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Pastor David Mitchell
Turn with me to Psalm chapter 12 verse 6 if you would this morning. We're going to continue our study on Bibliology what the
Bible says about the Bible and if you haven't been with us for the previous sessions
We will have outlines available for this whole thing so you can pick them up Don't have them this morning.
But before this little series On the Bible is over. We'll have those for you
This material is quite Detailed Probably more than most would think that a pastor would bring to his congregation but I feel that since we are in the end times and Since Amos chapter 8 and verse 12
Says that in the end times men will wander Sea to sea from the north to the east and they will go to and fro to seek the
Word of God But they shall not find it I think it makes it particularly important for us to go ahead and cover this in detail especially for our young people who
If the Lord tarries a while may find themselves in a world where there aren't as many
Bibles as you see today And it may even have a different meaning it may mean there are more
Bibles than you see today But they're all different Confused versions and you don't know which one has the
Word of God in it and you're not sure where to look I Will say this that any version that you pick up has 90 % of the
Word of God in it If it didn't they wouldn't be calling it a Bible so that is true and there will be people who will tell you that a study like this is totally unimportant because all of the great doctrines are in all the versions and you can find them there and I would have to disagree with them because Jesus said if there be a little leaven at leaven if the whole lump and My thinking is that when the
Antichrist comes he'll probably be quoting from Scripture And he would love to quote the ones that had been changed the 10 % that is different in the different versions
That's where he'd like to quote so it makes it important for us because it deals with the truth the very
Word of God the written Word and The Bible says clearly that the Lord has elevated that even above his own name, which is an amazing verse if you think about it
Why the Lord would do that, but he has done so now he's made us some promises and some
Chapter 12 in verse 6 and 7 the words of the Lord are pure words as silver tried in a furnace of earth
Even though the furnace of earth pictures the men that God used to give us the
Word of God the human beings Fallible human beings that's pictured by the earth.
He still says that is purified seven times that pictures God's hand
Man cannot thwart God man cannot thwart God's purposes and it is God's purpose.
Look if it's shown in verse 7 Thou shalt keep them. Oh Lord thou shalt preserve them from this generation
Forever that is God's purpose and no man is able to thwart that you can see other verses that That talk about this in the book of Psalms chapter 18 verse 30
Says as for God his way is perfect. The Word of the Lord is tried
He is a buckler to all them that trust in him Chapter 19 in verse 8 the statutes of the
Lord are right Rejoicing the heart the commandment of the Lord is pure Enlightening the eyes and many other promises that we've studied throughout this study that we've been doing for quite some weeks
Psalm 119 152 Psalm 119 89 Matthew 24 35 1st
Peter 1 23 and Others all teach the fact that not only has God given us the inspired word
He has promised to preserve it through each generation. We'll be coming back to this verse in Psalm chapter 12 verse 7 as we end this study in a week or at the most two from now and we will probably
Resolve the whole matter based on that verse Last time if you remember we started talking about The Evidences that we have the manuscripts that are still in existence on the face of the earth the first Roman numeral in this particular study
Were those called the unseals? and if you remember Those are called that because they are written in all caps in the
Greek Lettering now, we're predominantly speaking of the New Testament.
The Old Testament is a whole different matter It is not debated nearly as much The Masoretic text is considered by most all people to be the
Word of God Today and to be very accurate because of the scribes the
Hebrew scribes. We know some of their practices we know how when a
Scripture or a group of scriptures would become tattered and and too old to use anymore they would copy it and then bury the old one and They took such great care, but there is some debate on the
New Testament. So we're primarily dealing with New Testament manuscripts Greek Manuscripts Latin manuscripts and so forth.
So the unseals are the first group we started talking about There are about a hundred and forty copies of these plus Some new ones that are in existence now that were not there when
I first did my study on this back in 1981 or two or three about 83 There are about 70 new ones that have been discovered since that time.
There's a book by Kurt Alland Which is one of the better books? today that will
Document for you all the manuscripts and collate them under the different groupings very interesting book
And he seems to be one of the more neutral people and and I don't know if anybody's completely neutral But if there is one who is this man seems to be very neutral It's as if he doesn't care which theories, right?
He just wants to show you the evidence He brings out the evidence and he leaves it up to others to fit it into theories
And that's good because you can go straight and just get the evidence from some of his books These unseals are listed a through Z Although not all the letters are used
J R and Z are not used but they may be someday as they make new discoveries And then there are unseal fragments that are listed as oh four six.
