Originally posted by timothy 1769:
[QB] Please share your views on Bible preservation.
1) Has God promised to preserve his Word? How do you know this?
Yes, He HAS promised to preserve His word, in several Scriptures. How do I know this; how do I know it's not just circular reasoning, assuming the Scriptures are true simply because they're old, and still exist? Because of the fulfillment of prophecies, right down the line. Anyone who frequently reads a Bible and follows current events knows this. The existence, and rapid rise to power of modern Israel are easily-seen examples. I have faith in the unseen by proof of the seen.
2) How does He accomplish this? How do you know this?
God uses many means. One way is that every part of His word has been in continuous use ever since He first presented it. Another way is causing copies to be stored for many years, to be found much later, as were the Dead Sea scrolls. yet another way is to cause men to pass down the Scriptures by memorization & word of mouth, especially among peoples who didn't use writing very much. And there's always His supernatural power...
How do I know this? Of all the extant ancient literature, there are many more copies of the Scriptures known than those of any other work or sets of works. And the various copies of Scripture throughout the centuries are more in agreement with each other than are the various copies of any other work(95%!). For example, all the known ancient copies of the Iliad are only in about 75% agreement. Gosh, all the known copies of a much-more recent work, Little Red Riding Hood, aren't much better! Very clearly, there's a Power at work here much-greater than anything done by men alone.[/b]
3) Does God preserve actual words, or just basic ideas? How do you know this?
God preserves/presents BOTH. How do I know? No one language will translate 100% into any other, and God made'em all. For example, if we translated virtually any German Bible sich as Luther's into English, the translation wouldn't exactly match any other English translation made directly from the ancient mss. And no two English translations match exactly. There are words in the mss that simply don't have an English equivalent, and I'm sure that's true for any other language. (The same is true for virtually all currently-used languages. They each have words unique to that language, with no equivalent in any other tongue.)
I doubt if the Masoretic Texts are in the same Hebrew that Moses used-if he wrote in Hebrew at all. And at least some of our NT Scriptures may have been originally written in Hebrew. We don't know how many copies removed that any of the mss known to us are removed from the original writings. A significant fact is that God apparently chose NOT to preserve the very first writings of His word.[/b]
4) Does preservation apply, in any sense, to translations? How do you know this?
Yes, it does. Without any translations, how would anyone who doesn't read Hebrew or Koine Greek(most of the world) know the first sentence of God's word? And remember what I said earlier about the Masoretic Texts most likely being in the Hebrew that Moses used(if he didn't use Egyptian)? Almost certainly, all the mss known to us are at least in part translations. This is known from the Scriptures themselves, especially where Paul reminds us that if someone is speaking in a language unknown to his/her audience, the words are gibberish to them-and the miracle in in Acts where the audience at the first pentecost heard the preaching in his own language, whatever it was.
And let us not forget that those who first wrote any part of God's word wrote it in his own language, not ours. Clearly, translation of His word is part of God's will
