UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE - CHANGES AND ALTERATIONS

 

I don’t see it as often as I used to, but while driving – especially in the politically and religiously conservative South where I live – I still occasionally spot a bumper sticker bearing the slogan, “The Bible Says It, I Believe It, That Settles It.”  For those raised in a conservative and/or fundamentalist Christian church (again, which is much of the South), this message resonates.  For much of my religious upbringing, I was taught that the Bible was divinely inspired and the inerrant word of God.  According to the Mirriam Webster dictionary, “inerrant” means “without error”.  The general idea was that if the Bible was indeed The Word of God – a phrase which is still in very common usage in Christian churches around the world – then it couldn’t possible be incorrect or in error in any fashion.  God wouldn’t make mistakes.  

Interestingly, the concept of the inerrancy of the Bible didn’t begin taking shape until the late 1500s with the Reformation movement.  It wasn’t until the late 19^th century before the idea began to solidify as part of Christian doctrine.  It is not a concept that was ingrained in church doctrine for most of its history.  Biblical scholar, professor and author Marcus Borg states, “The explicit description of the Bible as inerrant and infallible by fundamentalists and some conservative evangelicals cannot claim to be the ancient and traditional voice of the church.” 

Unfortunately, that concept that the Bible is inerrant simply doesn’t hold up to even a casual examination of what is written in the 66 books and letters contained in both the Old and New Testaments.  Scholars have noted that the number of errors is in the hundreds of thousands, with some estimates approaching 400,000.  Most of these errors are simple copying mistakes made when scribes were translating old texts by hand in dark, dank rooms with little more than candles for lighting.  However, many of these errors – estimates range in the tens of thousands – included translation errors, while many others were deliberate alterations of the texts for spiritual and theological reasons,  sometimes to expand, enhance or clarify a particular theological message or point, while at other times to delete words and passages that were controversial or didn’t fit the official church message or the personal beliefs of the scribe doing the copying.  

In her book Inspired, the late Christian scholar and author Rachel Held Evans responded to those Christians – particularly fundamentalist Christians – who claim that the Bible is inerrant and to be held as sacrosanct and without error.  Evans states that “We should be wary of grand pronouncements that begin ‘The Bible Says?  Where?  To whom?  In what context?  Why?’”  She adds, “The authors of Scripture, like the authors of any other work, wrote with agendas.  They wrote for a specific audience from a specific religious, social and political context, and thus made creative decisions based on that audience and context.” 

The brutal truth of the matter is that no matter the reason for the errors, they have had profound consequences that have reverberated through the centuries and have resulted in a sometimes skewed, or at best uncertain understanding of what was actually written in the pages of the Bible.  The problem is that we don’t have ANY original copies of the Bible.  Writing in his book Misquoting Jesus, noted Biblical historian and professor Bart Ehrman states: 

“Not only do we not have the originals, we don’t have the first copies of the originals.  We don’t even have copies of the copies of the originals, or copies of the copies of the copies of the originals.  What we have are copies made later – much later.  In most cases, they are copies made many centuries later.  And these copies all differ from one another, in many thousands of places.”

This is important because we cannot go back to the original to see what they say and how the copies we have today differ or were altered.  We can only go back to copies that were written centuries after the originals, and these, as Ehrman states, are copies of copies of copies.  Errors – intentional or not – crept in, and these altered copies were used as the source material for the nearly 500 different translation versions we have.  That King James Bible that Christian stalwarts claim is the only true edition?  Yep, its source materials are filled with errors and mistranslations, meaning that revered King James version is also filled with the same.  Compare any of the Bible translations we use today and you will find hundreds and thousands of different translations of words and phrases.  Some of these differences are stark and highly consequential…and this isn’t even considering the differences in the literally thousands of different languages the Bible has been translated to.  The errors, mistakes and translation differences are vast.  

Recognizing that the Bible is filled with these types of errors, mistakes and alterations is not a modern discovery.  Complaints and concerns about the Biblical texts being changed go back to the 2^nd century.  In Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman points out that pagan critic Celsus made the accusation that Christians “changed the text at will, as if drunk from a drinking bout.”  Early church fathers also recognized the wild differences in the texts.  Origen was a highly esteemed and revered church father and theologian in the late 1^st and early 2^nd centuries.  He reportedly authored thousands of books and had a tremendous impact on church theology.  In his writings he spoke of the “great number of differences” in the various copies of the gospels.  Even the Papacy was concerned.  In the 4^th century, Pope Damasus commissioned early church theologian and scholar Jerome to make a standardized translation, a task that was immensely complicated as he had to compare surviving Greek and Latin versions and make assumptions as to what was the original authors’ words and intent.  

In the late 1600s, French Hebrew scholar Richard Simon composed A Critical History of the Text of the New Testament, which is still to this day a highly esteemed and referenced tome.  In the book, he writes: 

“There would not be at this day any copy even of the New Testament, either Greek, Latin, Syriack or Arabick, that might be truly called authentic, because there is not one, in whatsoever language it be written, that is absolutely exempt from additions.” 