Oh four seven. Oh four eight. Oh two five Oh, etc Then we talked about Last time the most famous of the unseals is called the
Vaticanus which is given the letter capital B Those are capital letters, by the way, the a through Z your capital letters
It's given the capital letter B. It was dated back to about 350 to 370 ad
They don't know the exact dates. They try to use carbon dating and different things to date them and also, they have
Writing specialists that can look at the lettering they can look at different things to do with the paper or in this case the vellum
Animal skin and and date give an approximate date So that's the approximate date 350 to 370 ad a very ancient manuscript
In fact last time we began to discuss this manuscript. It's been called by different scholars as quote the most perfect Greek manuscript quote remarkably pure quote beautifully preserved and quote highly legible
Yet it's interesting to point out that this most perfect remarkably pure beautifully preserved highly legible
Document was found in the Vatican Library in the year 1481 Apparently had not been used up till that point and it does not
Contain the entire of Genesis 1 1 through Genesis 46 28. So there is no fall of man found in this
Bible It does not contain the middle of the heart of the Bible Psalm 106 through Psalm 138
It does not contain any of the pastoral epistles which teach us how a church ought to be run
Nor does it have anything beyond Hebrews 9 15 in the book of Hebrews? It has everything up to that but not beyond that because at that point and on it begins to talk about Jesus as the high priest and it would totally do away with the
Roman Catholic sacraments and it does not have any of the book of Revelation now this happens to be the manuscript that Westcott and Hort Have chosen to be called what they call the neutral text and they always where they would make changes in the
Bible They would go back to this text and say that this one was the authoritative text and yet We see that it has been had all of these books cut out of it for a reason
And when we find it in the Vatican Library, and we understand that no Protestant scholar has ever been allowed to lay eyes on this manuscript
All they've ever seen are photographs of it We start to wonder why these particular parts of the Bible are missing from this manuscript if it is
Remarkably pure and beautifully preserved which it is It's on vellum, which is sheepskin and it's all there except for these it's not like these rotted and went away they were never put in this
Bible and Yet this is the one that the whole Westcott Hort theory and all of your modern
Versions other than the King James Bible in the English language all of the modern versions have come from a
Greek Manuscript that was redone and redesigned by Westcott and Hort in favor of this
Vaticanus manuscript There are many problems with this theory and your pastor does not hold to it
But most scholars today do and most preachers in fact do Which I think is sad
It's interesting because this battle was really fought back in the 1800s and I believe it was won predominantly by a man named
Burgeon you can go back and read his works and Read the works of Westcott Hort read the works of Burgeon and you decide who makes the most sense
I've done that on my own and you can do that as well So I don't really think it has to be re -argued today except for the fact that there have been new findings
What's amazing is the things that Burgeon said back in his days in the 1800s
Have never been proven wrong even by new findings One of the things that he said is he said
I am NOT a defender of the received text Now in case you're here for the first time or hadn't been following us the received text is also called the textus receptus and It is the
Greek line of manuscripts that the King James came from. In fact, it's the line of manuscript
Use me manuscripts that most Bibles Starting from the time of Westcott and Horton going back
They mostly were all made from that and that's why it was called the received text It was the one that received by all people.
Well Westcott and Hort changed all that and made over 5 ,000 changes in the
New Testament alone To the received text and made those changes predominantly based on this unseal called
Vaticanus We came to the place last time where We asked some questions and I asked you to do some homework and you've had two weeks
So I want to see if any of you did you're like me you forgot to do it So you better scramble and come up with some verses right quick so you can give me some answers well,
I want to go back over these questions that we asked the first one was this did God author and inspire the
Bible and I asked you to find some scriptures to prove that The second question was would
God inspire a text and then lose it? The third question was if God would inspire text would he then preserve it for all generations?
The fourth question was would he preserve it through men who did not believe that he inspired it now think about that one in the fifth question
Would there be any counterfeits of the preserved text circulating around the world? If the answer that one is yes, then the sixth question is what kind of men would these come from and The seventh question is how could you tell the difference if there are counterfeits?
And the eighth question is does God bear witness to a preserved text or must you go to seminary to find it?
Now, how did you do with these questions? Let me ask you this. Can anyone share with me a scripture or Our two that would answer question number one did
God author and inspire the Bible What does it say?
I suppose it could I never thought of it that way, but it certainly could because Jesus is the
Hebrews chapter 1 verses 1 through 3 would bear that out brother bill because it says in the former days
He spoke through the prophets of old but in these last days he hath spoken by his son
And anybody give me another one what's the most famous one? Mm -hmm just kind of paraphrase unless, you know the whole thing
Correction that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
So that one says all that's first or second to me Always forget is it second
Timothy? I get them backwards to second Timothy 316 You guy remember the 316 parts like John 316
But that is a very important verse because where it says inspired in the in the Greek language
It is literally God breathed all scripture is God breathed So that that would definitely prove that point number one is true.
God did inspire the Bible It is not man is not the author of it God is so that brings us to the second question what
God inspired text and then lose it It would have an answer for me there Could he lose it
Don't you think the verse we read starting the sermon out this morning would prove that one it says he would preserve it to how many generations
Throughout all generations So if he inspired it and he then promised to preserve it could he lose it?
Could it be lost on the face of the earth? Could there be any generation that had lost it from the time of the
Apostles? Well We'll look at that a little closer later on in the study
What about the third question If God would inspire it would he preserve it?
Well, we kind of answered that so let's go to the fourth one Would he preserve it through men who did not believe that he inspired it?
