How We Got The Bible
#TransmissionOfTheText
Good morning MGCC!!!
I gotta to tell you there is no place that I would rather be than where I am right now!
In this room, with you His people (His church, the body and bride of Christ) – gathered to praise His name and – seek His face.
I MEAN – this is some seriously crazy stuff (though we tend to forget) that we are doing right now…
LIKE BEING - in the presence and listening to the voice,
OF - The One who spoke this world into existence, who holds the oceans in the palm of His hands and who breathed out billions and billions of stars.
LIKE - the star VY Canis Majoris…
(PICTURE OF THE STAR with our sun)
UNDERSTAND – this a star so huge (I mean look at this image)…THAT - 3 quadrillion 729 trillion earths would fit inside.
(a hard number to get our brain around)
1 quadrillion pennies would…
• weigh over 3 billion tons
• when stacked would be 986,426,768 miles high (or to our sun and back 5.3 times)
YES - Brothers and Sisters VY Canis Majoris is CRAZY BIG…
AND THAT - is just one star, that our God simply breathed it out of His mouth…
By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. – Psalm 33:6
YOU KNOW MGCC - I think at times it is very good thing to remind ourselves of the immeasurable greatness and majesty of the God who presence we are in, whose name we just worshipped and whose word we have gathered to hear….
Let’s stand as we read God’s Word…
As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. – Isaiah 55:10,11
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work. – 2 Timothy 3:16,17
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. – Hebrews 4:12
Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit… - 2 Peter 1:20,21
PRAYER…
OKAY – we are in our 4th week of a very important series of conversations about understanding the Bible.
Understanding Words that this ocean holding, universe creating, Star breathing God…
ALSO breathed out to us and for us…
NOW – it is important for me to remind you on the 2 goals for this series…
Goal #1 – To take a look at the overwhelming evidence that demonstrates (contrary to the onslaughts of modern culture) that The Bible is not just another book or mere ink on paper, but that it really is from God, the Maker of heaven and earth.
Goal #2 – Motivate, encourage, challenge and inspire people to read the Bible like never before… because it really is from God and because in this series they will be given tools to equip them to understand and apply the Bible better.
OKAY – here is a fact… it is not a good fact or an encouraging fact… BUT NEVERTHELESS – it is a true fact…
FACT - many believers do not read God’s Word (The Bible) on any type of a regular basis.
Why is that?
1. It is hard to understand
2. They don’t really believe that it is from God.
I MEAN – if you were handed an envelope with a letter in it and you knew that it was from God (I don’t know how you know but you just know)…
AND – in this letter God tells you about Him, about life, about salvation, about how to live life to it’s fullest and about how to have a guaranteed forever in an unimaginable perfect place, as opposed to a forever without Him in a terrible place.
Would you open it up?
Would you read what it says…
Goal #2 – Motivate, encourage, challenge and inspire people to read the Bible like never before… because it really is from God and because in this series they will be given tools to equip them to understand and apply the Bible better.
NOW…
• In week one we talked about how the bible is unique, accurate, supernatural and transformational.
• In week two we talked about the bible’s overriding theme purpose and storyline… ‘the coming of Christ.’
• In week three we talked about the canon of the bible and about how we can be totally confident that our bibles contain the books that God intended. No books are missing and there are not any books in there that should not be in there.
AND AGAIN…
• If you missed or want to review any of the first 3 messages they are online (I will also sent you my notes)
• Also there is an information sheet where I list some pretty awesome resources
NOW TODAY – as we continue to work on Goal #1…
Looking at the overwhelming evidence that demonstrates (contrary to the onslaughts of modern culture) that The Bible is not just another book or mere ink on paper, but that it really is from God, the Maker of heaven and earth.
We are going to talk about the transmission of the text…
LIKE – how do we know what we have is what Matthew, John, Paul… etc, actually wrote.
AND UNDERSTAND - the skeptics are out there in force (in our Universities, in books, the internet, cable)… attacking the text of the bible that we are basing our lives on and putting our hope in.
For example…
Dan Brown in his fictional work ‘The Da Vinci Code’ (which he claims is based on facts) writes…
“The bible has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book.” – Dan Brown
QUESTION – how does that statement make you feel?
AND – maybe you have seen this claims on some youtube video or cable show about how the bible has been corrupted.
BUT UNDERSTAND – when people make that claim, what they don’t tell you is what they mean by ‘corrupted.’
YOU SEE BASICALLY - any variation or alteration of the text even a spelling error = being corrupt.
