Sunday School | The Transmission of Scripture

Introduction and Announcements

A quick first announcement for the morning, because we generally do a terrible job of announcing this. There will be no class the Sunday after Thanksgiving. So that Thanksgiving weekend, not the weekend before, but the weekend after it—like three days after Thanksgiving—it's church, both services, but no Sunday school. So if you come to the second service, don't come early. Gina Bean, welcome.

All right, so we're going to continue our look at the doctrine of Bibliology. What is it? I'm saying it wrong. Bibliology, is that right? That's not like the end of the bibliology. Study the scriptures, right? So we've done theology proper, Christology, pneumatology, anthropology, and now we're doing bibliology—the doctrine of the scriptures.

And what we have said so far, basically—well, in fact, everything that we have said so far—is true of the original documents, okay? When we say, it is my claim that what Paul wrote in Romans was inerrant and authoritative and necessary, and when you add it up with all the rest of the things that were written, they are sufficient, right? The same is true of what Moses actually wrote in Genesis, the same of what the Psalms that David wrote or the Gospel of John. But today, I want to ask and answer a different question. Namely, is what you have in your book right here—this, all of those things, right?—is this an accurate reflection of, a copy of, a capture of what was originally written? Has it—there are really two questions you've got to get to. One, has it been both preserved through the centuries and has it been accurately translated across languages? We're going to start with the preservation question. And really, what we call this is transmission, okay? When we talk about the transmission of the scriptures, what Paul wrote in Romans was one thing. What you're looking at in your lap, maybe, is a different thing. So, has it been transmitted to you well?

The Preservation of Scripture

How many of you guys have ever been to the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence? Did you see it? Did anything strike you when you saw it? Anything jump out at you? When I saw it, Eric—it's old. It's—it is old. Yes, it is, okay? It's super old. It's almost 250 years old. This is the 200—I mean, this is—you remember the bicentennial? Yeah. And now we're going to be—that 250 years anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is in like six months.

When I saw it, the thing that I was struck by was how unbelievably faint it is—that the—you’re like, oh my gosh, this thing is fading, okay? That same thing—the thing is under glass. It's protected under special lighting, like a three-inch—whatever. But it is fading. And someday, I guess it's going to be blank, right? That thing is fading.

You guys, in a—maybe a similar way, we do not have—I don't know if you know this—we do not have the original copy of Matthew. We don't have the actual letter that Paul wrote to the Galatians. We don't have Isaiah in Isaiah's handwriting. Do you know this? Not even close. We don't have any of the original documents. None of those things exist, right? Not at all, not even close. All those things have long since then been lost, turned to dust, like putting a piece of paper in your pocket and walking around with it for a while and seeing what happens to it, okay?

But that absence of the original documents—if that’s at all like alarming to you, like, oh my gosh, then how do we know? You guys, listen, across ancient documents, there is nothing, nothing remotely as well attested to as the Christian scriptures. The Hebrew scriptures of the Old Testament and the Greek scriptures of the New Testament—we have lots and lots and lots of copies of the original. We have an absolute embarrassment of riches on this.

I did a little research this weekend. Let me just read you a couple of things. If you wanted to look at the Iliad by Homer, that was written in 900 BC. And the earliest copy we have is from 400 BC. So, it was written—it's a 500-year gap. We don't have it. Five hundred years of nothing. And then we begin to collect copies. We've got about 600 copies of Homer's Iliad, and the earliest is 500 years old.

If we go to Aristotle's writings, his stuff was written around 350 BC. The earliest copies we have are from 1100 AD. So, it's a 1,400-year gap. And we have 49 copies of Aristotle's writings.

If you look at the works of Caesar, those are quite contemporary to Jesus—44 BC. The earliest copies we have of that are from 900 AD, so about a 1,000-year gap. And we have 10 copies.

If you look at the works of Plato, his stuff is from about 350 BC. The early copies are from 900 AD. So, about a 1,200-year gap, and we have seven copies.

