This is a continuation of the series I started in December called “Bible Brackets”.  Please read the following 3 first if you haven’t already.

Filling Out Your Theological Bracket - Part 1
Decisions, Decisions - Bible Brackets Part 2
What Did Jesus Say? - Bible Brackets Part 3

When it comes to the inerrancy of Scripture, Christians often act as if the bible just fell out of the sky in its present condition as a perfect gift from God to all mankind.  But unfortunately, that’s not exactly how it happened.  I mentioned in Part 3 some of the steps involved in how we come to understand that Jesus said, “For God so loved the world…”, or at least something similar to that.  But there was a lot more to it than just that.  For example,  for the books we call the New Testament, men actually wrote many of these “books” as simple letters to other people or churches.  The book of Romans was a letter written by Paul to the church in Rome.  It might be surprising to some, but there were a lot more letters written by Paul (and others) than just the ones that are currently in our bible.  For example, we have 2 letters that Paul wrote to the Corinthian church.  But there also exists a 3rd letter to the Corinthians that is not in our bible.  It’s now considered part of the New Testament apocrypha, along with a lot of other writings.  This NT Apocrypha is not to be confused with what is often called the Catholic/Orthodox apocrypha.  So, over many centuries of early church history, the church leaders debated and eventually determined officially which books would be in the bible, and which books would not.  And there are still disagreements even to this day over certain books.  If you are Catholic, your “Bible” contains different books than if you are Protestant.  Martin Luther, the Father of Protestantism, argued to have the books of Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation removed from the Bible in the 1500’s.  He was unsuccessful.  I’ve heard at least one preacher today say that he does not think the book of James should be in the Bible.

So regardless of what branch of Christianity you belong to, you need to understand where the Bible you use came from.  It was compiled over many centuries through debates, votes, and even bloodshed, by church leaders that most Christians have never heard of it.

To make things even more complicated, there are many different Greek manuscripts of the New Testament books.  Some prefer certain manuscripts over others.  Which is correct?  Most Christians just trust, without much thought, whatever some unknown bible scholar decided for them many years ago.

And if that wasn’t complex enough, there’s one more step to go through, assuming you cannot read Greek. In order for you to read the Bible in your language, it had to be translated from Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek into English.  But unfortunately, there is not a computer software program that can spit out exactly what the original authors meant when they wrote what they wrote about 2000 years ago.  From the most recent count, there exists today about 450 different English translations of the Bible.

Are they all inerrant?  Can they all be different and yet still be inerrant?  Or are only some inerrant?  If so, which ones are inerrant, and how did you decide?  Are the actual English words inerrant?  Many people say that God inspired the original authors in their writing.  So did God also inspire the church leaders that choose which books to put in the bible?  Did he inspire Martin Luther?  Or those that opposed him?  Or neither?

Did you know that we do not have ANY of the original hand written biblical manuscripts?  We have copies that have been made over the years.  Did God inspire the many copyists over the years, or at least protect the texts from errors creeping in by copyists?  By the way, we know the answer to this is “No”, because we know there are many copyist errors and/or disrepencies in the Greek manuscripts, insignificant or not.  Did God inspire the translators to protect them from errors being introduced during translation?  If so, which translators were inspired?  The KJV translators?  Or the NIV translators?  Or another one of the 450 English versions?

For those that claim the bible is inerrant, there are lots of questions that must be answered in order to make that declaration.  Tough questions.  Questions that I’m guessing most Christians have never even thought of.  I often wonder if Christians who argue and debate so passionately over their doctrines really even understand where their bible came from.  And I wonder if preachers that seem to have it all figured out sometimes forget (or ignore) where their bible came from.  Or maybe they just need to explain to the rest of us how they figured it all out.  Because there are many preachers and Christians that really do have it all figured out, or at least they want us all to think that they do.