Why the Bible is Trustworthy
(Pastor Eric J. Hanson)
(2 Timothy 3:16, II Peter 3:15-16, II Peter 1:20-21)
The Old Testament
-Not under attack in this current wave of attacks; but constantly attacked across the last 160 years. Particularly Genesis and Daniel are hated and attacked.
-Jesus and the New Testament writers cited the O. T. as authoritative scripture many times.
-The godly Jews under Ezra carefully compiled and preserved the 39 Old Testament books. There were good tests for authenticity, which I will not go into here.
-They (the “Tana-im”) also carefully chronicled the writings which occurred after the prophet Malachi. They preserved Jewish history reverently, but fell prey, over time, to increasing legalism through the adding of nearly 50,000 extra-scriptural regulations over a two hundred year period, as found in the “Mishna”.
The New Testament
-By the year 175, 20 of the NT books were fully accepted as scripture due to consensus and widespread use and circulation dating back to the Apostle John’s lifetime. This, very importantly, includes the four Gospels, and no other gospels.
-The major test of canonicity was this: Was this book written by one of the true apostles or by someone closely associated with them (such as Mark)? If not, it doesn’t pass muster.
-Another second test was this: Does this book have the ability to edify people and change lives when studied privately or read publicly?
-A third test was this: Is this book regarded as authoritative throughout the Church from city to city?
-The seven books which came to be universally accepted by the 300s as also belonging in the New Testament are these: James, II Peter, II and III John, Jude, Hebrews, and Revelation. Athanasius of Alexandria, writing in 367, listed all 27 N.T. books as being scripture. The Church council at Chalcedon in 451 re-affirmed that these 27 books and letters were the NT scripture, and had been considered to be the only NT scriptures for a long time by then.
Translations in English
-In the 1380s, John Wycliffe translated the Latin Vulgate Bible into English. The Pope was so infuriated by this, that 44 years after Wycliffe’s death, the Pope of that time ordered his bones dug up, crushed into little pieces, and scattered in a nearby river.
-John Hus continued to distribute hand copied editions of Wycliffe’s Bible. He was burned at the stake in 1415 by the Roman Catholic authorities for the crime of placing God’s word into the hands of the people. His last words were these: “In 100 years, God will raise up a man whose calls for reform cannot be suppressed.”
-In 1496 John Colet, a professor at Oxford, translated the New Testament from the Greek, not from the Latin Vulgate, into English. The hunger to hear it was so great that within six months, 20,000 people would pack St. Paul’s Cathedral on Sundays to hear it read. There would typically be another 20,000 outside listening, unable to squeeze into the great building. Because Colet, son of the mayor of London, had powerful friends in high places, he managed to avoid being burned to death.
-In 1517, Martin Luther nailed his famous 95 theses of contention to the door of the church in Wittenberg Germany. His calls for reform could not be repressed. The German royalty and armies rallied to him and protected him from the armies of the Pope. John Hus’ dying prophecy had come true! By the way, in 1517, seven sets of parents in England were burned to death for the “crime” of teaching the Lord’s Prayer to their children in English, rather than Latin.
-In 1525, William Tyndale went to Germany from England, to see Martin Luther for the purpose of translating the whole NT into English and then printing it using Guttenberg’s printing press. The next year this became reality. Thousand of copies were smuggled into England. In 1536, agents of King Henry the VIII, found Tyndale. He was imprisoned for 500 days, then strangled to death and his body was burned. His last words before strangulation were “Oh Lord, open the King of England’s eyes!”
--Just three years later, King Henry authorized and funded the printing of the English “Great Bible”. God used this wicked man’s pride to bring this about. It seems that King Henry VIII was hard to please, and he liked to divorce one wife and marry another in her place. He wrote to the Pope to get an annulment and the Pope refused. The wrath of the prideful Henry was kindled and he declared Roman Catholicism to be illegal in England, declaring himself to be the head of the new Church of England. Then in 1539, he ordered the printing of a “Great Bible” in the English language. This 14 inch sized Bible was then chained to the pulpit of every church in England. The King also provided a reader for every church, so that even the illiterate could hear the Bible in English. Now Henry could thumb his nose at the Pope twice, (once on divorce, once on the English Bible) with the English navy to back him up in case the Pope wanted to rumble.