NOW – one of the most well know critics of the Bible today (like he is the ultimate Bible Critic Guru, is a guy named Bart Erhman…
I mean this guy has made the rounds on TV shows and is almost always quoted by those who want to attack the reliability of the bible. Erhman writes in his book ‘Misquoting Jesus, Who Changed The Bible And Why”
There are more differences in our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament. – Bart Erhman
How does that statement make you feel?
AND - what if I told you that it’s a true statement?
BUT LISTEN – it’s not the whole truth,
UNDERSTAND - there is so much more to it than those 15 words.
YOU SEE – sometimes a partial truth can lead to people believing a whole lie.
FOR EXAMPLE…
“When I was the Pastor of a church in Georgia I took several men and some male students to the infamous ‘Gold Club’ a gentlemen’s club in downtown Atlanta.”
SO – what do you think of that statement?
And what if I told you that it was true?
It is… But it is not the whole truth.
YOU SEE – the whole truth is that the Gold Club was closed down and a church plant (Christian Church Buckhead) rented it out. And we went down to help with some of the renovating work.
UNDERSTAND – that is exactly what the biblical skeptics do…
THEY - only tell you part of the truth…
AND - they tell it in such a skilled and deceptive way that it leads many people into believing a lie.
AND LISTEN – do you know what these skeptics are counting on… THEY - are counting on our ignorance. On our what?
BECAUSE – when the skeptics know more about this stuff then we do… WE - are extremely vulnerable and for the most part are nothing more than sitting ducks to their attacks… and when they have some meant to impress letters after their name and say things like…
There are more differences in our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament. – Bart Erhman
BROTHERS AND SISTERS – that is why we are doing this study.
SO THAT – we can give an intelligent response to the skeptic as Peter said in 1 Peter 3:15…
AND – to be completely honest, I was not nearly prepared as I should have been for this stuff.
That is why I have spent hours and hours and hours reading, studying, listening, watching and learning.
OKAY – let’s do this…
NOW SINCE – most of their attacks about the transmission of the text are against the New Testament…
THAT - is what we will focus on this morning…
I MEAN – it makes sense, right?
TO DEFEND - what is under attack.
(BESIDES – the Old Testament was pretty much confirmed by the Jewish people in the 4th century and by Jesus and the apostles, by the Dead Sea Scrolls… and by fulfilled prophecy and pre-scientific as we saw in week one)
NOW – I think that there is a very good reason for the focus of the modern-day critic to primarily be against N.T….
Because they hate Jesus and His Gospel.
SURE – that are okay with us… keeping our nice stories and some of our moral lessons…
BUT – it is still not reliable, it is not from God, it has been corrupted and it therefore cannot carry any ultimate authority in our lives… or imposed authority on others.
OKAY… let’s do this the transmission of the text…
Step One – God Breathed and the Apostles wrote the N.T. Documents.
Everybody still with me?
Now they wrote in
• The mid to late first century
• written in a relative short period of time
• different locations, different audiences
• now, the originals (like directly from the hand of Paul) are called autographs
• the autographs do not exist… we do not have them
• Why? they written on papyrus (did last long, they were probably handled a lot… and I also think if they had survived they would have become objects of worship)
Step Two – The N.T. Documents are copied
AND UNDERSTAND - they were copied a lot…
AND - they were copied in a lot of different places…
Egypt, Europe, Asia, Syria, Israel… etc
AND LISTEN – these early Christians in the first century and second century were very bookish…
IN FACT - they popularized what is known as the CODEX…
This is writing not on a scroll –
but instead writing on both sides of the paper and then binding it together in a book. (cheaper, get more in)
NOW – we need to understand that there was no central ‘human’ authority controlling this copies…
AND AS - these manuscripts are copied you would get what is called a variant.
OKAY – so what is a variant…?
WELL - Supposed you have a text that said…
Pastor Steve is wearing a sling and another that text that said
Steve is wearing a sling
SO - do you see what the variant is?
QUESTION – if you gather up all the NT manuscripts that we have, and compare the different texts…
HOW – many variants do you think that we have?
1,000? 10,000? 100,000?
Actually there are somewhere around 400,000 variants between the different manuscripts.
AND LISTEN – that number can really freak people out.
Anybody a little freaked out?
AFTER ALL – there are only 138,607 words in the entire Greek New Testament.
Like critic Bart Erhman says,
There are more differences in our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament. – Bart Erhman
SO – does that mean that every word of the Bible is in question?
UNDERSTAND – that is what the skeptics want you to think.
