have yet to find even one that is legitimate.
After going through a hundred from the list on that one website, I grew irritated over literally wasting my time as I was. The level of trouble that 95% of those contradictions were ridiculous. Many I could answer without looking into them. Some I only needed to read the next couple verses or just read the context of the verse to know it was not a real contradiction. Only one had me stumped for more than a few minutes. That one took me about 15 minutes of investigation to find a logical answer and just to clarify it, I sent it to a friend and he replied with a similar answer. To this day, in studying God’s Word on a consistent basis for over two years now, I have not found even one true contradiction.
Just as importantly, the vast majority of what atheists like to call contradictions are what I would call meaningless problems. They try to point out that one writer says the robe that the soldiers placed on Jesus was scarlet and another said it was purple. The truth is the soldiers would not have placed a valuable robe on Him. They would have used an old faded and dirty robe. One writer’s opinion of it from his view was purple. The other writer seeing it from a different angle with different lighting may have thought it was closer to scarlet. Its not a contradiction, but only a different view of it. Atheists will say that one writer says there were two angels in His tomb and another says there was one. The truth is that one says there were two angels and the other never says how many there were, but only focuses on the one angel that spoke. The thing is, what does it matter?
Whether one writer says there were two angels and the other doesn’t, what does it matter? This answer could also simply be the copyist thought purple was close enough to scarlet and sounded more like a royal color. But what would it really matter anyway? Would it mean the story was not true? Would it mean that all of Christianity is a lie? All it would mean is there is one minor contradiction that was likely a mistake in translation, or a mistake by a copyist.
When all of the contradictions that are pointed out are absolutely meaningless information that will not change anything in the meaning of the story or anything with theology, it means that for being written back in the first century, this book is absolutely amazing!
The fact is, the Bible we read today, is truly the Word of God. The manuscripts we have were written closer to the events than any other religions manuscripts. The New Testament is so accurate with geology, geography and everything else, that even many atheist scholars will use the Bible as a reference when investigating other manuscripts legitimacy. They have had more scholars pour over the manuscripts and translations than any other and nobody has yet to prove them false. There have been some atheist scholars who became Christians for no other reason than how impervious the Word of God is to criticism compared to any other documents.
I have looked for contradictions and checked others contradictions and found nothing that I could not answer with good simple logic. I have taken many other religions and have found a fatal flaw proving them wrong in all but one other. That is Hinduism and only because they do not have any official manuscripts to lay down the rules. They keep changing them to adapt to the problems people find with their religion. That in itself is their fatal flaw. The truth would not need to adapt. Christianity is the only religion there is no fatal flaw.
I have studied every critical doctrine as well as many that are not critical, and not one has had a contradiction in it. Every doctrine allows the entire Bible to align perfectly. No contradictions!
The only flaw I have found with the Bible, is the fact that people try and interpret the scriptures instead of letting the Primary verses guide them to the truth. And that is exactly why we have thousands of denominations in Christianity today. We have enough information to study the Bible and find the truth beyond the minor copyist errors and the simple translation problems. Using Primary verses we can find God’s truth instead of man’s interpretation. Believe me, the one thing I am certain of, is the Bible is truly God’s Word!