He also asks the question: 

“Is it possible…that God hath given to his church Books to serve her for a Rule, and that he hath at the same time permitted that the first Originals of these Books should be lost ever since the beginning of the Christian Religion?” 

Ehrman answers in Misquoting Jesus, “The answer, of course, is no.  The Scriptures do provide a foundation for the faith, but it is not the books themselves that ultimately matter (since they have, after all, been changed over time), but the interpretation of these books.” 

Even more concerning to me is the many instances wherein text has been deliberately added, changed or deleted.  These go beyond mere scribe errors or mistranslations of words or phrases.  Rather, many scholars believe that these were intentionally done to change the message to either satisfy the scribe’s personal biases or beliefs, or to better align those passages with official church doctrine and beliefs.  These were deliberate alterations of the Bible.  In Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman declares, “The more I studied the manuscript tradition of the New Testament, the more I realized just how radically the text had been altered over the years at the hands of scribes, who were not only conserving scripture, but changing it.”  His conclusion?  “We have to admit that in addition to copying scripture, they were changing scripture.” 

Ehrman and many other scholars cite hundreds of examples of these seemingly deliberate text alterations.  These differences are discovered by examining the oldest copies of the Biblical letters and books that we have and comparing them to subsequent copies.  If the subsequent copies have different text or wording, then something was changed.  Careful study can determine if these changes were likely inattentive copying mistakes or deliberate attempts to change the meaning or thrust of the original message. 

There is an abundance of evidence of such changes in the New Testament, and Ehrman cites many in Misquoting Jesus.  For those who want to dive deeper into this subject, I highly suggest reading the book and the others I list below.  I will cite one example here, an alteration that had had a significant impact upon the orthodox Christian belief of the “pre-existent Christ”, the belief that Christ has always existed, even before his appearance on earth as Jesus.  This was a huge topic of dissension and debate in the early church.  Indeed, the debate raged for hundreds of years, and in some circles continues to this day.  When did Jesus become God?  Each of the gospel authors seem to have a different perspective on this subject, placing that occurrence either at his birth, baptism, death on the cross, resurrection or, especially in the author of John’s view, since time immemorial.  Today, orthodox Christianity has essentially adopted the view espoused in John, but it certainly wasn’t always the case.  

One example Ehrman sites involves Mark 1:11, the setting of which was Jesus’ baptism at the hands of John the Baptist.  In most current Bible editions this passage is written as “You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”  However, as Ehrman points out, early Greek and Latin versions of the Bible list the passage as “You are my Son, today I have begotten you.”  This is an extremely significant difference, as the older versions of the passage seem to indicate that it was at Jesus’ baptism that he became the Son of God.  Indeed, this older version of Mark 1:11 was quoted by early church fathers, not the verse that appears in most of today’s manuscripts.  Why is this important?  The older versions seem to imply that Jesus wasn’t always the Son of God, but rather he didn’t become “begotten” until his baptism.  This certainly is different than John’s gospel, wherein the author claims Jesus has always existed, even before the formation of the earth.  As mentioned, it is John’s version that orthodox Christianity adheres to today.  One can readily see how even a small change in a verse can have profound implications on church theology and doctrine. 

Let me be clear: the numerous changes and alterations made to the Bible over the centuries do not invalidate the entire book.  There is much wisdom, truth and guidance to be found within the pages.  The Bible continues to serve as inspiration to billions of people across the world, and remains an impetus for the spreading of love, charity and peace to everyone, especially those in need.   The mistakes, alterations and discrepancies should not cause one to disavow the entire book, nor should it result in the discarding of one’s faith.  

However, this knowledge of the abundance of changes and alterations in the Bible should cause one to realize and accept that the Bible is NOT inerrant (without error) or infallible.  The Bible as we know it today is a collection of letters, writings and stories written by a disparate group of individuals who often lived at different times and in different communities, had their own writing styles, and perhaps most importantly had their own interpretations, agendas and axes-to-grind.  Changes and alterations were made…and made frequently.  There are numerous minor and major discrepancies in the writers’ accounts (more on this in a subsequent post).  Rachel Held Evans summarizes this well in Inspired: 

“The truth is, The Bible isn’t an answer book.  It’s not even a book, really.  Rather, it’s a diverse library of ancient texts, spanning multiple centuries, genres and cultures, authored by a host of different authors coming from a variety of different perspectives.  These texts, like others from antiquity, have undergone edits, revisions, copies and translations through the years.  No one has the originals.  Before they were canonized, they circulated in disparate collections of scrolls and codices, and before that, many were passed down as oral traditions.  The Scripture Jesus knew and taught looked nothing like the specialty Bibles we sell in our Christian bookstores or even the giant, leather-bound heirlooms we treasure in our churches.” 

Books cited: 

Reading the Bible Again for the First Time by Marcus Borg

Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman

Inspired by Rachel Held Evans