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John 5:26–28 (ESV)

 

26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.

27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.

28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice

John 5:26–28 (ESV)

26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.

27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.

28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice

Christians, I believe, have to accept the the Bible is the inspired Word of God by faith and not statistics.

Finally, even if the manuscripts were perfectly consistent, their meanings - even in the original language - can be distorted. Consider, for example, the passage:

John 5:26–28 (ESV)

26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.

27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.

28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice

Other translations are similar and seem to be faithful to the Greek Critical Text:

John 5:26–28 (NA27)

26 ὥσπερ γὰρ ὁ πατὴρ ἔχει ζωὴν ἐν ἑαυτῷ, οὕτως καὶ τῷ υἱῷ ἔδωκεν ζωὴν ἔχειν ἐν ἑαυτῷ.

27 καὶ ἐξουσίαν ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ κρίσιν ποιεῖν, ὅτι υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου ἐστίν.

28 μὴ θαυμάζετε τοῦτο, ὅτι ἔρχεται ὥρα ἐν ᾗ πάντες οἱ ἐν τοῖς μνημείοις ἀκούσουσιν τῆς φωνῆς αὐτοῦ

In this case, however, there is an error that has crept into the Critical Text. Since the text in the available manuscripts is unpunctuated, the Nestle-Aland editors need to decide on a punctuation scheme. In this particular case, they chose one that yield the translation:

And he has given him authority to execute judgment,

because he is the Son of Man.

Do not marvel at this,

for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice

The scheme they chose, however, yields a heretical reading that was recognized and refuted by the Church Fathers. (The King James editors made the same error in interpreting the Byzantine text). The correct reading is:

And he has given him authority to execute judgment also.

That he is the Son of Man,

Do not marvel at this:

for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice

The alternative Greek reading was used by Paul of Samosata (3rd c.) as support for his argument that Christ was not divine (see, e.g., John Chrysostom's commentary on this passage, also summarized by the Byzantine commentator Theophylact).

Christians, I believe, have to accept the the Bible is the inspired Word of God by faith and not statistics. But I also believe that much discernment is needed in understanding that Word.

So how does all of this prove anything? Does it prove the Bible is the Word of God? If not, what's the point?

To be completely honest with you, I do not think it proves the point it seeks to prove. First of all, the fact that there are more New Testament manuscripts than any other book from antiquity only proves that very many people were interested in reading it. Further, what the above table does not state is that the manuscripts listed very frequently do not agree with each other.

The Nestle-Aland Greek-English New Testament provides on each page a list of alternate versions of each verse, when applicable. As a representative example, we could consider John 1:1-20. According to the apparatus, within this section there is one verse that has 5 different Greek variants, one that has 4 variants, three that have 3 variants, three that have 2 variants, and one that has a single variants: an average of 1.25 variants per verse. If this sample is representative, it is possible that the number of different Bible texts which could be constructed from all the various manuscripts is on the order of 1 followed by 8,000 zeroes.

Christians, I believe, have to accept the the Bible is the inspired Word of God by faith and not statistics.

So how does all of this prove anything? Does it prove the Bible is the Word of God? If not, what's the point?

To be completely honest with you, I do not think it proves the point it seeks to prove. First of all, the fact that there are more New Testament manuscripts than any other book from antiquity only proves that very many people were interested in reading it. Further, what the above table does not state is that the manuscripts listed very frequently do not agree with each other. The variations are not simple typographical errors. They are variations wherein entire words or phrases are different. They also are not variations where an older manuscript has different text than a newer manuscript. Manuscripts produced at roughly the same time seem to be no less prone to disagreeing with each other.

The Nestle-Aland Greek-English New Testament provides on each page a list of alternate versions of each verse, when applicable. As a representative example, we could consider John 1:1-20. According to the apparatus, within this section there is one verse that has 5 different Greek variants, one that has 4 variants, three that have 3 variants, three that have 2 variants, and one that has a single variants: an average of 1.25 variants per verse. If this sample is representative, it is possible that the number of different New Testament texts which could be constructed from all the various manuscripts is on the order of 1 followed by 8,000 zeroes.

The Old Testament is really not any less subject to textual aberrations. A quick survey of the apparatus in The Oxford Jewish Study Bible (2nd ed.) shows that there are around 20 verses in Genesis where the meaning of the original Hebrew is not known. In the Book of Psalms, the editors claim that there are well over 500 such verses.

Christians, I believe, have to accept the the Bible is the inspired Word of God by faith and not statistics.