Many lodge complaints against the Bible due to the existence of manuscript variations and problems that occur in translating the Scriptures from one language to another. These are legitimate concerns, to be sure. As noted previously, all languages have idiomatic expressions that do not smoothly make the transition. For example, “spill the beans” might be translated, “Tell us what you know,” which is accurate but not literal. In this instance conveying the thought is justified since a literal translation would leave the reader scratching his head about the charge to be clumsy with one’s food.
The problem with the NIV and most paraphrases, however, is that they are not literal when they should and could be. For example, Deuteronomy 6:7 is a famous passage—one which Jews still have their children memorize. In it the Israelites are commanded to teach diligently the words God spoke to them that day to their children. Teach diligently was used by the KJV, the NKJ, the ASV, the NAS, the RSV, and the newer ESV. Rather than remain with the literal, the NIV translators decided to change the idea slightly; their translation advises parents to take God’s words and, “Impress them on” their children. To impress something upon someone is certainly a related thought but not nearly as forceful as teach diligently. No idiom was involved in this change.
So we find variations in translation and in the ancient texts of the Bible that we have. God has (in His providence) preserved many entire manuscripts, as well as fragments, so that we have plenty of material to study and verify that we actually do have the truth. So, let us notice some areas that variations in the text and the problems of translating from one language to another have not altered.
1. The promise of Genesis 3:15 that the seed of woman who would defeat Satan has remained intact, and the reader sees Jesus fulfilling it about 4,000 years later by being raised from the dead.
2. The three promises that God made to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-7 have not been thrown out of any major translation. Israel became a great nation and received the land that God promised her. Jesus proved to be the seed of Abraham, through whom all the nations of the earth are blessed (Gen. 22:18). He was “born of a woman, born under the law” (Gal. 4:4).
3. Although one translation tried to minimize the importance of the prophecy by changing virgin to young woman, it is rendered correctly in all other major translations. Jesus fulfilled this prophecy, also (Matt. 1:21-23). He is the only One who was ever born of a virgin.
4. Despite various modernist “scholars” suggesting erroneously that Isaiah had two or three different authors, the prophecy of Jesus’ life and death still remains a marvelous prophetic passage (Isa. 52:13-53:12).
5. No variations in texts or translations have cast any doubt on the fact that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2).
6. Neither can there be any doubt that Jesus’ resurrection was foretold (Ps. 16:8-11; Acts 2:25-31).
7. No controversy surrounds the prophecy of the new covenant foretold in Jeremiah 31:31-34, which the book of Hebrews confidently states has been established (Heb. 8:6-12).
8. Although some did not understand that the nature of the kingdom to come was spiritual (instead of physical), it was so revealed in the Old Testament and confirmed in the New Testament. Isaiah 2:1-4 and Daniel 2:44-45 talk about a kingdom coming forth from the mountain of the Lord, which would never be destroyed. The fact that it would last forever suggests that it is spiritual rather than physical. It has never been left “to other people” because this kingdom has only ever had one King to reign over it—Jesus the Christ. This is the kingdom first announced by John the Baptizer (Matt. 3:2) and then later by Jesus and His disciples (Matt. 4:17; 10:7).
There is only one way to enter this kingdom—by being born of water and the Spirit (John 3:5). It is a spiritual kingdom, and it requires a spiritual birth to enter in. Those who have obeyed the gospel have been delivered from the power of darkness and been translated into the kingdom of Jesus (Col. 1: 13), where “we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins” (1:14). This kingdom is also referred to as His body, the church (1:18). Textual problems do not begin to encroach on this vital doctrine (which some still do not understand).
9. No variations in texts or translations affect at all the doctrine of Jesus being the Savior of all mankind who obey Him. All readers can see that faith is essential to understanding salvation. Repentance is equally necessary (Luke 13:3), as is confessing that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God (Rom. 10:9-10; 1 Tim. 6:12). Yes, some texts omit the treasurer’s confession in Acts 8:37, but the doctrine remains in Matthew 18:16-19 and the other texts cited. Even Jesus confessed His Deity. The necessity of baptism is emphasized several times over (Acts 2:38; 22:16; Rom. 6:3-4; 1 Peter 3:21; et al.). Yes, Mark 16:16 is challenged (without sufficient evidence), but other verses confirm the truth of it.