All of those things—every one of those I just read—is thought to be reliable. There's multiple copies, and the closest we’ve got, and we accept as fact, that these 1,200-year gap copies of Plato and Aristotle reflect what they said. Nobody really questions that.

Here's the numbers on the New Testament. The New Testament was completed between 50 and 100 AD—probably done by around 90 AD. Revelation is probably done by 90 AD. Our earliest copies of the New Testament date to 130 AD, about 40 years after the originals, which is a blink in ancient documents. We have 5,600 copies of the New Testament that are less than 100 years from the original. It is objectively the best-attested thing in all of ancient writings. We have an overwhelmingly high confidence that what we have right now—well, actually, not what you have in your book—we’ve got to get to the translation issue still—but the manuscript evidence we have right now for the original is overwhelming.

Not only do we have lots and lots and lots of copies that are extremely early, but then, if you open up the timeline—I'm telling you, within 100 years, we have 5,600 copies. Most of these other ancient documents, you might have, how many copies over 1,000 years? It is deep into the thousands for the New Testament. There's over 23,000 copies of the New Testament within the first several hundred years. There is no contest. Anybody that studies ancient documents knows there is no question that what we have in our manuscript evidence is an accurate depiction of what was originally written.

When I say accurate, there's an asterisk—*—by accurate. That is, that there are, absolutely, variations in these manuscripts. You guys know the telephone game, right? There’s this notion that Paul wrote this, then somebody copied it down, then somebody copied it down, then somebody copied it down, then somebody copied it down. So sure, you've got a billion copies, but they’re all degrading with each click. Now you've got this mess. You don't know what they have. But the reality is, whether you're looking at the thousands or the tens of thousands of copies, when we compare them, it's true that there are differences, but they are absolutely inconsequential.

One manuscript will say, blah, blah, Jesus Christ, and another will say, blah, blah, Christ Jesus. And you're like, man, I don't know what to make of this—what they possibly meant. When they said this? Not only are they minor, not only are they insignificant, but every single one of them is noted. If you've ever noticed this in your Bible, you'll see it in footnotes. It’ll say, some manuscripts say, blah, blah, blah; other manuscripts say, dah, dah, dah. And usually, it'll be a particular phrase missing, right? So Paul begins, for instance, all his letters. If you just read Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 1, 2 Corinthians 1, Galatians 1—you see he loves to begin his letters: Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And I think when you get to, like, I forget which one, it'll say, grace and peace to you from God the Father. Full stop. Then you look at the footnote—and it might say: some manuscripts have “and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Okay? But what that means is one of two things happened. Either, when somebody was copying it, they missed a phrase and it really shouldn't be there. It wasn't there. It was in the original, but someone failed to copy it down. Or it wasn't there, and the guy was so used to writing Paul's letters that he just added, “and the Lord Jesus Christ,” right? So either things are added in some manuscripts or removed from others. It's generally the case that we're not sure how to resolve these variations. But they're all meaningless, inconsequential. No significance—except for two.

There are two passages in the New Testament. And this will also be noted in your Bible—they're two relatively big omissions or big chunks that we’re not sure if they really belong there. There are two passages that are like, you know what? Not all the manuscripts have this. There are disagreements. Anybody know either one of those two big chunks? Gina?

• We caught adultery.

Yes, the story of the woman caught in adultery, John 8. That story—when Jesus says, “Whoever's without sin, cast the first stone”—that story might not have been in John's original. If you look at John 8, you should see right where that story begins—probably some kind of an asterisk or a footnote. Flip to it and see if you don't see some indication in your Bible. Some manuscripts mark it as late or added.

For God so loved the world... — John 3:16

Some indication that the earliest, most reliable manuscripts don't have that passage. Do you find something like that, Chuck?

• Mine says later manuscripts add the story of the adulterous woman, numbering it as John 7.53 through 8.11.