In an “amazing coincidence”, Myles Coverdale and John Rogers, followers of Tyndale, had just translated the Old Testament into English in 1535. They used Luther’s German text and the Latin as source materials. Thus, King Henry had easy access to the Old Testament in English.
After Henry died, came the reign of the Roman Catholic Queen “Bloody Mary”’. In 1555 she had both Rogers and Coverdale burned at the stake. She murdered many others too, and reinstated Romanism in England. Refugees fled to Geneva Switzerland and collaborated on another English Bible. This “Geneva Bible” became the first study Bible due to its exhaustive textual notes. It also became the first Bible to add verse numbers to the chapter divisions. Between 1560 and 1644 it was the definitive English Bible. It was the Bible of the Reformation for English speaking people.
When the Pilgrims and Puritans came to the New World, it was the Geneva Bible they brought here with them. When the King James Bible was published from 1611 onward, these groups would not use it. They considered the KJV to be a worldly tainted Bible, due to its connection to the Anglican Church, which was basically similar to the Roman Catholic Church, only with the King of England as its head, rather than the Pope.
When James the first became King in 1604, the clergy approached him to ask for a new version of the English Bible. The King appointed about fifty scholars to create a new “Authorized” version. In 1605-06 the scholars worked in private research. In 1607-09 the work was assembled. In 1610 it was prepared for publication, and in 1611, the new Bible, the “1611 King James Bible” came out as a pulpit Bible for the Church of England. It was huge, more than 16 inches in height. It was chained to the pulpit of every Anglican Church. Printing then began of smaller sizes that people could buy. Eventually the KJV became the only book on Earth with a billion copies in print, though the huge majority of these are the 1769 Baskerville revision to the KJV and not the 1611 version which is now basically unreadable because English has changed so much.
In England, the Church published the English Revised Version in the 1880s. Like the KJV before it; it is basically a good translation. The response to it here in the USA was the American Standard Version of 1901; a fine accurate Bible, though still using some Elizabethan words and phrases that were no longer used in normal English by then. (I treasure my ASV Bible. It was a gift from my wife in 1975.) The Revised Standard Version of the 1940s used much smoother wording, but there have always been a few nagging questions from fundamentalists about its choice of certain words.
Today’s Favorites
In 1971, the extremely precise word for word translation from Hebrew and Greek known as the New American Standard Version Bible was published. This is the Bible that I use for basic sermon research. It is amazingly accurate in the view of most Biblical language scholars. Its flow is a little stilted in places due to its emphasis on precise accuracy. It used the oldest and finest original language manuscripts in existence.
In 1973 the New International Version Bible was published, using phrase by phrase translation. This Bible is more smooth and readable, and it is my personal favorite for devotional use. It is the best selling modern English Bible.
In 1982, the New King James Version was published. Not much work went into it really, and many King James only people do not accept it, but it has sold pretty well. The differences in it from the 1769 KJV, mostly are the replacement of really obsolete words with understandable ones, and the changing of Elizabethan words such as “thee, thy, thine, and thou”.
The 2002 English Standard Version is growing in popularity. It attempts to bridge the gap between the precision of the NAS and the readability of the NIV.
Of course there is also the popular 1971 paraphrase called the Living Bible, which has sold in the millions, but is pretty loose in its accuracy in places. Now a translation based upon its style has come out which is called the New Living Translation Bible. (2001) This one is mildly popular.
There are other translations as well which are simply not as significant. There are also Roman Catholic English Bibles, which has improved in recent times over the terrible efforts of the Roman Catholic Dowey/Rheims Version of 1609. This was based on the Latin Vulgate, rather than original Bible languages, and it was a pretty shoddy translation.
Some new translations are greatly influenced by modernism and political correctness. The TNIV (Today’s New International Version) removes all gender specificity. This is shoddy. The New Revised Standard Version is even worse.
Every age needs God’s word in its own language, but scholarship must be accurate and reverent toward God. The mores of the age must not tamper with the end result either, or the product will be seriously or even fatally flawed.
God has preserved His word. The accusations of the DaVinci Code and others, that the bible has been copied and recopied to such an extent that nobody really knows what the original said, are spurious accusations. They are either based on a complete lack of genuine scholarship, an anti-Bible agenda, or a combination of both.
