Faith
By George Miller, 8-2-23- Updated 8-19-23 with Dr. Turner’s response
It started when I posted a meme (above) on Facebook, extoling God’s word for its permanency and consistency, while warning against changing it to fit current fashion and politics. Pretty soon I received this response:
Wrong!… Since the original Bible was compiled of gathered writings 1700 hundred years ago by the Catholic hierarchy, there have been 30,000 changes in the Bible along with 1,000 contradictions in order to control the masses.
I had heard before that this line of attack is bogus and saw some rebuttals, but I’m no biblical scholar. So I asked several friends, most of whom are pastors or bible scholars, to comment. Dr. Ted Baehr asked one of his top people, Dr. Tom Snyder, to take this on. Here’s what he sent me today:
Dr. Tom Snyder’s Response
George,
Dr. Baehr asked me to gather some of my extensive research on how we got our Bible and to refer Gregory to scholarly historical books on the subject.
In the first place, long before Jesus was even born, the Jews had discovered and compiled the Old Testament texts in to scrolls. Also, they had long-established, exacting rules on how to copy the text accurately. So, Jesus and His apostles already considered the Old Testament texts to be the Word of God.
Secondly, by about 90 AD, Christians recognized most of the 27 texts known as the New Testament to be worthy to include with the Hebrew Scriptures. So, when the Council of Carthage, which represented the Christianity as a whole (the church wasn’t divided into Catholic and Eastern Orthodox until 1054), officially recognized the 27 texts as part of the Bible in 397 AD, the Christian leaders there were just confirming what had already been established. There was no separate Roman Catholic “hierarchy” at the time, not until 1054, and probably not even then because the Protestant Reformation didn’t occur until 1500. In addition, the Muratorian Canon was compiled in 170 AD. Also, some scholars rightly say that you probably can compile almost the entire New Testament by looking at all the writings of the Early Church Fathers.
Thirdly, there are more than a few books by reputable Christian scholars answering in detail the alleged discrepancies and “contradictions” in the Bible. For example, there is John W. Haley’s Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible (Springdale, PA: Whitaker House), Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties by Gleason Archer (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), The Big Book of Bible Difficulties by Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2008), Difficulties in the Bible: Alleged Errors and Contradictions (Updated and Expanded Edition) by R.A. Torrey and Edward Andrews (Bible-Translation.Net Books, 2011), and Dealing with Bible Problems by James M. Boice (Fort Washington, PA: CLC Publications, 2011).
Finally, we have so many thousands of early manuscripts and early manuscript fragments of the biblical text, not to mention the writings of the Early Church Fathers, that we are certain of 99% or more of the text. Of the less than 1% of the passages that are in question, none of them affects a major Christian doctrine, according to Christian scholars like Norman Geisler (see above) and John Oakes, who says the alleged “changes,” the vast majority of which are minor copying errors in the New Testament, can be reduced to about 200, none of which affect a major doctrine in the documents considered as a whole.
To sum up, we can have confidence in the text of both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament documents.
The fact is, the New Testament documents do agree with one another. They do not contradict each other. All of them teach the following: Jesus underwent a public execution. His death was certified by the Roman authorities. He was placed in a private tomb, the location of which was known. Jesus then appeared to his female disciples and to the male apostles. He commanded them to lead all people into repentance, belief and forgiveness of sins in the name of the Triune God (Matthew 28:18-20). The internal consistency of these documents in these matters is beyond reproach.
When all is said and done, the evidence for the historical resurrection of Jesus Christ is in fact better than the evidence for the actions of Julius Caesar or any other historical figure in the ancient world. “We are confronted with a hard core of historical fact,” writes F. F. Bruce: “(a) the tomb was really empty; (b) the Lord appeared to various individuals and groups of disciples both in Judea and Galilee; (c) the Jewish authorities could not disprove the disciples’ claim that He had risen from the dead” (F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? [Madison, Wisconsin: InterVarsity Press, 1987], page 65). Adds Bruce Metzger: “The evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is overwhelming. Nothing in history is more certain than that the disciples believed that, after being crucified, dead, and buried, Christ rose again from the tomb on the third day, and that at intervals thereafter he met and conversed with them” (Bruce M. Metzger, The New Testament: Its Background, Growth, and Content, 2nd edition (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1983), page 126).
