Has Human Error Corrupted the Bible?
By Erin Baumgaertal
The original documents of the Bible were inspired by God. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness." and 2 Peter 1:20 says that Scripture was written when "men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." So the Bible's words were co-authored by God and the men He spoke through. Since God cannot err, if the Bible really is His word, the Bible cannot err. But, the Bible has been copied throughout centuries by human beings, who can err. So, does the Bible we have today have the words God originally inspired? Or has human error corrupted God's message?
This is an important question. As Christians, we believe the Bible is God’s authoritative word, but how can we know that the words we have are truly from God? Consider the game of telephone. Have you ever played the game of telephone? It's when a message is spread through a long line of people. The first person whispers something in the ear of the next person, who whispers something in the ear of the person next to them, and so on. By the time the message gets to the last person, it is totally messed up! The farther the message gets from its originator, the more errant it becomes. Is this what happened to the Bible? Did its message get changed as people copied and spread it over time?
This question can be considered in many ways. Since the Bible is a historical document, a practical way to answer the question is to examine it as we would any other historical document. As we do, let's compare it to other ancient texts that are considered reliable. The New Testament (NT) teaches that the Old Testament (OT) is trustworthy, so for simplicity’s sake, we will see if we have accurate copies of the NT and can look into the OT reliability another time. For now, join me on a deep-dive into ancient writings by asking four questions.
1) How Many NT Manuscripts Do We Have?
To understand how reliable the New Testament is, it’s important to look at how many manuscripts we have. A manuscript is what remains of a document that is hundreds or even thousands of years old. Scholars study and compare them to figure out what the original document said. No original manuscripts of the New Testament (NT) exist today because they were made from materials that easily disintegrated. Instead, the original manuscripts were copied, and then copies of those copies were made and spread further. So, how many copies do we actually have?
There are 60 complete NT manuscripts, and thousands of partial copies that provide valuable information. In total, over 5,800 Greek manuscripts of the NT have been discovered. In addition to these Greek manuscripts, there are over 19,000 copies of the NT in other languages such as Latin, Coptic, and Syriac.
Now, you might wonder, "How does this compare to other ancient books?" Well, the number of other ancient Greek writings that are considered reliable, range from as few as about 8 (like Suetonius's The Twelve Caesars) to over 1,800 (such as Homer's Iliad). To put this into perspective, imagine stacking the average number of copies of a well-known ancient author, like Aristotle or Plato. The pile would be only about 4 feet high. But if you stacked all the New Testament manuscripts, the pile would reach over a mile high! As shown in the chart below, the New Testament truly stands out with its remarkable number of copies.
Why does this matter? The large number of manuscripts allows scholars to compare all these copies to spot mistakes or changes that may have occurred over time. Now we know there are a lot of copies of the NT, but are they too far removed from the originals to be able to reconstruct the true message?
2) What is the Time Gap of the NT Manuscripts?
A time gap refers to the difference between when the work was written and when the earliest surviving copy was made. The earlier the copy, the smaller the time gap. The original NT books were written between 50-100 AD. Some of the most important manuscripts were written just 40 years after the original texts, which is really early in terms of historical documents. And many more were written within one to two hundred years of the originals. When you consider that it has been nearly two thousand years since the NT was written, it's amazing we have such early copies. Let's compare the number of NT manuscripts to some of other widely accepted ancient texts. Those with the smallest time gaps include Iliad by Homer, which has a time gap of about 100 to 350 years. Thucydides’s History's time gap is about 200 years from its original. Herodotus’s History has a gap of roughly 450 years. Annals by Tacitus has a time gap of 800-1,000 years, and Caesar's Gallic Wars has a time gap of 900 years.
What we see is that no other ancient work has as small of a time gap as the earliest NT manuscripts, even those whose validity is never questioned. But even with all these early NT manuscripts, we can find errors. So, how can we trust our Bible today?
3) What About The Errors, Though?
The fact that we can identify errors in the NT manuscripts is actually good news! The more copies we have, the easier it is to spot errors, which allows us to know what was originally written. Imagine receiving ten emails that gave the same message, but each email contained an err. Can you figure out the original message?
You have won the l&ttery
Y$u have won the lottery
You Have w!n the lottery
Y0u all have won the Lottery
You have wan the lottery
You have won the lotto
You won the lottery
You have won th lottery
You HAVE won the loltery
Did you win something? If you can't tell, neither will I…
Now imagine receiving thousands of emails containing the same message, even though each message may have an error. You could be even more sure about the original meaning than you are about the email telling you that you won the lottery!
4) But, Do the Errors Affect the Bible's meaning?
The majority of "errors" are simply textual variants, which are small differences between manuscripts. Most of these variants don't affect the meaning of the text and are easily resolved. The most common variants are related to spelling and word order. The most frequent spelling variant is the Greek article that in English would be the difference between saying "a apple" or "an apple." And word order can vary greatly because, for instance, there are over 1,000 ways to say "John loves Mary" without changing the message.
So even though variants exist, scholars have been able to clearly identify the large majority of the original meaning. No variant changes any core Christian doctrine–like salvation, the nature of Christ, or the importance of the resurrection. When scholars are unsure about a passage, they sometimes have to guess what the original text said. However, since so many manuscripts have been discovered, the number of passages that scholars guess about have dropped from about 18 passages in 1927, to just 2 in 2012 (Acts 16:12 and 2 Peter 3:10). There are also a few major passages, like Mark 16:9-20 and John 8:1-11, that some scholars debate whether they belong in the original text. Even so, these disputed passages don’t affect any key doctrines or practices of the Christian faith.
Conclusion: We Can Trust the Bible
In academia you will hear that the biblical manuscripts are unreliable. Yet, the NT has more and earlier manuscripts than any other historical document accepted by the academic community. The number of NT manuscripts allows us to identify variants to discover the meaning of what was originally written. Despite there being 27 books and at least 9 different authors, the overall message remains intact, with its central teachings about faith and practice unchanged. Thus we can conclude that the New Testament has been preserved with incredible accuracy. If we accept any other ancient writing as reliable, then we have more than enough reason to accept the New Testament as an authentic book from antiquity.
Additional Resources:
The Comprehensive Guide to Apologetics by Joseph M. Holden
From God to Us by Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix
Is the Bible Accurate? GotQuestions Article