Why We Believe - God Has Preserved His Word

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If you will take your bulletins, I want to direct you to the statement at the bottom inside of the front cover from the

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London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689, chapter 1, a portion of section 8.

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It's not the entire portion, but the part that will be important to us.

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Chapter 1 lays the foundation for the rest of the Confession of Faith and it is on Scripture.

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And so it provides the list of inspired books that we would call the canon. And it discusses the authority of Scripture, the inspiration of Scripture, its origin.

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And then makes this statement, The Old Testament in Hebrew, which was the native language of the people of God of old, and the

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New Testament in Greek, which at the time of the writing of it was most generally known to the nations, being immediately inspired by God and by His singular care and providence kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical, so as in all controversies of religion, the church is finally to appeal unto them.

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And so here is the assertion that the Scriptures, the Hebrew Old Testament and the

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Greek New Testament were immediately inspired by God and by His singular care and providence kept pure in all ages.

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Now, if you are a student at that rather large institution of higher learning to the west of us here a ways called

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Arizona State University or down in Tucson, the University of Arizona or Northern Arizona University or any of the community colleges in the state of Arizona or wherever else you might be, this is not what you would be told if you were to take a class on the subject of the

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Bible. This is not what you would hear in high school classes, if this was even discussed in such places.

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What you would hear is that your Bible is a collection of mythology and history and that it has been altered and changed down through the ages.

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And this would also be what you would hear in many religious contexts, not only in very liberal leftist churches, but I'll never forget many, many years ago when

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I and my wife attended the Glendale Sixth Ward of the

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LDS Church. And during the course of the presentation on the subject of the

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Bible during the priesthood meeting type thing that they had at that time, the people there were informed that their

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King James version of the Bible, which is what they use, had started off in Hebrew and then it was translated into Greek and then it was translated into Latin and then it was translated into French and then it was translated into German and finally was translated into English.

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And so the whole idea was that there had been this long process of translation from language to language to language to language until you finally came to the

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King James version of the Bible. And I remember sitting there staring at the person saying this, going, can

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I say something in here? And we really couldn't. But that is very much the kind of thinking that many even religious people have as to the origin of the

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Bible. And no matter how much, you know, many of you, I realize you've listened to The Dividing Line for years and years and you could probably come up here and do this entire presentation for me.

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But the reality is that when you speak to people in our society, there is a tremendous amount of mythology out there as to where the

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Bible came from. And a tremendous number of people believe that what you have, whether you're looking at your phone or whether you have it open on your lap in a paper form, whatever that might be, that what you have today is only a faint resemblance of what was originally written by the authors in the first place.

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This is so common that it's important for us to understand why we can have confidence that what we possess today is what was given.

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And of course, then you have the spiritual aspect of given by inspiration of God.

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I mean, there is a simple historical question, and that is, do we have meaningful confidence that when we open up the

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Book of Romans that we are seeing a meaningfully accurate representation of what

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Paul wrote to the church at Rome? What about the Gospels? What about the Book of Revelation?

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What about Hebrews? Do we have confidence that what we possess today is what was written back then?

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Because we all know that there was no such thing as photomechanical reproduction until 1949.

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That's when the photocopier was first invented. And I can assure you, having used older photocopiers, that they weren't all that perfect even then.

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There were many times those old photocopiers that the quality of what came out left you really wondering what you were reading in the first place.

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And so our ability to have electronic absolute reproduction,

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Ctrl -C, Ctrl -V. I remember the first day I found out about Ctrl -C and Ctrl -V.

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Wow! That was cool stuff, let me tell you. It really, really was.

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My life changed because up until that point it was open the book. Copy it yourself.

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That's how it worked. And so we live in a modern age and many of the people to whom you might be speaking and to whom you might be speaking to bring the

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Gospel don't realize what history was like and don't realize that for all of human history up until the invention of printing in the

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West, any type of written communication had to be hand copied.

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And it was a long process, it was a slow process and not many people possessed much in the way of books.

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There were libraries but those contained books that had taken weeks, months and years to copy.

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And so they were very precious. Books were looked at in a different way than we look at things today because of our modern ability to process things and to print things.

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And so take your Bible, whatever translation you might have or just look inside your bulletin but you might want to look at it in context.

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I want to use an example as I seek to explain to you some basic fundamental realities about where our

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Bible came from and especially in the New Testament how we can have confidence in regards to its distribution to us, how it's come down to us over time.

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And that is I want to look at the Gospel of John 1, verse 18.

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Gospel of John 1, verse 18. And I have three different modern translations for you inside the bulletin.

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The New American Standard Bible says no one has seen God in any time. The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the

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Father, He has explained Him. Now the ESV, which I think is what most of you have, says no one has ever seen

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God. The only God who is at the Father's side, He has made Him known. And then the

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New King James Version of the Bible, which is a modern translation but based upon a different Greek text.

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I'll explain that in a moment. It says no one has seen God in any time. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the

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Father, He has declared Him. Now, there are differences between each one. And for example, the

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New American Standard has at any time. The New King James has at any time. The ESV does not.

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That is not because of anything in the original language. That is an editorial choice on the basis of the

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ESV to be as simplistic as possible in its rendering. And they figure that no one has ever seen

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God, ever, is their way of saying at any time. Okay?

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So that's just simply the NASV and the ESV are translating the same

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Greek text. And there isn't any difference in the text that the New King James is translating.

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Those are just simply translational issues. And the differences between an

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ESV and the Christian Standard Bible used to be called the

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Holman Christian Standard Bible. Now it's just called the Christian Standard Bible. ESV, NASV, you've probably heard that Master's Seminary, John MacArthur's group, has gotten permission to produce a new version of what's been called the

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New American Standard Bible where they're going to be making some changes. All of those are based upon a modern

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Greek text. Now I brought some texts with me today. Not that I'm going to pass them around because they wouldn't come back.

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But modern Greek texts such as this is the Tyndale House Greek New Testament, the

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Nestle Island, the United Bible Societies, these are modern Greek texts that are based upon thousands and thousands of manuscripts in Greek, Latin, Ethiopic, Coptic, Sahitic, Boheric, and other languages thrown in just for the fun of it.

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As well as analysis of the writings of many of the early church fathers. We have right around 5 ,800 fragments of the

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Greek New Testament that have come down to us in handwritten form. The vast majority of those come from after the year 1000.

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But we also have more fragments of the New Testament that come from earlier than any other work of antiquity.

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Let me make sure you understand that. The New Testament wasn't the only book being written back then. There were

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Greek historians and Latin writing historians that were writing there in the first century.

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There were, of course, famous Greek poems being written at that time. And these are called the works of antiquity.