Dr. Tom Snyder, Vice President
Christian Film & Television Commission® dba Movieguide®
We can also consult books like The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel and the 2012 edition of From God to Us by Norman Geisler and William E. Nix.
—
Comment from my former Pastor Lance Ralston of Calvary Chapel Oxnard, CA:
George,
I largely agree with the reply by Snyder. He does a decent job of summarizing the material.
I might differ with him on some minor details but not worth getting into.
The issue is that the original comment is so utterly absurd, it hardly deserves attention. Anyone who would make such a claim proves they know NOTHING about the Bible or its history. They are repeating stupid objections that have already been utterly demolished many years ago. Someone who clings to such silly ideas might as well believe the world is flat.
From Alan Bond, financial executive and Bible teacher:
Well I would say that this individual needs to do his homework. The 27 books that comprise the New Testament were settled long before the council of Hippo in AD 393. As a matter of fact the council itself viewed their proclamation as more of an official decree that the 27 books already thought of as scripture were indeed the only books that should be considered scripture. The first proclamations of what was scripture is mentioned in the Bible. Paul considered Luke’s writings as scripture see 1timothy 5:18, Peter considered Paul’s writings scripture see 2peter 3:15-16. Colossians 4:16 and 1 Thessalonians 5:27 tells us how the letters were already being distributed to the churches as scripture. The early church fathers in the first through third centuries quoted so much from scripture in their writings that we can recreate over 95%of the new testament from the quotes in their writings. Clement of Rome ad95 quoted from 8 books, polycarp a disciple of John ad108 quoted from 15 books, ignatius of Antioch ad115 quoted from 7 books, irraneus ad185 quoted from 21 books and Hippolytus ad 200 from 22 books. The manuscript evidence that shows we have the Bible as originally written is overwhelming. There are over 5300 original language manuscripts that agree to 99% certainty of the original writings. Small copying errors did occur but were of little to no consequence and they never changed the themes or meaning. Most of the errors would equate to writing the word too instead of to, or theatre instead of theater. There were some spelling errors which are obvious and again don’t change the message. There are a few places such as in mark 1:1 where some manuscripts say “as it is written in Isaiah the prophet “ and others say “as it is written in the prophets”. If someone wanted to call that a change or a contradiction they could I suppose but it’s a weak argument and it certainly doesn’t take away from the text in either case. There are no contradictions in the Bible and I would be happy to demolish those arguments as put forth if anyone desires to do so. 2 Corinthians 10:4-5.
From Dr. Rich Turner, college dean and Bible teacher:
First, Dr. Snyder made some important points. I will not take the time to restate or even summarize them only to add my hearty “amen” to his response and then humbly yet with great boldness say; The historicity of the Old and New Testaments are unparalleled in writings from ancient antiquity. Nothing has the volume and consistency of voice as the Old and New Testaments. To deny this obvious conclusion is to prove you have never looked into it.
Now to my thought about this issue and I will go a totally different direction.
In his second to last paragraph Dr. Snyder wrote: “The fact is, the New Testament documents do agree with one another. They do not contradict each other. All of them teach the following: Jesus underwent a public execution. His death was certified by the Roman authorities. He was placed in a private tomb, the location of which was known.” It is here, as Dr. Snyder starts to address events, facts, pieces of the life of Jesus, that I want to spend a few minutes. As we think or consider the life of Jesus Christ, his lineage (through his earthly mom or his earthly dad) (keep in mind, He was the son of God, He was the second person of the God-head), but a woman birthed him into this world in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, son of Joseph and a human man raised him as his own son. As you think about the details of his life, his earthly lineage (he was the seed of Abraham, a descendant of Isaac, a descendant of Jacob, a descendant of Judah, a descendant of David (line of the kings). Equally there are other facts about his life worth mentioning, he was born in Bethlehem, he was presented with gifts, he lived for a time in Egypt, he was proceeded by a herald, he taught using parables, he was whipped and beaten, he was betrayed by a friend, he was betrayed for thirty pieces of silver, he was pierced (at Calvary), he was given vinegar to drink, they cast lots for his clothes, yet in spite of dying the horrific death of crucifixion, none of the bones of his body were broken.