There we go. So later manuscripts added it. Here's what that indicates: When we say early manuscripts and late manuscripts, we have copies of John from 150 AD, 250 AD, 312 AD, and our bias is to prefer the earliest, to say that the earlier it is, the more likely it is to be authentic. So maybe somebody added a story that wasn't there. But it's also possible that someone just missed a page and didn't do that, okay?

You guys know the other biggest chunk? Fetser?

• Mark, end of Mark.

Yes. If you ever read the end of Mark and it starts getting weird—like you'll get bitten by snakes and it won't kill you, and all that kind of stuff—and you're like, "That’s weird." A lot of people think that’s weird and it might not be original. But then again, it might, right? What's tricky about the Mark one is that if we remove the whole snake-handling part, that passage does not have unanimous manuscript support. If you get rid of that, it'll also get rid of Mark's version of the Great Commission. And we kind of like that. Matthew has a Great Commission, Luke's Great Commission is in Acts, John's approach is different because he's different about everything. But that paragraph—I don't know. Is that in there or not? I don't know the answer. But those two are far and away—the big ones, right? Big thing in John 8, big thing at the end of Mark.

If you look at your footnotes, you'll see a ton of these. There's a lot of little lines, and it's always Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus. It's always some small variation—some manuscripts have one phrase, others have another. And for me, when I see these variations, over thousands of copies within decades of the original writing, that does not diminish my confidence in this book. We have ridiculous reason to be confident that what we actually have is an accurate depiction—that what I think Paul wrote in Romans is what he wrote in Romans—that our evidence for this is overwhelming.

The Reliability and Variations of Manuscripts

Okay, but I’m curious—questions you have about that. Transmission, we'll get to translation in a minute, but first, transmission. Adam?

• What about—are there, on this topic, examples of things that were mentioned but are there common other things that aren't mentioned that there's a lot of controversy on that should have been included? Like, are there other things that I don't know the answer?

Yes, okay. So are you asking, Adam, like I'm telling you that all these variations—whenever there's a variation, whenever we have something less than unanimous agreement across these manuscripts—it’s noted?

• Yeah, and there's two—these two are there others? Or is there like a third or fourth thing that just like was completely erased and not mentioned here, that's also been discussed over the years, just been left out?

Okay, so not to my knowledge. There are other textual variants, those two—far and away—the biggest. If there was a third place, I'm trying to stretch into my brain—if there's a third place like textual variants, it's probably a line in 1 John that is almost certainly not original. So you can turn there. Go to 1 John 5, and look around your footnotes around verse 6.

Let me just read you 1 John 5:6. Does anybody here reading a King James Bible? Because this will actually be meaningful in how we do this.

This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, who did not come by water only, but by water and blood. It is the Spirit who testifies because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that testify—the Spirit, the water, and the blood—and the three are in agreement.

Okay, do you see all that? Does anybody have something different—either in a footnote or in your Bible—can you read it loud?

• It’s a six, of Spirit, seven, eight. Late manuscripts of the Vulgate say: “Testify in Heaven, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one, and there are three that testify on earth,” not found in the Greek manuscript before the 14th century.

Let me unpack that. The Vulgate is the Latin translation of the Bible. When the King James Bible was translated around 1611, they relied on the Latin Vulgate. That Latin Vulgate has this line in there that is conspicuous—very strong statement of the Trinity. I mean, it’s very strong—so strong that you're like, the New Testament does not speak with this kind of clarity, so it’s probably not true. Well, not only is it only in the Latin Vulgate, but for the first 1,400 years of the church, there's not a single copy of 1 John that has that phrase in Greek. So it was almost certainly added afterward, and it’s not legitimate. When the King James was translated, they were working with the best resources they had, but since then, as we've discovered more manuscripts and improved the science of translation, all modern translations say, yeah, that wasn’t in the original.

