Bible a Living Book!
The answer is that Scripture is a living book, using living languages. In English, for example, if we are to understand the Bible, we need new wordings from time to time as old wordings become difficult to understand. Many readers of the English Bible would be unable to read with understanding the translations into English made in the century before the King James Version was published. We have these versions in the libraries of the Ambassador Colleges. It would be useless to quote from them in The Plain Truth — they are too difficult to understand. Old English almost seems to be a foreign language today.
In the same way slight changes were necessitated over the centuries in the Hebrew and Greek because of the gradual changes in wording and expression in those two languages. For his word to be understandable in public reading, God permitted over the centuries minor scribal variations in spelling and word order for clarity. That is why no two hand-copied codices or complete manuscripts of either Old or New Testament agree 100 percent in every detail. God has purposed it! He intended his word, even in the original languages, to be living, active, intelligent channels through which his will might be expressed.
These minor changes — contrary to the usual opinion — prove rather than disprove the inspiration and .divine preservation of Scripture. Inspiration is not of any value whatsoever in a dead, unintelligible language! The Greeks, as also the Jews, have not been left to decide for themselves whether or not they want to preserve it. God has made them preserve his word correctly.
I have before me, as I write, the Greek New Testament in the first printed edition published in Constantinople in 1912. It is the Greeks' official authorized printed text of the Greek New Testament. When the Greeks published this edition they checked their authoritative manuscripts. The Greek religious authorities are held responsible by God for it. In the reproduction of this first edition (in Constantinople) before me, a typographical error occurred. Mark 7:16 was, by accident, left out of the printed text! So, in later production, when the printing of the new edition came out, in all faithfulness to the original printed edition, the Greeks did not insert this accidentally missing verse (Mark 7:16) in the text. They placed a note in the text and put the verse at the foot of the page for all to read. In other words, once an officially approved printed edition was made, there were to be no additions or deletions in the printed edition. And if an error, due to human oversight, later is found, it is required to be printed below. Every Greek must thereafter, when reading, insert the accidentally missing verse placed at the bottom of the page!
This is fundamentally the same way the Jews preserved the Hebrew Bible! When the Jews had officially approved a manuscript for synagogue use, if, at a later time, they found a scribal error which they had not noticed, they left the text just as it was — with the aforesaid scribal error. But in the margin of this officially approved text, they inserted the correct reading and every man who read in the synagogue had to read what the margin had! When they recopied that manuscript, they recopied the aforesaid scribal error in the text and the true reading in the margin! That is how they have preserved the Bible; God has not left it to the individual to decide these matters.
Greek Text Arrives in the West
For centuries, during the Middle Ages, the only Bible-accessible to Western Europe was the Latin Vulgate Bible. It was the work of the scholar Jerome, who prepared it from many old Latin translations — which differed among themselves.
Rome has not preserved through the centuries the New Testament in the original inspired Greek.
Jerome attested to the corruption of the Latin translations of his day.
"If we are to glean the truth," said Jerome, "from a comparison of many, why not go back to the original Greek and correct the mistakes [in the Latin] introduced by inaccurate translators, and the blundering alterations of confident but ignorant critics . . . all that has been inserted or changed by copyists" (Jerome, Vulgate Preface, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 6).
For thirteen centuries the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible dominated the Western world. Then, in 1453 the Turks conquered Constantinople, the capital of the Greek world. Many Greek scholars fled west. They brought their manuscripts with them. Soon Erasmus and Ximenes, Stephen, Elzivir and Beza published texts of the New Testament in Greek. In a few instances these Greek New Testament texts contained additions from the Latin Vulgate, which these scholars translated into Greek. A striking example is I John 5:7, which occurs in no Greek manuscript preserved by the Greeks. It made its appearance in the King James Version ultimately from the Latin Vulgate.
The Greek texts of the early printed editions in the West were vastly superior to the Latin versions previously circulated. From these Greek texts the early English translations came — including the renowned King James Version of 1611. Very few basic errors appear in the King James Version — though it is by no means a perfect or always clear translation.
