Who changed the words of the Bible and why?

Lightning doesn't like it when people miscopy the text!

A few years ago, Prof. Bart Ehrman's book "Misquoting Jesus" topped the bestseller list and introduced many people to the world of Biblical textual criticism.  Ehrman's explanation of the process of text-critical scholarship was fantastic.  However, his conclusions--which seemed to be more of a reaction against his former fundamentalist view of Scripture than an accurate appraisal of the text-critical evidence--were quite unwarranted.  His basic premise was that we cannot determine the original wording of the Biblical texts, therefore we cannot trust their message overall. 

I was disappointed that a scholar of Ehrman's ability, who studied under the greatest textual critic of the 20th century, the late Bruce Metzger, could not see the inherent flaws in his own position.

We don’t need the autographs (that is, the original text from the hand of the author) in order to be able to read the original message written on those autographs.  This is because text criticism has a vital, Spirit-led role to play within the Body of Christ. 

Let me give an example illustration that I use in classes I teach on Text Criticism. Suppose God inspired me, as one of His Prophets, to speak the following utterance and write it down and send it to other believers—in this case, my four friends, Olatunde, Yusef, Lem and Jeremy:

“Big Trouble in Little China is the greatest movie of all time!”

Naturally, they all are excited by this deep revelation from the Lord (as they should be!) and want other believers to hear it. 

But let's pretend that the invention of the typewriter and word processor are 2,000+ years away in the future, they must write it by hand.  So Olatunde writes it down and then writes a copy to send to his mother as well.  Yusef, Lem and Jeremy do likewise and send copies to other believers as well.  Years later, after many generations of copying and recopying we eventually we end up with 4 “families” of manuscripts—the Olatundian Texts, the Yusefian Texts, the Lemuelian Texts and the JeremianTexts.  Upon comparison they basically line up in the following manner:

OT: “Big trouble in Little China is the best movie of all time!”

 YT: “Big Trouble in little China is gretest movie of all time!”

 LT: “big trouble in china is the greatest movie of our times!”

 JT: “Big Treble in Little China is the greatest movie ever!”

Centuries later, the original texts that I sent to Olatunde, Lem, Yusef and Jeremy have disintegrated or been destroyed and all that remains are copies of the 4 texts above. 

The question is: Can we know what the original message delivered by the Prophet James-Michael consisted of? 

Now we should note that every manuscript family above is different and there are a total of 12 variants among them.  That’s more variants than there are words in the text! 

OT: “Big trouble in Little China is the best movie of all time!”

YT: “Big Trouble in little China is gretest movie of all time!”

LT: “big trouble in _ China is the greatest move of our times!”

JT: “Big Treble in Little china is the greatest movie ever!”

So, many believers, not wanting to do the hard work of text critical study end up only using the Yusefian Text because it has become over the years the most widespread and popular due to its geographic distribution (this is analogous to the modern "King James Version Only" mindset among many Fundamentalists).  

However, the Olatundian Text manuscripts that remain are much older and better preserved, so some scholars argue that they represent the true message from God through the Prophet James-Michael.  There are many debates, with both sides saying that the other’s translations are attempts by Satan to confuse and lead believer away from the truth of the awesomeness of Big Trouble in Little China. as decreed by God! 

So, what are we to do? 

We do text criticism! 

There are believers whom God has gifted with the ability to study and decipher ancient texts and scripts and these people sit down and compare all the known manuscripts of the 4 families in order to produce a faithful edition of the original text.  They reason as follows:

•    The first word is “Big”, and the Lemuelian scribes made a capitalization error.

•    The 2nd word is “Trouble”, though there is some question as to whether or not it should be capitalized.  The Jeremian text contains a spelling error where apparently the scribe mistook one word for another similar sounding word.  But we can see that this is the case because all the other manuscripts read the same.”

•    The 3rd word is “in”, all manuscripts agree.

•    The 4th word is “Little”, though it is not found in the Lemuelian Text for some reason and is uncapitalized in the Yusefian.

•    The 5th word is “China”; the Jeremian text contains a variant capitalization.  

•    The 6th word is “is”, all manuscripts agree.

•    The 7th word is “the”; though the Yusefian text for some reason does not have it.

•    The 8th word is “greatest”, though the Yusefian text contains a spelling variant.  The reading from the Olatundian text is incorrect, but does not change the overall meaning and is easy to account for, especially if the scribe was working from dictation or copying quickly.  The translators decide to note it as a variant reading in a footnote.

•    The 9th word is “movie”; which the Lemuelian scribe misspelled or misread.

•    The 10th-12th words are “of all time!.”  However, the Jeremian scribe left out the genitive particle (“of”).  The Lemuelian text has the variant “our” which the translators note in a footnote.  The Lemuelian text also pluralizes the final word for some reason.  Finally, the Jeremian text has a variant reading—“ever!”  The meaning is the same, but the wording likely got changed by mishearing or misreading in that family of texts as they were copied and recopied over the centuries.

Thus the scholars produce the following Text Critical edition of the words of the Prophet James-Michael with appropriate footnotes:

“Big Trouble in Little China is the greatest(1) movie of all(2) time!(3)”

Footnotes:

1.   Some ancient manuscripts (MSS) read “best”
2.    A few ancient MSS read “our”
3.    or “…movie ever!” in a few ancient MSS

This edition then becomes the edition that translators use…though many people who grew up with only the Yusefian or Olatundian Text’s translations see the “differences” and erroneously reject the Text Critical edition and translations that use it as "confusing, divisive and ultimately a tool of satan sent to lead believers astray!"

All of the above, though using a silly sentence and only 4 manuscript variants of it, depicts the overall process of text critical studies, albeit in a simplified manner. 

Now, multiply the above example manuscripts by over a thousand, add the notion of early manuscripts in various languages, and factor in the notion of actual manuscripts' physical conditions/decipherability, and you’ll get a decent idea of what Biblical Text Criticism actually looks like. 

Thus, when one relies on just one family of manuscripts—like the Received Text (the family of manuscripts upon which the KJV relied)—and translations based on it, one is actually misreading the original message given by God through His Prophets and Apostles. 

However, if one uses multiple translations and carefully takes note of the variations and footnotes contained therein, God’s word is able to be read and studied and applied with a greater degree of accuracy. 

This, I am totally convinced of, is not only more accurate, but also more pleasing to the God who called us to study and “meditate on His word day and night”, to quote King David.  To ignore the text-critical process, while often well-intentioned,  results in either ironic arrogance, intellectual laziness, or spiritual naïveté—none of which God desires for His people. 

Not everyone has access to the original languages and not everyone is called or skilled enough to be a Text Critical scholar.  However, Jesus called some to be teachers, as we read in Ephesians 4, in order to help bring His Body of believers to maturity and sound faith.  Thus, everyone can benefit from the work of these servants of God and seek the truth of Scripture for themselves by using every means God has provided to His people through their text-critical efforts. 

This, I maintain, is how God has chosen to preserve His word; not through a particular manuscript family or through angelic dictation. 

Does it make some people uncomfortable?  Yes. 

Does it demand a higher standard of study than many Christians have gotten used to?  Yes. 

Is it a tool of satan?  No. 

Rather, it’s a tool of the Spirit that God has given the Body of Christ in order to keep us in community with one another and in humility regarding our own individual knowledge and abilities.