Alone these are simply interesting facts from the life of Jesus, that I quickly rifled through. But each of these facts, as well as many others were predicted, were prophesied in advance, in the Old Testament. This should give us pause, to consider that this many prophecies from the Old Testament (and we are just getting started) could be fulfilled in Jesus the Messiah, should cause us to ask: what is the statistical probability of one man fulfilling these prophecies? That is where I want to spend a few minutes.
When I teach on prophecies about the coming Messiah, I always ask the question: How many prophecies from the Old Testament did Jesus fulfill in his first coming? The answers I get range from 20 to 1,000. Scholars disagree, but the actual number ranges from a high of 191, to a low of more than 75. On one occasion, when I was teaching on this topic, I asked the question as I always do, and after a number of different answers, one young man raised his hand and astutely said “all of them.” This is the second point, not only did Jesus fulfill a large number of predictive prophecies from the Old Testament (>75 for sure), but he fulfilled all of them. This should cause a sense of wonder. How can this be, how is this even possible? I will hold answering that question, to get back to mathematical probabilities question. What is the mathematical probability of one man fulfilling these predictive prophecies? That is the question.
Dr. Peter Stoner conducted a great deal of work on this question. If this interest you, you can access his book free of charge online at: On-line book: Science Speaks by Peter Stoner (Peter W. Stoner) (dstoner.net) Dr. Stoner picked eight random prophecies and ran the numbers, the statistical probability of one man fulfilling eight random prophecies. Here is what he determined. The statistical probability of one man fulfilling eight random prophecies is 1 in 1017. Now that is a number that is hard to get your head around. It is very small, I can picture 1 in 100. But understanding 1 in 1017, that is a little more difficult. Dr. Stoner goes on to explain it this way: “Suppose that we take 1017 silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their day to the present time, providing they wrote using their own wisdom.”
Stoner goes on to build the case by adding eight additional random prophecies, thus the number is now 16. He then calculates the probability of one man fulfilling 16 random prophecies as 1 in 1045. Stoner then works to help us visualize that number and writes. “Take this number of silver dollars. If you make these into a solid ball, you will have a great sphere with a center at the earth, and extending in all directions more than 30 times as far as from the earth to the sun. If you can imagine then marking of one silver dollar, and then thoroughly stirring it into this great ball, and blindfolding a man and telling him to pick out one dollar, and expect it to be the marked one, you have somewhat of a picture of how absolutely the fulfillment of sixteen prophecies referring to Jesus Christ proves both that He is the Son of God and that our Bible is inspired. Certainly God directed the writing of His Word.”
I will stop here for the point is self-evident! While we are arguing about a particular word (translation-to-translation), or a supposed contradiction, we can miss the grander point. The only way that Jesus could fill all the prophecies about the coming Messiah, and any number in the vicinity of what we are talking about (even just sixteen), exceeds words we have to describe it. Words like amazing, astounding incredible fall short. We get close ,when we say it is breath-taking or mind-blowing! It is indeed mind-blowing and demands the realization and the recognition that the Bible, although written by humans, was authored by a God who exists outside time and knows all things and can speak about things to come with the certainty as if they had already happened.
The Bible screams that it is of divine origin and that Jesus is the promised Messiah! So what is my response, not only is your Facebook friend factually wrong on his malicious claim, he has missed the grander point and in so doing has likely missed eternal life.
If you doubt Dr. Stoners’ calculations, I direct you to the foreword of his book:
“The manuscript for Science Speaks has been carefully reviewed by a committee of the American Scientific Affiliation members and by the Executive Council of the same group and has been found, in general, to be dependable and accurate in regard to the scientific material presented. The mathematical analysis included is based upon principles of probability which are thoroughly sound and Professor Stoner has applied these principles in a proper and convincing way.”
American Scientific Affiliation
H. HAROLD HARTZLER, Ph.D.
Secretary-Treasurer
Goshen College, Ind.
Dr. Rich Turner
George Miller is Publisher and Co-Founder of Citizens Journal Florida, based in Fernandina Beach. He is a “retired” operations management consultant, software and publishing executive and manufacturing management professional.