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And it is agreed by everyone, including the critics of the New Testament, that the

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New Testament has far earlier attestation, that is, we have far earlier manuscripts that are witnesses of the

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New Testament than any other work of antiquity. If you've seen the debate that I did with Bart Ehrman a number of years ago, that was his statement during cross -examination, that for the

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New Testament we have far earlier attestation than for any other work of antiquity. And that's plainly the case.

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So for Suetonius, Pliny, Tacitus, the Latin historians, the average amount of time between when they wrote their book and the first copy we have, or even just a fragment of that book, is between 500 and 900 years.

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Okay? So, in general, something that was written around the time of the first century, you can expect to have the first fragmentary copies 500 to 900 years down the road.

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For the New Testament, we have small fragments that can be dated to as early as the year 125 of the

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Gospel of John. So if John was written, some people say, in the 90s, that would only be 35 years.

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70s, then it would be a little bit longer than that. But that's an incredibly small period of time. And then we have entire manuscripts, such as P66, P75, things like that, that date from around 175 to 200.

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And so, as you can see, for the New Testament, we have much earlier manuscript evidence than you have for any other work of antiquity.

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Now, that does not make the New Testament inspired. It drives me crazy when

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I hear Christians, well -meaning Christians, who will say, well, of course the Bible's inspired!

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We have 5 ,000 manuscripts! So? What's the connection between that?

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I mean, anybody can... I mean, how many copies are there of Harry Potter, for crying out loud?

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I mean, if you're going to go on that, Harry Potter's far more inspired than anything else, right? Because numbers of copies of that...

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No, that's not what makes something inspired. Now, it is important that we have such a large manuscript tradition.

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It is important that we have all those manuscripts, and I'll explain why in a moment. But that's not what makes the Bible inspired.

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And having earlier attestation, earlier manuscripts than anything else at that time, that's not what makes the

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Bible inspired either. Now, it does demonstrate that when people say, we can't have any idea what the

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New Testament originally said, how can we know it's been so long, and then they turn around and quote from Tacitus and Pliny and Sputonius and the

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Greek historians and stuff like that, they're being hypocrites. Because we have better evidence for the

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New Testament than they have for those historical sources. So it does demonstrate that, but it's not what makes the

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New Testament inspired, okay? So, what's important for you to understand is that up until the time of the inventing of the printing press,

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Christians had no problems at all with the reality that in their handwritten manuscripts there were particular textual variants.

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There would be differences between their handwritten manuscripts. They started talking about it in the 2nd century.

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In the 2nd century you can find early church fathers like Justin Martyr, eventually you've got

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Tertullian, Origen and others, and they're talking about differences in manuscripts. When Justin Martyr writes to a

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Jewish person that he's seeking to bring to the faith, there is discussion of who has changed the scriptures, because Justin Martyr was quoting from this, the

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Greek Septuagint. This is actually only half of the Greek Septuagint, I just didn't want to bring the whole thing. Justin Martyr was quoting from the

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Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. But Trifo the Jew, the man who

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Tummi is talking about, said, you've made changes in this. And Justin Martyr was saying, no, you've made changes in this.

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And that was around the year 150. So early on there were discussions, they were necessary discussions, they could not be avoided concerning the nature of the text of scripture and its transmission.

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But everyone recognized well, that's how you have, that's the only way you can have books, is they have to be hand copied.

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There is no such thing as a photocopier, there was no such thing as a printing press, and so that is how everyone read anything.

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Now there are a lot of people that honestly, and in fact there might be some people in here today, that if you're honest with yourself, what you wish had been done with the

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Bible is a little bit like, and I've used this illustration before and it bombed, but I'll try it again, is a little bit like that Indiana Jones movie, and all the young people go, who?

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And that's what makes me feel very old, but the Indiana Jones movie where they're looking for the

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Holy Grail, remember? And they find this guy, this knight or monk or something, who has been guarding this thing for like 700 years, living in one cave.

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I don't know about you, that's boring. 700 years in one room, this is dedication, but it's still boring.

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And what a lot of people would like is instead of having those little notes that you've noticed in the side column of your

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Bible, or down at the bottom of the page, where it says some manuscripts say this and some earlier manuscripts say that, people don't want anything like that.

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They don't want that kind of information. They want one copy, maybe even on golden plates, wouldn't that be nice?

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On golden plates, protected by a monk or a knight someplace, and when we really need to know what it says, we go ask that guy so there's no questions.

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I think that's what a lot of people would like to have. Or, what's even more dangerous is I think a lot of Christians think, that's what we do have.

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Until someone comes along with a different translation of the Bible and goes, have you noticed that the story of the woman taken in adultery in John 7, 53 through 8 and 11 isn't in your

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Bible? But it's in mine? And they go, oh, uh, hmm.

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Or they're reading 1 John 5, 7, the King James Version of the Bible. And someone's sitting there with the

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ESV going, that's not what mine says. Oh, really? We need to know about these things.

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We need to know where we stand in the history of the church. And so many of us today have such modern concepts that we are uncomfortable in recognizing

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God gave us the scriptures through history. He didn't send them down on golden tablets.

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He did not make it so that whenever a scribe was about to make a mistake while copying a manuscript, can you imagine how hard it would be?

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What if right now, I stopped, and I got all those young folks that passed out the contact cards to come back down the aisles and pass out a little ring binder of paper.

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Just a few of those papers. Remember back in school you'd have that type of thing? And pass them all out, and I start with the front row here, and I give them all the scripture lesson for today.

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Say from, well, Gospel of John. And I have them all copy out John chapter 1.

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How long would that take? It would take quite a while. Especially since most of us, our penmanship stinks anymore, right?

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Who uses, who even does it anymore, right? And then I have them take their copies and give them to the next row.

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And they've got to do the same thing. And then to the next row. And then to the next row. But then

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I take some copies from the front row after the second row gets done using it, and I give them to the fifth row, and they now have to take what the people in the fourth row give them and compare it with the people from the first row and create a new copy.

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And we continue that process all the way to the back of the building. First of all, how long is that going to take?

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Well, let's just say the chili's going to be really cold by then. But, here's a simple question.

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Will there be differences by the time we get to the back row from what was given to the first row? Well, of course there will be.

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And so people go, oh, well, wow, but will it still be the first chapter of the

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Gospel of John? Well, unless there's some joker halfway through that decides, I'm going to make up my own story.

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But, if there was, wouldn't that show up real obviously when compared with everybody else's?

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Well, of course it would. But there is a history of transmission of the text through history.

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We have to recognize this. You are putting yourself in a position of really being refuted easily by the people of the world if you have the idea that what you have today was not passed down to you through history.