The Bible-publishing Nations
God used — and is using — the Jews and Greeks to preserve his word in their original languages.
But neither Jews nor Greeks have published the Bible in quantity for all the nations to read in their own languages. That duty has been committed to the birthright nations of the House of Israel — the nations who inherited from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, immense national blessings so they would be able to distribute Bibles at little or no cost to all nations around the world.
Who are the birthright holders who were to become the world's leading publishers of Bibles in all languages? The English-speaking nations — the British people worldwide and the United States of America.
These peoples are identified in Bible prophecy. It's made plain in the free book The United States and Britain in Prophecy.
The 10 tribes of the ancient House of Israel rejected God. They went into Assyrian captivity after a three-year siege. God promised to withhold his birthright blessings from them for 2,520 years — seven prophetic "times" (7 X 360). That penalty ended at the beginning of the 1800s A.D.
It is no coincidence that British engineers and financiers in 1803 produced the first practical paper-making machine in history. That in 1804 the British and Foreign Bible Society was founded. By an extraordinary "coincidence" Lord Stanhope had in the same year perfected a stereotyping process. That process made Bible manufacturing cheap, accurate and speedy!
In 1805 massive numbers of the English New Testament appeared. A complete Bible for quantity distribution appeared in 1806. Friedrich Konig, a German, came to London in 1806, and in four years perfected the printing machine. The story, if continued, would fill pages. This is one of the greatest series of events in history. It ranks in importance with the Jewish and Greek preservation of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures! Yet the world today takes little note of the greatest of the birthright blessings!
Do We Have All the Bible?
One final question should be answered with regard to the preservation of Scripture. Do we have all the Bible?
The testimony of history itself is that none of the Hebrew Bible has been lost since the days of Christ. For nearly two thousand years, through persecution and war, the Jews have preserved it as God intended! The same books composing the Bible in Jesus' day are used today in the synagogues and in the churches.
But what about the fact that some editions of the Bible have seven more books (the Apocrypha) added to the Old Testament than the Jews have? Are these added books part of the revealed word of God?
The official authority for the copying of the Hebrew Bible was vested in officially appointed scribes (Matt. 23:2). They never accepted the Apocrypha. The Apocrypha are unauthoritative books. These books contain definite errors, plus a measure of historic truth — just as all human-books do. The apostles never quoted from the Apocrypha. They never referred to these seven added books as inspired. The Catholic Church in the West did not accept them until about A.D. 398, at the Council of Carthage-300 years after the Bible was completed in the days of the apostle John.
The Greek Bibles used by the inspired New Testament Church under the guidance of the apostles did not contain the Apocrypha. These uninspired books were not added to the Old Testament canon by the churches in the East until after A.D. 315, according to the admission of the bishop Cyril of Jerusalem. Here is proof that the Apocrypha was never approved by Christ or the apostles. The Bible was completed in the days of the apostles!
The same may be said of the so-called lost books of the Bible. These books were never lost because they were never part of the Bible. They are outright frauds! They are spurious — uninspired and full of errors!
If you want the full story of the Apocrypha, write for the reprint article "Do We Have the Complete Bible?"
But what about the New Testament? Is it complete? Here again the testimony is the same — the New Testament has been preserved exactly! The early Greeks recognized no other New Testament books than we have today. No New Testament book has been lost.
If you want an illustration of God's intervention to preserve his word, turn to Jeremiah 36, beginning with verse 23. King Jehoiakim, at a time of national crisis in Judah, rejected God's message and had an entire scroll of the word of God cut with a penknife and consumed by a fire. Certainly burning the only copy of the word of God would destroy it if anything would! — he thought.
But what happened? Did it perish forever? No! Read for yourself the account in Jeremiah 36:32.
You can depend on the Bible. It is the inspired word of God in print! It carries absolute authority. By it you are to be judged!