Adam, or I would go for the third. Then, of course, the real question is: is there anything that’s not noted there? I don’t know—how would I know? As far as what I know of the manuscript evidence, the biggest two chunks where there's genuine question are John 8 and the end of Mark. The only other one that has any theological significance is that line in 1 John 5, but it’s not even a dispute; it definitely does not belong there.

Good enough? Okay, other questions? Catherine?

• Which one in there is not the original? What, in the first John phrase there?

What you're looking at—you're looking at an ESV copy? Yeah, that’s ESV. The First John phrase is correct in that version; the problematic line, the one in the King James, just isn't in there. So, in a modern translation, they simply didn’t include the suspicious line.

Yep, exactly right. Questions about that? Herrick?

• I want to have a question about a statement.

Yeah.

• One that you pointed out to me one time that made a cool difference in my life. It’s when Jesus is being arrested, and it says, “I am he,” what he said.

Yep.

• All that, and the ground, and like, quietly, Paul.

Yep.

• You told me that it says “I am,” and everybody falls to the ground. That makes it—

Yes, yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay, so what Herrick is referring to—and I would put this more in the question of translation rather than transmission. But Herrick is pointing out that there are a number of times where John will say in his gospel, “I am,” which is grammatically a little awkward, so the translators will clean it up to say “I am he,” and they often add or supply the “he.” Where Jesus didn't actually say “I am he,” he just said “I am,” and the particular example Herrick’s pointing out is when Jesus is being arrested in the garden and he’s asking, “Who are you looking for?” And they say, “Jesus of Nazareth,” and he just says, “I am.” They all fall down. It’s in that moment that he’s revealing—he’s saying, basically, Yahweh—and they are overwhelmed by that.

And so the translation of that, to make it grammatically smooth, obscures that it was really a statement of power. So yeah, that’s a pretty cool thing. Patrick?

• How does this one her name be knew much about the extra books from Catholicism that David had been doing?

Okay, Patrick’s question is do I know about the extra books the Catholic Bible includes? A little bit, not a great deal. So there’s a number of different collections. This is about canonization, what do we recognize as part of Scripture? The Catholic books—so to speak—are called the Apocrypha. They are all Old Testament books, not New Testament, in the sense of timeline. And generally, the Christian church has regarded the Apocrypha as good books—just not divinely inspired like the rest of Scripture. They’re considered useful for learning history and culture, but not on equal footing as inspired Scripture.

In many Protestant traditions, the Apocrypha is seen as historical or literary works. In Catholic tradition, it has a higher status, included in some editions of the Bible.

Then you have other groupings: the Pseudepigrapha. Those are books claiming to be written by someone famous but generally considered forgeries. Like if I wrote a letter signed “Thomas Jefferson,” that would be pseudepigrapha. It’s a forgery. So, for example, the book of First Enoch, which is attributed to Enoch, the son of Jared, who’s in Genesis. It’s in the Pseudepigrapha, and nobody thinks Enoch actually wrote it. Jude, which is part of Scripture, quotes something word-for-word from First Enoch, but it's more likely Jude is quoting what he believed was an authentic tradition about Enoch, not necessarily the book itself.

There are also other books that are outright heretical—like the Gospel of Thomas—which contain heretical teachings.

So, Patrick, it varies—some of these extra or questionable books are interesting to read but not considered Scripture. Others are outright rejected.

Okay, questions on that? How about, Scotty?

• How do you think of Ethiopian?

Yes.

• Check between your partner.

Yeah, okay. So this is interesting. Scotty's asking about the Ethiopian writings. The Ethiopian church is unique in including some books like First Enoch in their canon. That's because some of the earliest copies of these scriptures found in Ethiopia date to the ancient days, and they have traditions that preserved it. They're the only ancient church that officially recognizes Enoch as canonical.

And that’s because of the manuscripts—some of the oldest manuscripts of these extra books are in Ethiopia. I don’t personally have enough expertise to evaluate the Ethiopian canon fully. It’s an interesting historical and textual question.

• Okay, because you know, the belief of where they took the ark.

Yeah.

