Inerrancy & Textual Transmission

Inerrancy

Inerrancy means that the scripture is without error, whether with regard to matters of faith or history. The doctrine holds that:

1. The original copies of scripture were inspired by God to the extent that they were recorded without error with regard to all matters on which they speak.

2. The copies of scripture we have today, both of the Old and New Testaments, contain no significant transmission (copying) errors.

Over the centuries, especially during the modern era, many scholars have attacked this doctrine. So far none of the critics have stood the test of time. Some people focus on apparent contradictions in scripture, but these are merely different accounts. Others have tried to discredit the history in scripture, but up till now archaeology has never shown the biblical record to be wrong.

Textual Transmission

Textual transmission has to do with how the copies of the original Bible came down to us today many years later. No other documents in the world have been so faithfully handed down through the generations in such good original order and with such strong proof of authenticity.

Starting with the Old Testament, the Hebrew nation had a class of scholars that worked on textual copying. They worked out a systematic way of copying scripture before the old copies deteriorated. They used mathematical checks to ensure that the transmission of the text from one copy to the next was without errors.

They also had the Old Testament translated into Greek before the time of Jesus. This Greek translation is called the Septuagint, which means 70, because there were 70 qualified translators involved. Jesus often used the Septuagint when He preached. So, we not only have Hebrew copies, but also ancient Greek copies, by which we can check the authenticity of our current Bibles.

This means allegations that early Christians tampered with the Old Testament texts to insert prophecies after Jesus came are impossible. The Old Testament was already in wide circulation in different languages before Jesus came.

The oldest surviving Old Testament text until 1947 dated back to about 1,000AD. This text was copied about 1,000 years after Christ, but all texts older than that had disappeared. In the 20th Century a boy herding goats in the desert near the Dead Sea discovered many sealed clay pots in different caves containing ancient texts. These were put there by the Essenes who dwelt in the region before Christ. The texts had been preserved for more than 2,000 years due to the dry conditions.

These texts, known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, contain almost every book in the Old Testament. They therefore serve as an invaluable opportunity to verify the authenticity of the Old Testament we use in our time. Inspections of the Dead Sea Scrolls, by experts, have shown that there are no significant differences between those ancient texts of the Old Testament and the one we use today.

Today we have copies of the Septuagint. We have copies of the Old Testament going back to 1,000AD. We have the Dead Sea Scrolls with copies of most of the Old Testament books dated at 100BC. We have quotations from the Old Testament in many other sources, including old New Testament manuscripts. There are no significant differences between so many copies from so many different sources.