Inerrancy of the Bible

Posted on: June 17, 2019 at 02:21:47 CT

For the Hokies, I'm only picking on the Bible as I have spent next to no time with the Koran as it is widely accept as a plagiarism. Others have accused me of only talking about the Old Testament, a Jewish story, not the Christian text. Well here it is. Let's look at the New Testament.

The common myth is that ancient scribes were extremely accurate in copying texts word for word letter by letter. Anthropologists have studied this and have shown it is nothing more than a myth. Most ancient books we have contain compounded errors from mistakes made in reproduction.

I'd like to point out a more prominent example of errors by scribes. It is in a copy known as Miniscule 109. In the geanology of Jesus found at Luke 3 the scribe attempts to reproduce a two column list. Instead of copying vertically, the scribe wrote the geanology down horizontally. The result is the creator is someone named Phares and God is the son of Aram.

Miniscule 80, another copy, suffers from the same problem. It is a copy of a three column list of Jesus' genealogy.

Another issue showing errors is found at Mark 1:1-2

"1 The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah,[a] the Son of God,[b] 2 as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:

“I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way”[c]—
3 “a voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’”[d]

Notice here the text says Isaiah. The problem is this isn't found in Isaiah. It is found in Malachi 3. Newer manuscripts tried to correct this by leaving out Isaiah from Mark 1:2 and just crediting it to "the prophets".

Another example is Matthew 24:36 which presents issues with trinitarians.

"36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,[a] but only the Father."

Some manuscripts remove "nor the Son" because it causes issues with supporting a triune God. If Jesus (the son) was divine, he is not omniscient like the father. That busts the trinitarian claim of the son being co-equal with the father. So some manuscripts removed "nor the Son" from the text to make the problem go away.


Further the explicit verse on the triune God of 1 John 5:7-8 are not found in Greek manuscripts of the Bible until the 16th century. (See Erasmus translating Greek bible into Latin)

"7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one."

John 8:1-11.. the story of a woman accused of adultry where Jesus famously says "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”. The problem with this is that text is found in no manuscripts until the 10th century. No commentators on the Bible even mention it until then.

This is just a tiny example of issues when trying to claim the inerrancy of the Bible and relying on false claims that scribes were beyond accurate. We have examples of errors made as well as deliberate modifications to try to remove obvious errors and add embellishments in scripture.

In all of this I am leaving out the differences in Gospel accounts of Jesus' crucifixion. Read those accounts side by side you will see inconsistencies.

I am also leaving out the Gospel accounts of those who visit Jesus' tomb. Again here the number of visitors are different as well as who greated the visitors. Read the accounts together. Most Christians are taught a composite story taken from all the Gospels and pay little attention to how different each individual Gospel account is when read side by side.

Edited by TigerMatt at 10:29:03 on 06/17/19