Recap of Part 1:
Scholars have put us modern Christians into a bind. They tell us the "original autographs" are the only real Bible we can trust - anything else is only a copy that is intrinsically unreliable because it is subject to errors in transmission and textual changes.
Since all of the "original autographs" are lost, there is no longer any ‘scripture’ on the Earth; nothing original exists any more that we can really trust as ‘scripture’.
Wher! e do we go from here?:
In Matthew 4:4 Jesus said, "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
Since we are without the originals, this puts the scholars in a unique and powerful position - Only by there great learning and assistance are we able to come "close" to "knowing with a reasonable certainty" what the words of God "might" have actually been by means of “reasoned analysis" and the scholarly "principles of manuscript analysis".
Although Jesus said we need every word of God to live, we can only hope that the scholars will give us “most” of the words we need to live. The scholars have become our new priests - we must trust them and their great learning and wisdom to deliver to us the very "word" of God - as best as they know how.
We have also seen how it is not true to say th! at we have either "read the Bible" or can "trust the Bible", since the Bible is the scriptures, and we have been told that these only exist in "original autographs".
What is the solution to this mess?
If anyone wishes to read the Bible and trust it, then there is only one alternative:
A person must believe that God is able to preserve his words through the coping and translation process in a divine manner, such that the resulting copy or translation is a 100% true representation of God's originally spoken words. In other words, you have to believe in miracles more than scholars.
Let's consider:
#1 Cou! ld this type of miracle take place?
#2 Did God promise to undertake such a miracle?
#3 Or did God intend for us to be left without the scriptures on this earth, such that we would have to go to the scholars to get his words?
Let us not wonder about these three important questions, let us see what the Bible says:
#1 Could this type of miracle take place?
The Holy Spirit can do a lot of things, but can he translate? Yes, of course. In ! Acts chapter 2 a bunch of Galilaeans were filled with the Holy Ghost and spoke in all the languages assembled "we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God." (Acts 2:11).
In another passage of Acts the apostle Paul preached to the crowd in Jerusalem in the Hebrew tongue (Acts 22:1-22). Luke wrote the book in Greek, yet we must assume that Luke's translation of Paul's sermon was itself an inspiration to Luke at the time he wrote it in Greek to send to Theophilus.
Nehemiah was certainly inspired when he recounted in Hebrew what King Artaxerxes had undoubtedly said to him in language of Shushan where the Jews were in exile. It was translated, and it was scripture.
The same is true for when the Holy Ghost, through inspired New Testament writers, re-told Hebrew Bible verses in Greek.
Mark 1:2 "As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send! my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee." - this is a quote written by Mark in Greek from the Hebrew original in Malachi 3:1, "Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me:"
Note that these words in each verse don't exactly agree with each other. Can both be scripture? Yes, it turns out the Holy Ghost is able to do just that. Since he wrote it in Malachi, it is not a problem for him to "re inspire" Mark to give the same verse with some small variation in the text. ONLY God is allowed to do that - but he does it here and elsewhere.
Another example, "And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel." - Matthew's quote (6:2) he makes in Greek of Micah 5:2, writt! en in Hebrew to say, "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting."
Small differences, yet which is true? Which is scripture? Which is inspired? They both are. The Holy Ghost was at work when Matthew translated, and his verse is as much "scripture" as the Old Testament one!
The same is true in Jeremiah 36:32 where Jeremiah’s words were re-copied by Baruch his scribe after the king burned up the “original autograph” delivered to him – and so Jeremiah uttered a new set of words to Baruch who wrote another copy of them, and it says “and there were added besides unto them many like words.” God can do that!
How strange when God left the Hebrew language behind and moved to Greek. It was completely unprecedented and must have been a stumbling block for the early Jewish believers – why would the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob use the language of pagan philosophers?! How profane! Yet that was, however, exactly what God was doing at that time. He was putting new holy words from his mouth, the New Testament, into the common language of the Gentile world.
God created all the languages in the world at the tower of Babylon in Genesis 11 - and a variety of languages shall continue to exist for all eternity (see Revelation 5:9. 7:9).
If you can accept Genesis 1:1, then it is a small thing to accept as a miricle that the Holy Ghost is able to translate the Bible into English.
#2 Did God promise to undertake such a miracle?
According to the scholars, when the "original autographs" disappeared long ago, so did the "scriptures."
What does the Bible say about the “scriptures”? Jesus identified what we mean when we say "the scriptures" - he said that "the scriptures cannot be broken" (John 10:35).
Therefore, whereever the Bible says "the scriptures" it is talking about the infallible and inspired words of God that cannot be broken. But does the Bible ever apply this term to anything other than "original autographs" ??
Jesus rhetorically asked the Pharisees, "Did ye never read in the scriptures," (Matthew 21:42 and Mark 12:10). And in Luke 24:45 it says of Jesu! s that, "Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,"
In these verses Jesus was not talking about "original autographs" - he was talking about the copies of the Hebrew Old Testament that the Jews had available to them: And Jesus called these copies "the scriptures" that "cannot be broken".
In Acts chapter 8, did the Ethiopian eunuch have an "original autograph" or a copy? It says, "The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth:. . . Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus."
! It is highly unlikely the eunuch had Isaiah's original scroll. It was a copy. According to the Bible, this man's copy is called "scripture."
The same applies to 2 Timothy 3:15 - "that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures," Did Timothy have the actual “original autographs” of the Old Testament? Of course not. He had copies. Yet see what Paul wrote in the very next verse:
"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:" 2 Timothy 3:16
That means that Timothy's copies were "given by inspiration" of God!! There was no need for Timothy to go find the "original autograph" because his copies, according to Paul, were themselves inspired. This is an amazing statement!
2 Peter 3:16 tells us that the copies of Paul's epistles sent to the various churches were also "scripture" - many inspired copies of an original.
Acts 17:11 is another example where the men "searched the scriptures daily" - meaning copies, not "original autographs".
God has promised to preserve his word, "The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever." (Psalm 12:6-7)
#3 Did God intend for us to be left without the scriptures on earth so that we would have to go to the scholars to get God's words?
The term "original autograph" is not found anywhere in the Bible. In fact, the process of “inspiration” has to do with the spoken word, not mere writings:
“For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” 2 Peter 1:21.
David said, “The Spirit of the LORD spake by me, and his word was in my tongue.” 2 Samuel 23:2.
The only ! time God wrote scripture Moses threw it down and broke the stones they were written on (even in this example God spoke them first, Ex. 31:18). Yet God re-wrote "original autograph” on a second set of stones. When Moses re-wrote the 10 commandments while writing Exodus, that was yet another “original autograph” – and he wrote another “original autograph” with changes, in Deuteronomy chapter 5. These “original autographs” keep getting copied into copies that are also “scripture”!
Yet all of these originals are now lost.
Yet God’s promise does not fail: he promised that “it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed:” (Deut 31:21) and “As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.” (Isaiah 59:21)
This promise has to do with the spoken words not the prophet's written words on stone and paper that have lately been termed “original autographs”!
That is why it is wrong to assume that Psalm 119:89, “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven,” means that the Bible has disappeared on earth when the original autographs were lost, but still exists only in heaven. That would be a breach of God’s promise in Isaiah 59 above.
God’s word may be settled in heaven, but it goes forth (Isaiah 55:11)! into the “furnace of earth” where it is “purified seven times” (Psalm 12:7) and there God shall “keep” and “preserve” them forever (Psalm 12:7).
[From time of the seventh purification, and then from that generation until all of eternity – forever – God’s words will remain with his people.]
But what about all the different translations?
See Part 3.