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Because it was. And all Christians before us have recognized this.

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We need to recognize it so we can give the strongest answer to those who would object to the means by which it's come to us.

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Okay? Now, let me point something out. Remember I point, what was this? The Greek Septuagint, right? What's the Greek Septuagint?

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The Greek Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. This was the Bible of the early church.

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This was the Bible of the early church. When the early church wanted to know what the scripture said, this is what they went to.

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The vast majority of the early Christians could not read Hebrew. In fact, there were only two major early church fathers that could read both

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Hebrew and Greek. Origen and Jerome. Even Augustine.

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Augustine could not read Hebrew, and his Greek wasn't all that good. He primarily wrote in Latin.

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And so, how do we recognize when we look at the Greek Septuagint and we go, does every manuscript of the

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Greek Septuagint read the same? No. There are variations between them. Are there any differences between the

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Greek Septuagint and the Hebrew? Not many, but there are. There are. And sometimes the

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New Testament writers quote from the Greek Septuagint rather than from the Hebrew. These are historical realities, and we do not stick our heads in the sand to ignore them.

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If what we teach is true, then we need to recognize that we'll be able to stand up to scrutiny.

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But what we cannot do is put our heads in the sand and say, no, I can't answer all these questions, so I'm just going to grab hold of this thing over here and say it's my standard, and I'm going to ignore its history.

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We can't do that. We can't do that. So, we have, as I said, the best manuscript tradition of any work of antiquity.

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We have more manuscripts available to us today than have ever been known before. And please remember something. It is only in the last century that we have been able to compare those manuscripts with each other.

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Only in the last century. And it's just really not that bad. It's good that now in this century we can do that, but it is something to recognize.

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Only in the last century. So, in other words, in the days of the reformers, they didn't know what was in the library in a country across Europe.

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They had no way of comparing these things. They had no way of knowing what was in these manuscripts. It's only been in the past century that we began to microfilm these things, give them proper identification, and today we can look at any single manuscript that's cited in our

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Greek New Testaments and go, oh, that's in such and such a library, and it contains this material, and what's happening, thanks to something called the

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Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, many of those are being photographed with high -quality digital photographs that you can access yourself if you want to check those things out.

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And that's really important because things like wars happen, and manuscripts die in wars.

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People die in wars, so do manuscripts. There were many manuscripts that were lost during World War II, for example, and the bombings in Europe.

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There are many manuscripts that are only known to us because of transcriptions and things like that, because of the ravages of fire and war and so on and so forth.

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So it's good that that type of thing is happening, but we need to realize we're the first generation that's had this kind of information available to us.

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We can compare all of these manuscripts with one another. That's a great thing. At the very time when so many of the attacks are coming against the

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New Testament, we now have more information that we can respond with than any generation before us.

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That's a good thing. That's something we should be very thankful for. But we need some more history. We need some more history.

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Keep a deep seat. I know the Chili's back there. And look, Jeff went an hour and fifteen minutes last week.

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Okay? So I'm not going to go that long, I promise you, but I could very easily with this topic.

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So I just need to give you some basic foundational things to grab hold of. So, number one,

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Christians have always been comfortable with the reality that God has given us

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His Word in history. In history. It has been handwritten. It has been transmitted down to us in this fashion.

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And that's what Christians have been comfortable with for a long time. Then, what happens? Well, something very important happens.

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Islam arises, and Islam expands very quickly for one century, and then it's sort of hemmed in.

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But then over the centuries, it's slowly moving this way in the map of Europe.

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And eventually, in the middle of the 15th century, the ancient city of Constantinople, Istanbul, falls.

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And what happens before it falls is many of its Greek -speaking scholars flee the city, and they go into Europe with their manuscripts, their

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Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. And these manuscripts find their way into various universities, and eventually are utilized by a man named

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Desiderius Erasmus. Erasmus was a Dutch humanist scholar.

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Humanist was not a negative word back then, at least not as negative as it is today. He was a

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Dutch humanist scholar, and he wanted people to have the New Testament in its original language.

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Because what had happened? In Europe, the primary Bible had become the Latin Vulgate.

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The Latin Vulgate. And that was what had been the standard Bible in Europe for 1100 years.

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All the Reformers could read Latin. All the Reformers were much more comfortable reading

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Latin than they were any other language. Advertisements in newspapers during the

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Reformation were in Latin. Everybody who was educated knew

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Latin. And that was the standard Bible. But Erasmus recognized that's not what the apostles wrote in.

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They wrote in Greek. And so he wanted pastors and preachers and scholars to have access to the

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Greek New Testament, and he also wanted to provide a better Latin translation than the Latin Vulgate was.

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And so, in 1516, something really important happened. Erasmus published his

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Novum Instrumentum. Novum Instrumentum. Which, of course, is in Latin.

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What else would it be in? But it was a diglot. It had the Latin on one page, and it had the

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Greek on the other. Now, there is absolutely no question his emphasis was on the

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Latin. That's what he was primarily concerned about. He was very disappointed with the quality of the

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Greek manuscripts that he had been able to obtain in Basel, Switzerland, where he had relocated to work on this.

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He only had a very small number of manuscripts. We know most of the manuscripts that he used, and about the oldest he had was from about the 11th, 12th century.

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He didn't really trust it. He primarily used manuscripts from the 13th and 14th centuries. So they were long, long after the writings of the apostles, obviously, and that's what he primarily used.

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And then he came to the book of Revelation, and he had a real problem. He couldn't find any manuscripts at all. He could not find any

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Greek manuscripts, and so what he ended up having to do was he had to borrow a manuscript from a friend of his by the name of Johannes Reuchlin.

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Reuchlin was a fascinating guy. I don't have time to go into it, but if you ever want to read about a really interesting fellow in church history,

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Johannes Reuchlin was him. But he borrows this commentary on the book of Revelation that's written in Latin, but it contains the

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Greek text, and so he literally has to excise the Greek text out of a

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Latin commentary to produce the book of Revelation. And then he gets to the end of the commentary, and the last few pages have fallen off.

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And his printer, John Froben is saying, come on, Erasmus, we need to get this done.

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You've got all the rest of this work done. We've got to get it done. And so what he does is he back translates from Latin into Greek for the last few verses of the book of Revelation in chapter 22.

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Now, he does a great job, but he comes up with some readings in Greek that no Christian had ever seen since that book was originally written.

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And those readings persist to this day in certain versions of the New Testament. I'll explain to you why.

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So, he publishes this, and since it is very close to Reformation Sunday, let me just sort of throw this in here for the fun of it.