• Oh, is that where the ark is? Is it in Ethiopia?

No, it’s one of the things with Sheba.

Yeah, the story of the Queen of Sheba and the Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia is a tradition, but there’s no definitive archaeological evidence. That’s more speculative, and I don’t know much beyond that.

• Yeah, fascinating. The world there? The other question?

That’s interesting. I don’t know much about that. Just that the Ethiopian church includes Enoch, and their oldest manuscripts are in Ge'ez, their ancient language.

The Transmission and Translation of Scripture

This, I don’t know much about that. Just happens to be, I know that the Enoch exists in the Ethiopian Bible. Okay, here’s where my clock is ticking, so I gotta keep moving.

So, everything we’ve been saying—by the way—is about the New Testament, right? Very close—thousands of copies within decades. It’s astonishing. That’s all New Testament.

The Old Testament story, actually, is quite different. We do not have anything near as close to the originals on the Old Testament. We have copies of Paul’s writings within the lifetime of the original recipients, but prior to about 1000 AD, the oldest copies of the Old Testament were from around 1000 AD.

But that changed dramatically in the 1940s. Do you guys know what happened in the 1940s?

Yes. It’s a crazy story. There was a young Bedouin shepherd named Muhammad ed Deeb, who lost a goat. While searching, he found caves near the Dead Sea and started chucking rocks into them. He heard pottery breaking, and they ended up going into the caves. What they found there changed everything.

They discovered hundreds of ancient scrolls—documents stored in earthen vessels, sealed and protected from the environment. These caves near Qumran contained around 900 manuscripts, dating to about 250 BC. They had every book of the Old Testament except Esther, plus many other texts.

The significance was huge: these were more than a thousand years older than our previous oldest copies. The key question was: how much degradation had occurred? Would the text have changed?

Guess what they found? They were identical to the later copies. The scrolls showed that the Old Testament we have today faithfully reproduces the original texts. This was an earth-shattering discovery—It confirmed that God's people had preserved the text accurately over centuries, and God Himself had preserved His word.

What you hold in your Bible—whether it’s the Old or New Testament—is a faithful, reliable, authoritative, and inerrant record of what was originally written. Nothing in all of ancient literature compares with the trustworthiness of this.

The Translation of Scripture

Now, we have the original manuscripts. But how do we get it into our language? How do we make it accessible? Do you guys know Muslims do not recognize translations of the Quran? If you want to read it, learn Arabic. But this is not true of Christianity. From the earliest days, the Bible has been the most translated work in human history.

Why? Because of the Great Commission. We believe it’s vital that everyone hear, understand, and believe the gospel in their heart language. So we effort tirelessly to translate into every language possible—learning new languages, creating alphabets if necessary, and translating Scripture so people can hear the greatest story ever told.

By the way, Harrison Dinspear, our youth pastor, is training for this. He is learning Greek, Hebrew, and other languages with the goal of living among an unreached people group, learning their language, translating the Bible, and ultimately giving them access to God’s word. It’s an incredible endeavor.

The thing is, the first copies of the New Testament were themselves translations. Matthew was written in Greek—because Greek was the language of the Roman Empire, the lingua franca. The early Christians wrote in Greek so that the message could reach the broadest audience.

This has been a consistent pattern: the scriptures, originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, are then translated into countless languages. We do this because we believe everyone should have access to God’s word in their own language.

The scholar William Tyndale is a hero of this story. He is credited with translating the Bible into English for the first time, standing on the shoulders of previous predecessors like John Wycliffe. Next week, we’ll talk more about translation—the art and science of taking biblical texts, which were often in Greek and Hebrew, and rendering them into understandable, accessible language for us.

This is a story of faithfulness and humility: God preserved His word through centuries of copying and translation, and we continue this work today. Most of all, it reminds us that God desires His word to be available to all people—so they can know and love Him in their heart language.

Closing

That’s where we’ll end today. Thanks for coming, and we’ll see you next week.