BUT AGAIN – they are not being honest, they are only telling you part of the story… (like my ‘Gold Club’ example thing)
AND LISTEN – the truth is if these same skeptics treated all of the historical record like they treat the bible in regards to the transmission of the text as we will see in moment…
They would have to throw out all of history.
Which they have not done or will ever do.
OKAY
SO HERE - is how I want to unpack this conversation…
• First by talking about… the quantity of variants, like why are there so many
• And then we will talk about the quality of variants, like what types of variants are there
The Quantity Of Variants
AGAIN - why are there so many variants in among all of our manuscripts…
(Now a manuscript is simply a hand written copy)
AND LISTEN – the main reason is for there being so many variants… is because we have so many copies of manuscripts.
Greek Manuscripts – 5,856
Some are large and some are smaller
The older ones tend to be smaller (makes sense)
The average size is 450 pages long
In total we have about 2.6 million pages of text.
Latin Manuscripts (2nd century) – 10,000
Other manuscripts – 5,000-10,000
(Coptic, Syriac, Gothic, Aramaic, Arabic, Hebrew..)
SO – all together we have 20,000-25,000 hand written manuscripts that we can look at and compare.
AND THAT - is a very good thing.
UNDERSTAND - we want as many manuscripts as possible.
THINK - of it this way,
WHAT IF - I put up a text on the screen and there was only one person in the room who made a copy of it.
AND THEN - we get rid of the original image and someone who was not in the room looks at the copy.
QUESTION - how do we know they got it right?
We don’t… we only have one copy,
YEAH - there are no variants (can’t be – there is just one copy).
BUT YET - we have no confidence that you got it right.
BUT let’s says that 10 of people copied it.
THEN - we could gather those 10 copies and compare them.
• Oh this copy missed a line, but the other 9 have that line – so we trust that that line was originally there
• Hey this copy instead of the word town has the word tow… but the other 9 had the word town.
NOW – let’s say that we have 10,000 copies...
SO – do you see how our confidence on what is in the original gets greater and greater… by having more copies to compare.
BUT – so does the number of variants because you have more people copying… and more opportunities for differences.
Are you tracking with me?
BOTTOM LINE – a large number of variants is the result of having a large number of manuscripts…
Which is a very good thing.
AND – we should be very happy about that.
NOW – I want to compare this large number of manuscripts that we have to what some other Classic Greek writers have…
OKAY – check this out…
The average classical Greek writer has about 15 manuscript copies…
AND - if you stacked them up it would be about 4 feet high…
Do you know how high all the Greek Manuscripts of the NT would be if you stacked them up…?
4 ½ empire state buildings or 1 ¼ miles…
SO – we have a lot, a lot more manuscripts… by a mile. Or technically 6,596 feet!
AND – not only that but the time gap between when the original was written and the date of the first copy…
With the NT is so much smaller
Number of copies is so much greater
And the time gap is so much smaller when compared to other classic Greek and other ancient literature.
Check out this chart of the screen
UNDERSTAND - The average Greek classic waits 500 years to get it’s first fragment…
With the NT we have we have fragments within decades and we have a full copy within 225 years
Homers Iliad waits 1900 years before it has the first full copy.
The oldest Manuscript we have is a fragment called P52…
It is from the Gospel of John…
It was discovered around 1934… size of a credit card, here’s a picture…
And up until that time the critical scholars said that the Gospel of John was written some time in the late second century and therefore was just a forgery – John never wrote it..
And then P52 shows up and as Dan Wallace says ‘shreds 5 tons of critical German scholarship in an instant.
Now on one side P52 has John 18:31-33 and the flip side it has John 18:37,38… (CODEX)
And it has been dated to be in the early 100’s or the 90’s.
I MEAN – the ink must has still been wet from John’s pen when this was copied.
Here is another awesome chart.
(The Reliability of the NT compared to other ancient texts)
But let’s say we did not have any of that yellow circle.
That we do not have any NT manuscripts.
Do you know what…?
We still would not loose the bible because of all of the quotations of the early church fathers (1st, 2nd, 3rd centuries).
We have 1 million quotes
NOW there are only around 8000 verses in the NT.
So verses are being quoted again and again.
Only a few are not quoted
AGAIN – the reason we have so many variants is because we have so many manuscripts.
And that is a very good thing.
AND the NT time gap blows away the competition by centuries.
AND LISTEN
HERE – is the deal….
IF SKEPTICS – and believe me when I tell you, they are everywhere.