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It is one of those versions, those printings of Erasmus' Greek Latin New Testament that is obtained by a certain professor at the

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University of Wittenberg by the name of Martin Luther. And Dr.

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Luther, in looking at Erasmus' Greek New Testament that has the

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Latin on one side and the Greek on the other, is looking at it, and he was younger than me, so he didn't have to hold it as far out as I do, but he's looking at it, and he reads the

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Latin, and it says, do penance. But then he looks over at the

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Greek, and it says, repent. And he digs into the meaning of that word, repent, and it doesn't mean to do penance.

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It means to have a change of heart and mind. And this begins to be used by the

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Spirit of God in Luther's experience, especially as he's also using that to preach through Galatians and preach through Romans, and that is when he begins to understand justification by God's grace through faith alone, which leads us to the

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Reformation itself. That production of the Greek New Testament, that production of having that original language available to him, vitally important in bringing about the

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Reformation. And certainly, Ulrich Zwingli in Zurich, he would go into debates with Roman Catholic priests, and he'd put the

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Hebrew Old Testament on one side, and the Greek New Testament on the other side, and he would then debate therefrom, and the

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Roman Catholic priests he was debating, all they could read was the Latin Vulgate. They didn't know these languages, and so he was able to refute their argumentation.

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The original language text became very important in the history of the Reformation, and if you've read any of Calvin's commentaries, you know that he is continually making reference to the original languages and to the

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Latin Vulgate with which he was extremely familiar, and you may know that he wrote the

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Institutes of the Christian Religion, he would always write them in two languages. There was a Latin version and a

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French version. A Latin version and a French version. If you've read Calvin, you're probably reading an

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English translation of the 1559 Latin edition, the last Latin edition he did of the

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Institutes, but he knows these languages and he's utilizing these languages. Now, here's what's important.

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How do we understand, in light of our confession, this statement kept pure in all ages?

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Knowing that the framers of our confession were well aware of the reality that there were differences between manuscripts.

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What does pure mean? Well, here's what you need to remember historically.

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When the Reformation takes place, there is this outpouring of knowledge of the

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Word of God, and all of a sudden the plowman, the farmer, the dairyman, the blacksmith are quoting from the

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Bible and studying the Bible and vulgar translations, that is translations in the vulgar languages begin to appear.

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So even Luther produces a German translation of the New Testament and then in later years, working with others, the

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Old Testament as well. And so the Germans are reading it and remember the English translations begin to come out and all of this is taking place and how does

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Rome respond? The counter -Reformation, the Jesuit counter -Reformation that takes place, one of its primary focuses, because Rome is still saying no, the

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Latin Vulgate, Latin Vulgate God has given us the Latin Vulgate in fact, Pope Sixtus actually said, there are a number of Sixtuses, but Pope Sixtus actually came up with an infallible

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Vulgate the final authority, which Rome of course doesn't use today, but at the time it sounded like a good idea.

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They're pushing the Latin and they're saying to the people of the

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Reformation you can't trust the Bible without us.

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We are Christ's church. We are the ones to whom that Scripture has been entrusted and that Greek stuff comes from heretics anyways and you can't really trust it without the infallible

34:58

Vicar of Christ the Pope. And so when you read our forefathers whether it be those who put together the

35:08

London Baptist Confession of Faith or before that the Presbyterians who were defending these things against the onslaughts of the

35:17

Roman Catholics, the Papists as they called them. What they are fighting against is the counter -Reformation which was highly successful in some areas that was saying, you cannot trust the original language texts.

35:35

You have to utilize the Latin Vulgate that has ecclesiastical authority.

35:42

And the Reformers said no. The original languages were

35:48

Hebrew and Greek. That's what the Apostles wrote in and yes we have a sufficiently robust manuscript tradition.

35:58

Now remember, they don't even know how many manuscripts that they have at that point in time. They don't have any of the information that we have today.

36:06

They had none of the papyri. We have papyrus manuscripts today that date within a few generations of the original.

36:14

They had none of that. They had none of that but they still had confidence in the robust nature of the

36:23

Greek manuscript tradition and that's what they were defending against Rome. Now what version of the

36:32

Greek were they using? Well, they were using basically this. This is called today the

36:39

Textus Receptus. And of course it's a Greek New Testament with a

36:47

Latin name. Because the Reformers loved Latin. Textus Receptus actually if you know your

36:55

Latin and we're all homeschoolers around here so I'm sure you all do know your Latin. In fact

37:00

I should ask some of the young people to go ahead and render for us Textus Receptus from the Latin.

37:07

It means the received text. The received text. That came from an advertisement in 1633.

37:18

The Elsevier brothers who were not brothers. I'm not sure why they're called the Elsevier brothers but they were called the Elsevier brothers. So the

37:23

Elsevier brothers were publishing a Greek New Testament and in their advertisement for it they called it the

37:32

Textus Receptus. The received text. Now why did they call it that? Well here's the history.

37:38

Ready? Erasmus published five editions during his life.

37:44

Between 1560 and 1535. Five editions. Now you want a fascinating quick story? Here's a fascinating quick story.

37:52

You will be able to amaze your families over your less than two hour long

37:57

Thanksgiving dinners. Because we all know in California you can only have Thanksgiving for two hours. But you can tell this story very very quickly like I will.

38:08

Erasmus realized. I had always wondered. I mean I teach this stuff. I've taught this stuff for decades.

38:15

And I had always wondered why didn't Erasmus ever fix the problems in the book of Revelation?

38:22

Because as I told you he back translated into Greek for the last like six verses of chapter 22 of the book of Revelation.

38:31

Why didn't he ever fix that? I found out last year why. And now you get to find out as well.

38:40

You're sitting here going you think we're going to tell our families this during Thanksgiving? We want to be invited back next year.

38:45

Come on. What are you doing? It's fascinating. They'll love it. Go ahead and do it. Right after the turkey. It'll be great. Anyway.

38:51

Here's what happened. Between the first and second editions another printing of the

38:59

Greek New Testament came out. I think it was from the Aldines. It came out. Erasmus knew that.

39:06

And so Erasmus, I'll be perfectly honest with you, did not think much of the book of Revelation.

39:13

He just didn't. He did not have a very high view of it. I think he probably, if he had had his druthers, would have rather it not being in the canon of scripture.

39:23

I'm just telling you honestly. And so he found out there was this other printed edition out there.

39:28

So he said to his printer before he did the second edition, I'll tell you what, go get their copy and fix the book of Revelation based on theirs.

39:40

He didn't even want to take the time to do it himself. Go get theirs. Fix the readings and just go with that.

39:49

Here's the problem. The other guys had used Erasmus' first edition for the book of Revelation.