10. Moral teachings are consistent throughout the New Testament. No one finds that lying and stealing are right in some situations but wrong in others; they are universally condemned. Paul does not allow adultery and fornication while Peter takes a dim view of such activities. Furthermore, not one writer of the New Testament was influenced by the culture of the day. John said that it was unlawful for Herod to have his brother Philip’s wife. No one later wrote that John was a bit hasty in confronting him with that fact.
If mere men had written the Bible (as Ehrman concluded), why does it have such a high moral and ethical standard? People divorced and remarried at will in those times (consider not only Herod but the woman at the well in John 4). People committed fornication and adultery (the woman of John 8 and the Samaritan woman again). Some practiced homosexuality (Nero was noted for it). So why call people to a religion that forbids all of those actions? Is that the way to be popular? Consider how many religious denominations today not only allow homosexuality but endorse homosexual “marriages” (a misuse of the word).
If there were no other proof that the Bible is from God, this observation would suffice. Not only do those in the world oppose the morality taught in the Scriptures, even Christians have a hard time with it. In the days of the apostles, some were teaching that freedom in Christ meant that one was free to sin (Rom. 6:1-4). Some said that what the body did had no effect on the soul and were leading astray those who had escaped from “the corruption that is in the world through lust” (2 Peter 2). The Bible is not written by men because they would not have vaunted holiness and purity (2 Cor. 7:1).
If the Bible were written merely by men, how do we account for the scientific truths revealed in it before mankind even discovered them? At the time Moses wrote Genesis, one of the leading theories was that man had evolved from the white worms in the Nile or that the world was hatched from a giant flying egg. Consider the creation in connection with Marduk who slew Tiamat, a goddess. According to Wikipedia, he
took his club and split Tiamat’s water-laden body in half like a clam shell. Half he put in the sky and made the heavens, and he posted guards there to make sure that Tiamat’s salt waters could not escape. Across the heavens he made stations in the stars for the gods, and he made the moon and set it forth on its schedule across the heavens. From the other half of Tiamat’s body he made the land, which he placed over Apsu’s fresh waters, which now arise in wells and springs. From her eyes he made flow the Tigris and Euphrates. Across this land he made the grains and herbs, the pastures and fields, the rains and the seeds, the cows and ewes, and the forests and the orchards.
Marduk set the vanquished gods who had supported Tiamat to a variety of tasks, including work in the fields and canals. Soon they complained of their work, however, and they rebelled by burning their spades and baskets. Marduk saw a solution to their labors, though, and proposed it to Ea. He had Kingu, Tiamat’s general, brought forward from the ranks of the defeated gods, and Kingu was slain. With Kingu’s blood, with clay from the earth, and with spittle from the other gods, Ea and the birth-goddess Nintu created humans. On them Ea imposed the labor previously assigned to the gods. Thus the humans were set to maintain the canals and boundary ditches, to hoe and to carry, to irrigate the land and to raise crops, to raise animals and fill the granaries, and to worship the gods at their regular festivals.
With all of these fanciful explanations, why did Moses choose to write, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1)? How did Moses know that the number of the stars was uncountable (Gen. 22: 17) when the telescope was not invented for 3,000 more years? How did the author of Job know that the earth was a sphere (Job 40:22)? How did David know about the paths of the sea (Ps. 8:8)? How did Isaiah know about the Second Law of Thermodynamics (Isa. 51:6; Heb. 1:10-12)? They obviously depended on the inspiration of the Holy Spirit rather than the wisdom of those who were their contemporaries. There are no textual variations that would cause a different reading on any of these verses.
If mere men wrote the Bible, they are totally deserving of two awards. The first goes to them for setting forth a plausible explanation of the universe. The origin and nature of the universe are described along with the nature and purpose of man. How mankind came into existence, along with his future after death—the Bible provides answers to all of the important questions of life. Most of all, it deals with sin, its consequences, and the redemption that is available to man through Jesus.
The second award, if men wrote these things under the power of their own wisdom, is for being Kings of Deception. First, they had to make up answers to the questions people have and then make them all harmonize throughout the Scriptures. Since the Bible was written over a period of 1,600 years, the latter writers had to figure out how to be consistent with those who lived 500 to 1,000 years earlier. And they all had to be in on the deception! This is the best conspiracy of all time! Imagine trying to provide hope for human beings when nothing occurs after death! What cruelty! And why do it when they would not be present to laugh at the duped? Who can believe it? The Bible is the Word of God, and was given by inspiration of God (2 Tim. 3:16-17). No inconsequential variations can persuade us otherwise.