IF THEY – were intellectually honest and
IF THEY – treated the Classical Greek and other Historical writings the way the treat the New Testament
THEY – would through it all out…
BUT – they don’t. Do they?
I MEAN – do no wait for them to show up on Discovery Channel, The History Channel, or to see them knocking down doors at Universities telling everyone that the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Homer… etc must be thrown out!
Because they not reliable and untrustworthy and have been corrupted.
No that is never going to happen…
BUT DO – expect them to keep going after the New Testament
Even though one of it’s chief critics admits…
“The New Testament is the earliest attested document in all of antiquity” - Bart Erhman
Because they have an agenda…
To undermine – Christ, the Gospel, the bible, the church and the truth… because they all of them.
OKAY… now let’s talk about the quality of the variants.
LIKE – what type of variants are there…
The Quality Of Variants
NOW – let me say upfront that of the 400,000 variants
Over 99% do not matter at all
And none of them impact any of the core doctrines of the Christian faith…
Now that is good news right?
Check out this chart on Types of NT Manuscript Variations
OKAY… here is some of types of variants in that 99%.
Moveable Nu
The Greek letter nu (n) can occur at the end of certain words of they precede a word that starts with a vowel…
Kind of like our word ‘an.’
An apple - A apple
Does not effect the meaning…
Word order
Now word order matters in English…
FOR EXAMPLE…
“Hey dad, will you drive me over to the church”
“Hey dad, will you drive over me to the church”
UNDERSTAND – word order does not really matter all that much because the Greek of NT is a highly inflected language…
The syntax or meaning of sentence is tied more to how the word is spelled then the order of the words. FOR EXAMPLE – there are many different ways to say ‘God loves Paul…”
God loves Paul
Paul loves God
Loves God Paul
Loves Paul God
God Paul loves
Paul God loves
(Dan Wallace in a lecture he gave at Purdue University said he came up with over 1000 different ways to John loves Mary)
UNDERSTAND – as long as ‘God’ is the nominative case and ‘Paul’ is in the accusative case, all of those sentences mean ‘God loves Paul.’
Spelling
There are lots of spelling errors
And that is understandable because there was no standardize spelling
For example the name for John can either have 2 n’s or 1 n…
That would be a variant
Some the article ‘the’ appears before a name… The John or the Mary, that would be a variant.
Bottom line - spelling, word order, use of the article ‘the’ and movable Nu…
Make up about 94% of all variants
(not meaningful and not viable)
Then you have some variants that are
Meaningful but not Viable (5%)
In other words it is not a spelling error, word order… so it is meaningful but not viable…
Example - 1 Thessalonians 2:7
We were ‘gentle’ among you
We were ‘horses’ among you
AND – that MGCC pretty much this covers 99% of the 400,000 variants…
Which leaves us with 4000 meaningful and viable variants
NOW – if skeptics knows that 396,000 variants can be immediately thrown out
WHY – do they keep throwing out that 400,000 number
ANSWER – to continue to push an agenda.
SO – we have 4000 meaningful and viable variants
AND LISTEN THAT – is why having a lot of manuscripts is a very good thing.
SO THAT – we can ask questions like…
• What do most manuscripts say?
• What do the oldest manuscripts say?
Sometimes it is a slip of a pen
Sometimes they miss a line
BUT LISTEN – none of these 4000 meaningful and viable variants touch one doctrine of the Christian faith.
AGAIN – so why do skeptics present it as though we have no idea what to believe?
Because they have an agenda against Christ and the Bible.
OKAY…
SO – let’s look at what are representative of the kind of variants we are talking about…
NOW – in the charts I will be showing the left represents later manuscripts and the right side early manuscripts.
NKJV NASB
Then He commanded His disciples that they should tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ.
– Matthew 16:20
Then He warned the disciples that they should tell no one that He was the Christ.
– Matthew 16:20
Textual scholars call this an expansion of piety… making names or titles longer…
Does it effect the meaning the text?
Absolutely not.
KJV NASB
Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God… - Mark 1:14
Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God… - Mark 1:14
NOW - In the same old MSS in Matthew we see the phrase ‘the Gospel of the Kingdom’ used 3 times…
Scholars call this ‘harmonization’ of the text.
Scribes were like, “Hey, other passage in the manuscript have these additional words let’s harmonize them.’
NKJV NASB
Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. – Matthew 21:12
And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves.
– Matthew 21:12
Does not change anything…
NKJV NASB
Then they crucified Him, and divided His garments, casting lots, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet: “They divided My garments among them, And for My clothing they cast lots.”