39:56

So the printers went and got it and went oh, they're the same. Okay, cool. And that was it.

40:04

And it was never fixed. And Erasmus didn't know. They didn't bother to tell him. And so here is the

40:13

Texas Receptus printed by the Trinitarian Bible Society in England within the past couple of decades.

40:22

It has the exact same readings Erasmus put in the book of Revelation in his first edition. Even though there's not a

40:28

Greek manuscript on God's green earth that ever had those readings. And that's why it happened.

40:35

Now what's weird is Erasmus does five editions. He dies in 1535. About 20 years later, a little bit less than 20 years, about 15 years later,

40:46

Calvin's printer in Geneva is named Robert Estienne, but his Latin name is Stephanos. And Stephanos prints a

40:55

Greek New Testament in 1550. I almost brought mine, but I just didn't figure with Chile flying around it would be good to bring the 1550

41:03

Stephanos today. I have an actual 1550 Stephanos. That means it was printed in 1550.

41:10

And that was an extremely popular edition. In fact, the one I have was the last one published before 1551 when

41:20

Stephanos entered the verse numbers into the New Testament. He's the one who divided the verse numbers up in the

41:25

New Testament. There were no verses before Stephanos did that. That's where they came from. So if you've ever thought, man, the verse divisions are weird, now you know who to blame.

41:34

Robert Estienne. So if you're ever memorizing something and you're sitting there going, why did they put the verses here?

41:40

Robert Estienne's your man. When you get to heaven, look him up. All your complaints. He'll have a little booth set up and be ready to go.

41:48

Anyway, so Stephanos's editions were beautifully printed.

41:53

They are. I mean, I'll bring it sometime and you can check it out. But I just didn't want to get Chile all over it. And so they're beautifully printed.

42:00

They're very, very popular for many, many years. Then Calvin's successor in Geneva was named

42:07

Theodore Beza. And Beza did a number of editions of the Greek New Testament, the most popular of which was in 1598.

42:14

So 1516 to 1598, you have five editions from Stephanos, there's a couple popular ones from Erasmus, a couple popular ones from Stephanos, and then a couple from Beza.

42:27

You put all of them together and that's what the

42:32

King James translators used to translate the King James version of the Bible. They did not look at Greek manuscripts.

42:40

They only used printed editions of the Greek New Testament, Erasmus, Stephanos, and Beza, as well as the

42:49

Latin Vulgate. Okay? So what happens is, when does the King James come out?

42:57

1611. Oh, come on, you all know that one. We could find some churches around here and have that blazoned on the name of their church.

43:04

1611 King James Bible Baptist Church. I'm sure there's a number of them out there. 1611.

43:10

So, 22 years later, the Elsevier brothers print a

43:15

Greek New Testament. And that's pretty much just a compilation of those previous

43:23

Greek New Testaments. And that's what Protestants are defending against Roman Catholic attacks.

43:33

Now, most Protestant scholars have no earthy idea what the earliest manuscripts read, because we haven't found the earliest manuscripts.

43:41

They're simply dealing with that traditional text. And then what happens is, another man, last name you'll have to worry about today, by the name of Scrivener, in the 19th century, he goes, hmm,

43:55

I'm gonna look at the New Testament in the King James. And when there are differences between Erasmus, and even there were differences between his editions, and Stephanus and Beza, I'm gonna look at what the

44:06

King James translators decided, and I'm gonna create a Greek text based upon the

44:12

King James version of the New Testament. That's what this is. That's what this is.

44:18

Today's, what's called the Textus Receptus, is a Greek New Testament based upon an

44:24

English translation that was based upon printed Greek manuscripts, printed

44:30

Greek texts that came from the 16th century. That's what this is. I have many brothers and sisters in the

44:38

Lord that think that this is the autograph. I just did a debate with a

44:45

Reformed Baptist pastor, you can watch it online, with a Reformed Baptist pastor that affirmed that if you're going to be a good

44:55

Reformed Baptist, you're going to believe that this is the autograph.

45:02

This is exactly what Paul wrote. This is exactly what John wrote. In every situation, without error.

45:13

There are others who have what's called the Ecclesiastical Text perspective that might not be quite on that point, but even.

45:24

How many of you have seen any of the sweater vest dialogues I've done with Doug Wilson? Have you seen a couple of them? How many of you know who

45:31

Doug Wilson is? Okay, that's pretty much everybody. Doug Wilson holds the Ecclesiastical Text position.

45:37

He would not agree with what I'm saying right now. The person he has debated in writing more often on that than anyone else is me.

45:46

We've been talking about this since the 1990s. In fact, there's a little book out that is a written version of our debate, and I was supposed to be debating him in person on this subject back in March when

46:00

COVID hit, and we're going to have to do that at some point in time, maybe next year.

46:06

I certainly want to try to get up there, and for no other reason, I found out that Moscow, Idaho has taco time, and so that is very important.

46:13

Some of you are going, what? Most of you are going, what? Because you've been to taco time before, and you're wondering why in the world

46:19

I would care, but I love crisp meat burritos at taco time. I just think they're awesome. Anyway, so we will be debating these issues, and so there are people who have disagreements with us on this issue.

46:30

What you need to understand is that their perspective is, well look, this is the text that was used in the

46:37

Reformation, this is the text that was used by the Westminster framers, and so that must mean that there's something providential about that.

46:48

At which point I go, wait a minute, wait a minute, time out. The Reformation, vitally important, vitally important.

46:57

But, let's be honest, don't you think the Council of Nicaea might be even more foundational?

47:04

I mean, it's one thing, we need to get the Gospel right, but before you get the Gospel right, you've got to have God right, because God's the source of the

47:11

Gospel. And so, what text were they using at the Council of Nicaea? What text were they using at the

47:18

Council of Chalcedon when they're dealing with the hypostatic union, the nature of Jesus? I think that's equally important, and it wasn't the textus receptus.

47:28

That's not what they had. And so we can't take, no matter how important the

47:34

Reformation is to us, we can't take that importance and go, oh, that means that the text they had is the text everyone should use from now on.

47:42

Because here's the point, if you've tuned out, tune back in. I want to get two points to you that I want you to be able to explain to the person sitting next to you.

47:53

How's that? Will that make you tune back in? So I'm going to watch you two. And so you're going to have to explain it to him, and he's going to have to go, okay,

48:02

I'm going to watch you two. Because you two watch, they listen to every word, I appreciate that. You better down the first two rows, because once you get back to Elliott's row, my vision isn't so good, and so Elliott could be snoozing,

48:14

I don't know, I'm not really sure, but I know she's not going to let Elliott do that, are you? No, he's not. Actually, I can see farther than that,

48:22

I'm just not going to tell you how far. That's how you do it.

