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Hey Arthur!
I have a question. I noticed that the end of the Lord's
prayer "for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory
forever. Amen."(Matthew 6:13) is in the NKJV and the NASB
but its only in the footnote of the NIV.
I found on this website: http://www.ibs.org/niv/mct/4.php
that the reasoning behind this was because the that part of
the verse is not including in any manuscript found before
the 9th century. Is this source accurate? thank you for your
help, God bless! In Christ,
Hi! Guess what? This email miraculously reappeared on the
computer today. I am glad that we had a chance to talk on
Sunday. The site you referred me to verifies all that I have
been learning and reading. It seems pretty accurate to me.
I think the conclusion (name withheld) came up with in a good
one, don't build your whole theology on one verse alone. There
are slight variations in the Scriptural text as derived from
the copies, but all in all, it is quite accurate and miraculous.
Another thing to remember is the purposes of Scripture as
1) the breeder and feeder of God's grace, 2) His story of
redemption, 3) the means to bind and change a man's conscience.
These most readily will happen with the text we have at our
finger tips. Also, Jesus unreservedly quoted from Scripture,
and that is affirmation enough. Thanks for the email, hope
the response helps.
Love in Him, Sandra
Here was the original response:
Hello! This is Sandra. Arthur wanted me to take a crack
at your question since I am teaching "Explaining Inerrancy
in Scripture" for the 9th grade Sunday School class. We do
believe that the autographs are inerrant as written by the
original authors. The Bibles that we use today are not the
originals. God inspired the original authors to write the
autographs. Copies are made of the autographs (transmission).
The copies are written in Hebrew or Aramaic (OT) and Greek
(NT). These copies have to be translated. Finally the translated
copies of the original are preached or interpreted for the
hearer.
Along the way, there is much handling. Textual criticism
is the science of looking at all the oldest copies (manuscripts)
and trying to discern and get as close as possible to the
autograph. Surprisingly, the copies are all very close to
each other. The OT scribes called Masoretes used to meticulously
count all the words in each book of the Bible. If they were
off by a word, they would bury that book. In the NT manuscripts,
if we take out 2 questionable text, (the woman caught in adultery
and Mark16:9-20) the accuracy becomes 99.9% i.e. there may
be a difference in 1 out of every 1000 words. Even these differences
are very minor and do not change the message of the Bible.
So, to answer your question, yes, there may be some question
about some phrasing in the Bible. Does that alter its authority
or message? No.
The Bible is still God's word. Jesus had no problem quoting
from the OT scriptures. He did not put any addendums to His
use of Scripture. God chooses to use man as a vehicle and
the written word as His voice to relay His message of redemption,
as faulty as we can be. Just as Jesus was fully man and yet
fully God, the Bible is fully inspired yet fully handled and
passed on by humans. The workings of it all is quite a miracle.
When you are thirsty, you would go to a water fountain and
take a deep drink of water. Is the water 100% pure? No. Is
it able to aptly quench your thirst? Yes. If you really want
clean water, you have to subject the water to an intense filtering
system. The same is true of God's word. It is quite capable
of quenching the thirst of a hungry soul. It relays the message
of God's salvation for us. Are there ambiguities in some of
its passages? Yes, according to our limitations. Should we
continue to seek to purify it back to its original state?
By all means.
I am sure that you are regretting the tiny question you
asked. You wanted a trickle and I gave you a fire hose worth
of information. I hope that gives you a little background
why there is any ambiguity in the passage you mentioned or
any others.
In Him,
Sandra
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