- Matthew 27:35
And when they had crucified Him, they divided up His garments among themselves by casting lots.
– Matthew 27:35
A harmonization of the text… because in that same Manuscript in John 19:24 it says, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be,” that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says “They divided My garments among them, And for My clothing they cast lots.”
NKJV NASB
‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth,
And honor Me with their lips,
But their heart is far from Me.
- Matthew 15:8
These people honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me.
- Matthew 15:8
Occasionally a scribe when a NT passage is quoting and OT passage they feel obligated to finish the quote, that is what is happening here…
They are finishing the quote from Isaiah 29:13
Again meaning and viable – but does not effect our faith.
NKJV NIV
For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had.
- John 5:4
It seems as though this verse about the angel - was commentary that was off to the side (in the margins) that eventually got added into some later MSS.
OKAY – so that is an overview of the kind of variants that make up that 1%... of meaningful and viable variants.
Question – do they change our faith?
AND – now I want to briefly mention the big three…
Because these are the 3 that biblical critics run to and then want us to think that are representative of the entire bible…
The Big Three
1. 1 John 5:7
2. Mark 16:9-20
3. John 7:53-8:11
NKJV NASB
For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. – 1 John 5:7
For there are three that testify.
– 1 John 5:7
• Earliest manuscripts don’t have it
• A later scribe was probably wanting to reinforce the doctrine of the trinity.
• 10 Manuscripts have before the 10th century
• this addition more than likely did not come from John’s pen
Mark 16:9-20
9 Now when He rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons. 10 She went and told those who had been with Him, as they mourned and wept. 11 And when they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe. 2 After that, He appeared in another form to two of them as they walked and went into the country. 13 And they went and told it to the rest, but they did not believe them either.14 Later He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table; and He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen. 15 And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; 18 they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” 19 So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. 20 And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen.
• The longest single variant (most are letters, words, phrases)
• It is in some early Manuscripts
• Not in some of what are considered the best early manuscripts
• Not in found in some early translations
• Probably added because some scribes felt Mark ended too abruptly.
• Where did it come from? It was probably taken from Matthew/Acts/Luke
• What do we lose if we lose Mark 16:9-20 – NOTHING (except maybe snake handling)
John 7:53-8:11
And everyone went to his own house but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.2 Now early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him; and He sat down and taught them. 3 Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, 4 they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. 5 Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?” 6 This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear.7 So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” 8 And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9 Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. 10 When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you? 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.
• Very likely not originally in John
• Now this is where this stuff impacts your heart
• In the 10th century it was found written on the sides of some manuscripts.
• Did not get into the actual text until the 14th century
• Sometimes it appears in other places within John’s Gospel and it even appears sometimes in Luke.
• Where did it come from? Not sure
• Now some scholars believe that even though it was not originally in John… that it is a true story that had been passed down through the centuries.
AND UNDERSTAND MGCC – this it… these are the most difficult variants to deal with and there are no others..
SO – you have passed the test. You are ready. Well done young ‘padawans.’
AND UNDERSTAND – these variants actually affirm the NT.
YOU SEE – we could not say what does not belong, if we did not know what does belong.
IF – we did not know what was legit, we would not know what does not belong.
Okay here is the list of doctrines impacted by these variants?
List of Doctrines Impacted By These Variants
NONE!
(and listen even if we made all the wrong choices in regards to these variants nothing would be impacted… which I believe is just an example of God preserving the text…
different people copying
thousands of manuscripts
different regions
over time – centuries
YET – we still know what was originally there.
CRAZY
And check this out during the last 150 years we have found ~130 new super old manuscripts and do you know how many new reading were found… ZERO
These manuscripts have just confirmed the readings we got right.
Understand and this important…
The bible has been copied so much and so early that we cannot hide the original text.
And we have a little extra that we know was not in there.
Would you rather have a 10,000 piece puzzle with 10,100 pieces or 9,900 pieces?
Suppose you have a fleet of 250 16 wheeler tractor trailers.
And you take them in to have all of the 4000 tires inspected.
And they come back and say we have checked all of the tires and there are 3 that are flat…
Would you freak and say
Oh no, all of my tires are flat…
NOW – many of these meaning and viable variants will appear in a lot of translations – in the footnotes, with a footnote or in italics…etc
Why are they there…? Just in case.
BROTHERS and SISTERS…
• God breathed it
• The Apostles wrote it down
• Men copied it
• They copied it a lot
• They copied it early
• And we can be confident in the Bible we have in our hands.
It really is from God
Maybe we should read it more.