48:28

Okay, two things you must understand. Let me re -identify this. Textus Receptus.

48:33

This is the basis of the King James and the New King James. Even the New King James 1984, they still used this text.

48:42

That's going to explain to us the bulletin here in a second. Okay? Textus Receptus. Tyndale House Greek New Testament came out only like three years ago, so this would be about as modern as you can get.

48:54

This would be similar to the Nestle -Allen text, which is the basis of the ESV, NASV, NIV, your modern translations, this is your modern

49:05

Greek text, this is your Textus Receptus. Point number one. If you apply the same standards of interpretation called hermeneutics to this or to this, you're going to come up with the exact same message.

49:31

Are there differences between the two? Yeah? This is about 2 % longer. You go, what's in the 2 %?

49:40

The law and but. Many times this will say the

49:47

Lord. This will say the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus? This says the Lord Jesus Christ.

49:53

This will say He? This will say the Lord. There is what's called an expansion of piety. Very clearly seen between the two.

50:01

But it's not like oh there's an extra book in here. No. It is very what is well known is that scribes in history did not want to lose anything.

50:17

And so, for example, if they had remember the story in John chapter 5, just really quickly.

50:23

Remember in John chapter 5, the healing by the pool of Siloam, where Jesus heals the guy and then the guy goes off and tells the

50:31

Jews it was Jesus and so they persecute him. Remember that guy? If you look in your

50:37

ESV right now, how many of you have an ESV? How many of you want to read from the text of the

50:45

ESV, John chapter 5 verse 4? Gospel of John chapter 5 verse 4. Go ahead.

50:53

We've got a second. The chili's in crockpots. It's staying warm. We're good.

50:59

We're good. I have still got over half an hour till the Durban rule.

51:05

Okay? So we're not even close. Oh, wait a minute.

51:11

It goes from 5 .3 to 5 .5? How can that be? Because what's the story about?

51:20

It's about people lying around a pool and why are people lying around a pool that Jesus would come and heal one of them?

51:30

Well, what probably happened in history is that someone explained why people did.

51:36

And that is, they're waiting for an angel to come down and trouble the waters and the first one in would be healed.

51:43

And so you've got a copy of the Gospel of John and you put in the margin they're waiting for an angel to come down to trouble the water and the first one in would be healed.

51:56

Now, your copy of the Gospel of John survives you. Let's say you ran into a nasty

52:02

Roman soldier and so you have a shorter life expectancy. And so someone has your copy of the

52:09

Gospel of John but they can't ask you about it anymore. And they want to make a copy for somebody else.

52:16

And they come across this marginal note and they look at it and they can't ask you is this supposed to be in there?

52:25

Because remember, you're handwriting stuff. So if you're handwriting stuff and you go back and check you're working and you go, oh man,

52:35

I missed this. Oh man. Okay, so I'm going to write it in smaller letters than the side margin.

52:40

That happened a lot. So if you can't go back to the original person to ask is this a commentary or is that supposed to be in the text?

52:50

If scribes didn't know you know what they did? They kept it. They didn't want to lose anything.

52:57

That's why it gets longer. And John 5 5 -4 was an explanatory note.

53:03

The earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of John don't have it. But John 5 -4 was an explanatory note probably from somebody has any of you,

53:12

I know my wife does it she's not here today, but she's had the same Bible for like well, I better be careful, for a long long time.

53:22

there are all these notes written in the margin. Any of you do that?

53:28

Okay, now if you can't transport yourself back to the time when your entire Bible was handwritten how is anyone going to know whether an explanatory note was supposed to be in the text and was just simply missed when it was initially copied or it's something you're explaining later because you listened to a preacher and went

53:44

I've always wondered about that. Put the note in. That's where John 5 -4 came from.

53:50

Okay? That's where John 5 -4 came from. So that's why there is a difference

53:57

John 5 -4 is in this it's in a footnote in this with a note saying this isn't original.

54:05

There aren't many passages like that but there are a few and so you need to be aware of that.

54:12

So, that's why the King James Version and the New King James Version have

54:18

John 5 -4 and that's why because they're following this. ESV and the others don't have it using the modern critical text.

54:26

Now, if you use the same method of interpretation on these two

54:34

Greek New Testaments you will not be preaching a different gospel. You will not have a different God.

54:40

You will not have a different church. You will have the exact same message. I have been challenging people on that for decades and I've yet to have a single person take me up on the offer to debate whether that's the case or not.

54:54

Oh, you can, but there's a difference here, there's a difference there, but you don't base any dogma of the

55:00

Christian faith on any one single verse. So, if you use the same method of interpretation on these two, you're going to be preaching and teaching the same thing.

55:12

Alright? Vitally important. Vitally important. Next. No Greek manuscript that we've ever found in any of the world reads identical to either this or this.

55:25

That makes sense. They're handwritten. And you make mistakes when you copy things.

55:33

So to say that this is the autograph is to in essence argue that God re -inspired the

55:41

New Testament somewhere during the 16th century. We're not sure exactly when. Maybe it was the

55:47

King James translators themselves that were inspired. If you're going to do that, you might as well just go with King James only -ism, right? Why worry about the underlying

55:54

Greek text? The King James translators would have said these are both the word of God.

56:03

Everybody in the early church would have said these are both the word of God. They would have recognized that what

56:10

I said earlier is true. If you interpret both of these in the exact same way, you're going to have the exact same message.

56:17

But here's the other thing. Point one was what I just said. Same message.

56:22

Here's point two. The people who gave us the London Baptist Confession of Faith did not know these existed.

56:31

What do I mean? Doesn't this represent pretty much the text they had?

56:38

Yes, it does. But they did not know about all the other manuscripts that we now have today that have given us a much better picture of what the ancient text was.

56:49

They had no idea. So you can't call them out of the grave and demand that they take a position on something they had no knowledge of.

57:01

Because they defended this does not mean that they would not have defended this if they had known it existed, but they didn't know it existed.

57:12

There is an entire movement amongst Reformed Baptists and Reformed Presbyterians that posits the idea that, oh no,

57:22

Francis Turretin defended the Textus Receptus reading at this point, this point, this point. He did.

57:28

Because he was defending the faith against the Roman Catholics that were attacking the validity of the Greek manuscripts.

57:34

But they didn't have this. They didn't know what was in this. They didn't have access to 5 ,800 manuscripts.

57:43

They did not have the ability to collate those manuscripts or compare those manuscripts. Nobody did until the last century.

57:49

Really, literally, nobody did until about 40 years ago. So you can't call them out of the grave as a witness against this.

57:58

That is an anachronistic abuse of history. Don't do it. The reality is, we should rejoice that we have this.

58:07

At the very time when people like Bart Ehrman and his disciples are attacking the faith of Christians and saying we can't know what the

58:16

New Testament actually said originally, is the very time when we as the church have more evidence about the transmission of the text of the

58:25

New Testament than any generation before us. I submit to you that we have more basis, factual historical basis, to stand upon to defend the text of the

58:37

New Testament than any generation of Christians that ever has walked the earth, and I don't know about you,

58:46

I am thankful for that. I am thankful for that. It frightens me,

58:52

I'll be honest with you brothers and sisters, when reformed men and women that we must accept as our brothers and sisters who have an orthodox confession of faith can so embrace an idea that they'll actually go so far as to say no, this is the autograph when this is simply based upon literally less than 20 manuscripts.

59:19

We have 5800 today. None of which went before 1000

59:25

A .D. We can go back to the 2nd century today. That's wonderful. Who was it back in those days that was saying this is the traditional text?

59:35

It was Rome at the Vulgate! How have we so missed the point of the reformers that we're now trying to do the same thing and call them as witnesses?

59:44

Don't do it. Don't do it. It's dangerous. And the whole point, and one more point to make is this.

59:51

It's indefensible when we take the gospel into the world. I've pointed this out over and over again.

59:57

There are sharp Muslims out there that know the history of our New Testament. There are sharp

01:00:04

Muslims out there that know the history of our New Testament. And if we try to go into battle with those kinds of folks, with some type of traditionalist position that can't make any sense historically, we're going to be torn apart.

01:00:17

And properly so. We cannot apply one standard to the Quran. I point out the textual issues with the

01:00:24

Quran. But if I'm pointing with one finger, there's three pointing back at me. I need to be consistent.

01:00:30

I can't use one argument against the Book of Mormon or the Quran or anyone else's scripture when

01:00:36

I am then susceptible to having the same argument used against my scriptures. I have to be consistent.

01:00:43

And unfortunately, this movement keeps us from being able to be consistent. Now what does any of this have to do with our series?

01:00:51

Well, it's simple. This is Apologia Church. We go out into the world.

01:00:58

It was just over a year ago that Jeff and I sat there for about 10 seconds wondering if we were about to get an antifreeze bath.

01:01:13

Were you thinking the same thing I was thinking? Yeah, well I thought he was going to possibly even throw it on us.

01:01:19

That was my concern. How many of you saw the debate? You know what I'm talking about.

01:01:24

Those of you who haven't, go online. Jeff and I debated two atheists up at the University of Utah back before COVID, back when people argued with each other and did things like that.

01:01:35

One of the atheists, really his behavior was substandard,

01:01:40

I think would be a nice understatement that we could put out there. But we go out there into those types of situations and he raised a textual critical issue that's relevant to the

01:01:50

Texas Receptus, 1 John 5 -7. And I tried as briefly as I could to give a response to that point.

01:01:56

We're Apologia Church. We go out and we talk to everybody. We take on the atheists and the cults and the other religions and we need to know where our

01:02:05

Bible came from and we are going to assume as we preach the Word of God from this pulpit that everyone we're talking to already has that foundation.

01:02:15

Now we try to model that when I preached through Hebrews a number of years ago. It wasn't here as a previous church, but when

01:02:22

I preached through Hebrews I addressed every textual variant that came along that was relevant to the meaning of the text. So that the people would know, would not be caught up by being caught short.

01:02:32

I'd never heard about this, I didn't see that, that type of thing. We need to know because we have absolute confidence that God has reserved

01:02:40

His Word. And here's how we did it. Remember the illustration

01:02:46

I used earlier? And I'll close with this. I'll close with this. That means I've got at least another 25 minutes if I'm following the

01:02:52

Durbin Rule. The Durbin Rule. We're going to work on the whole thing. It's going to be fun. It's going to be great.

01:02:59

Remember the illustration I used about passing something back and having it hand copied all the way to the back?

01:03:06

What if someone right along through here, there's some shady looking people right through here. There.

01:03:12

There's a shady looking person probably goes to Grand Canyon or something. But anyway. What if a shady person back there decided to change the theology of John chapter 1?

01:03:27

And take out the deity of Christ and put in reincarnation?

01:03:34

Okay? Now isn't that exactly what we're told has happened to the New Testament? That's what the New Agers always say.

01:03:41

That's what the whole Dan Brown thing was about. Remember? The Da Vinci Code? How many millions of dollars did

01:03:47

Dan Brown make out of the fictional assertion that many people believed that Constantine had gathered up all the

01:03:56

Gospels and changed them from the human Jesus who got married and had kids to the divine

01:04:03

Jesus of the Gospels? How many people actually believe that today because of Dan Brown and the Da Vinci Code? Way too many.

01:04:09

And he made millions off of it. And the New Agers? They all tell you that reincarnation used to be in the

01:04:16

Bible, but it was taken out of the Council of Constantinople. And we all go, that sounds dumb, but I'm not sure what the

01:04:24

Council of Constantinople actually did, so I'm not really sure how to respond to that, right? So this is the kind of argument that's being made, but let's think about it.

01:04:33

We've got our miscreant back here who puts in reincarnation and takes out the deity of Christ and passes it on to the next row.

01:04:42

When we get to the back, are we going to be able to find out that something happened along the way?

01:04:50

Of course we are. Now, if we only have one chain of manuscripts, so if we only have one manuscript that goes from here to here to here to here to here, and then somebody back there changes it and then passes that on, we'd have no way of knowing, would we?

01:05:05

But the reality is, we have manuscripts. If this is the entire manuscript tradition, and this is the first century, second century, third, fourth, fifth, all the way back to the back of the room, we have manuscripts from all over this room.

01:05:22

We've got a fragment from over here and a fragment from over here, and there's a fragment from over there. We have something

01:05:28

Clementine did, and Cadence did, and then we have Whelan drawing tanks on what they did.

01:05:34

And so we've got a little bit from over there and a little bit from over there, and what we can do is we can compare all of them, and so when we find the miscreant's manuscript over there, it stands out like a sore thumb.

01:05:48

And guess what? There aren't any manuscripts like that. There aren't any manuscripts like that. No matter where you go, and it's multiple lines of transmission, it's not just one little line, boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom, it started here, and it went all the way that direction.

01:06:05

You couldn't change the content of the New Testament even if you tried.

01:06:13

And so when the Mormons say that many plain and precious truths have been taken out, the manuscript tradition says, no they haven't.

01:06:20

And when the Muslims say, well it's been corrupted because you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, we look at the manuscripts and say, but that couldn't have happened.

01:06:29

And when the skeptics say we just can't know, we go, oh yes we can, it goes all the way back, we have multiple lines of transmission, and we could detect any kind of editing that would take place.

01:06:42

That's a whole lot better than having a knight or a monk protecting the one golden copy in a cave someplace.

01:06:51

That's what a lot of people want. Instead of seeing the way God actually preserved it,

01:06:56

He had the New Testament explode across the Roman Empire. And why did it explode across the

01:07:03

Roman Empire? Because the Roman Empire was killing Christians and destroying their scriptures.

01:07:09

So what are the Christians doing? Write more of them! Make more copies!

01:07:16

Get them out there! That's called the free transmission of a document.

01:07:22

There's two ways you can do it, free transmission or controlled transmission. Free transmission, get it out there, multiple lines!

01:07:30

That way you can never edit it. You know what the result of that is? People are going to make some mistakes in copying. That's what we have, that's what we deal with.

01:07:38

We have plenty of them to deal with it. But what's controlled transmission? That's when the government gets involved.

01:07:44

Oh no! How would you like to only have the US government approved version of the

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New Testament? The Obama New Testament?

01:07:55

Even the Trump New Testament? I don't want either one of them! That's what happened to the

01:08:02

Quran. Under Uthman, the third caliph, there was an editing, a revision of the

01:08:11

Quran. And he ordered that all previous copies be burnt. That's controlled transmission.

01:08:20

Which one can actually give you the more accurate picture of the original text?

01:08:27

The free transmission of the text with a wide variety of manuscripts.

01:08:35

And guess what we have in the New Testament? Exactly that. Exactly that. So when you see those little notes in the side column, that say some manuscripts say this, some manuscripts say that, that should tell you, ah, that's how

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God preserved the text for us. Because he had it go all over. Anybody could make a copy.

01:08:56

And there were some people that made copies that weren't as good as other people making copies. But since so many people did it, we know what

01:09:05

Paul wrote to the Romans, we know what John wrote. So, one last thing, I almost forgot. Look at your bulletin.

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Remember the difference? Remember the difference in John 1 .18? The primary difference in John 1 .18,

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the Texas Receptus says what the New King James says. The only begotten

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Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. But the

01:09:31

New American Standard, the ESV, say God. So this is a place where the term

01:09:37

God is being applied to Jesus in certain manuscripts, but not in others. You have them on the front.

01:09:44

You wondered what that was on the front, huh? You have them on the front. Let me identify them for you.

01:09:49

The top and the bottom images, what you're looking at is the

01:09:55

Greek letter theta, and then what looks like a C is in Magisterial text, that's a final form, sigma in the

01:10:04

Greek language. And you'll notice there's a little line over the theta -sigma in three of these.

01:10:10

The third one down is phios. I'll explain that in a minute. This was called a gnomon, a sacred. We don't know why, but Christians abbreviated

01:10:21

God, Jesus, Lord, Spirit. The sacred names, they abbreviated them.

01:10:28

Instead of spelling them all out, they abbreviated them, and then they put a line above them. That's how you can always tell when you've got a

01:10:34

Christian manuscript from the ancient world, is they used the gnomon, a sacred. We don't know why. We just don't.

01:10:40

But they did. And so what you've got in the top one and the bottom one are from Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, the two earliest

01:10:51

Magisterial texts we have that contain pretty much the entire Bible. Vaticanus ends at Hebrews 9 .14,

01:10:57

but that's the last part. It fell off. But what they read, theos, at John 1 .18,

01:11:03

God, the unique God. And then the second one down is from a papyrus manuscript from between 175 to 200, called

01:11:15

P66, and it reads God. But then the other one is from Codex Alexandrinus, which is the middle of the fourth century, a late fourth century, early fifth century, it says huios,

01:11:28

Son, which is what you then have in the New King James Version of the Bible. So, that little note along the side says earliest manuscripts read

01:11:39

God, later manuscripts read Son. There you have it. Now, huios sometimes was also a gnomon, a sacred.

01:11:52

And so it would look very much like God. What's interesting is, I could show you another text, 1

01:11:57

Timothy 3 .16, where this is reversed. Where the

01:12:03

Textus Receptus has God, and the modern translation has has, he who is, he who is manifest in the flesh.

01:12:12

So, what's the point? If we only had a few manuscripts, this could be an issue.

01:12:18

We don't have just a few manuscripts. We have many manuscripts that we are able to compare together.

01:12:24

And the nice thing is, all of us can do these comparisons. If you want to learn how to use the

01:12:30

Greek New Testament, you can do all these comparisons yourself as well. Why would I want to do that? Well, some people find it fascinating.

01:12:36

I certainly do myself. But the point is, we're not hiding anything. We make this information available to everybody, even the

01:12:46

Muslims. They know it too. That's why we have to be consistent. That's why we have to be consistent.

01:12:53

So, last thing to remember, God preserved His Word through the free transmission of the text, the explosion of the text, all across the

01:13:03

Roman Empire, means that when the, when other people say, you took this doctrine out, you put this doctrine in, absolutely impossible.

01:13:14

Because when the New Agers say they did at the Council of Constantinople, we have manuscripts that were written before the Council of Constantinople.

01:13:20

They were already buried in the sands of Egypt. No one could have gotten to them. It's impossible. All that accusation, all that assertion that is made, the facts are against it.

01:13:33

God has preserved His Word, not by a photocopy version, but by giving us that manuscript tradition down through the centuries that has communicated to us

01:13:45

His inspired Word. Now, I've only been talking about the New Testament. Some of you are sitting there going, well, what about the

01:13:51

Old Testament? The Old Testament is considerably older, and God used a very different method, because there are very few documents, very few documents that have come down to us from that time period.

01:14:05

Those covenant documents came down through a covenant people. That's a whole other subject, and don't worry,

01:14:11

I'm not going to try to get into it today. But maybe sometime in the future, or maybe on a

01:14:18

Tuesday night advanced type study we can do something along those lines and look at Old Testament textual criticism.

01:14:23

It's a fascinating field. I hope that's helpful. That was a lot, fairly fast, but we need to wrap up.

01:14:30

So thank you very much for your attention. Let's close the Word of Prayer. Heavenly Father, we do ask that as we take this gospel out into the world, and as we experience pushback, as we experience those who would seek to stand against the message of Jesus Christ, that you would make us to be a people who know the

01:14:51

Word, communicate the Word, and know the history of the Word as well. That we would be quick with a solid response to those who respond to us negatively.

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And Lord, we thank you that we do live in a day where you have given us so much. May you make us good students, good stewards of the great riches that you have provided to us in your