What's your answer there Well, I don't know that there's a verse for that one
Unless someone found one Okay And that would kind of indirectly what about the one in in first Peter I believe it's in first Peter where it says that The prophets gave us the word as oh man,
I've lost the verse as the Lord You know what
I'm talking about, let me look it up got too much active head in my head this morning
I See now
I'm having to do your homework for you, it's not fair. I Hope one of you will find it before I do
Well, I'm not gonna try anymore. I'm gonna waste our time, but it speaks of the fact that the
Holy Spirit's that the Here it is. My hands right on it second
Peter 1 20 and 21 knowing this first that no prophecy of the scriptures of any private interpretation
For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man But holy men of God spake as they were moved by the
Holy Ghost That verse along with Deborah's indirectly talk about it, but not directly
Fact is the answer number four It is true that God sometimes will use evil people even to fulfill his will
Wouldn't you agree with that there are examples in the Bible where he's used Prostitutes to save his spies there are times in the
Bible where he used evil people or people who were doing evil things to To accomplish his will such as the
Pharaoh in Egypt He was exactly in the middle of God's will and there wasn't a thing he could do about it
And it says in some places that God hardened his heart to accomplish his will Other places it says he hardened his own heart, which is also true.
So it could be possible that God would use ungodly men from time to time through history to preserve it even men who didn't believe he inspired it, but I think that's
I Would I would have to say this? I don't think the predominance of the people that were involved with the copying of the scriptures were ungodly
I think the predominance of them were godly people and That's why the predominance of the text agree with one another and with the received text
The fifth question would there be any counterfeits of the preserved text circulating around the world who would answer that one?
To promote false doctrine Yes Satan's ministers appear as ministers righteousness is a good verse
How about 2nd Corinthians 2 17 where all the way back even in the time when the
Bible was still being pinned? the Apostle Paul said for we are not as Many which corrupt the
Word of God. Can you believe that that the corruptions were beginning to pay take place? Even before the
Canon was put together in one book So even in Paul's day for 2nd Corinthians 2 17 proves that people were already corrupting the
Word of God the scriptures So yes, there were counterfeits Circulating around the world dating all the way back to the first century.
In fact, most of the worst corruptions that have happened to the New Testament happened the first 100 years
Isn't that amazing are certainly within the first 200 years? What kind of men would these corruptions come from would you think?
corrupt men Right corrupt men who are corrupters well usually from men who want to prove a certain doctrine that is a fallacy
Are you familiar with Arianism? What does Arianism teach in a nutshell we need to know this
I've forgotten some hoping you'll remember now What is what is Arianism? It was one of the earliest heresies
Come on somebody tell me We had one up. We had an
Arian come to our door yesterday. I'll give you a hint We had one dressed in a suit come to our door yesterday and give give my dad and and my daughter
Some material and Ben came he said Luke dad some books about Jesus Arians brought him
You know That's the other one Jehovah's Witness Now what did Jehovah's Witnesses believe that's predominantly different than what we believe
No, no. No, I mean the main thing. There's a there's a hundred things you start listing them.
We'd go on all day You're right. I mean that's that proves them wrong right there. But what's what's the predominant?
worst heresy Jesus is not God Jesus is not
God. Who is he to to the Arian? He's a he's
Lucifer's brother He's Satan's brother the Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the Mormons believe it, but they did not invent it
It was invented in the first century by Arius Well, I won't say it was invented in the first century but the thought was already there in areas made it popular
And that's why it's called Arian Heresy and So this has been
Battled out from the very beginning that one of the earliest corruptors of the scripture. I believe was a man named
Origen who Created a book that had four columns in it and each one had different versions of the
Greek and He quote corrected the Bible But what's interesting is origin was an
Arian Who did not believe Jesus was God and in a moment when we reach from some of the modern versions
I've passed a couple out to the congregation so you can help me read from them you're going to find very clearly that the biggest changes that you'll find in the
Greek Testament is is a Hit against the deity of Christ and you'll find it again and again and again and again or it's against the version virgin birth
Or the fact that he's the only begotten son and call him the son and leave the word begotten off Again and again and again and again not just once or twice but again and again and again and again and you say well 90 % you can still find the virgin birth in these modern
Bibles Yeah, you can and you can still find that Jesus is God. That's true. You can but why is it so many verses?
they've taken it out of the verses and Provided verses that someone could use were they an area and they could use these verses in fact some of the greatest proofs that we have that Jesus is
God have been changed in all of your modern Bibles because they go back to the Vaticanus and to the
Westcott Hort text, which we believe I personally believe goes all the way back to origin and Where he made the four columns and he was an
Aryan and I believe some of that Aryan heresy has come down through these Manuscripts to the modern versions today, and I think we'll be able to prove that before this study is over So what kind of men with these changes come from it would come from men who wanted to prove a point?
It's not in the real Bible. So they just change it. The New World Translation is a great example.
That's a Jehovah's Witness Bible I've got one at home and They ever offer you one if they try to offer you material say no,
I don't want that I'd like one of your Bibles could I have one of your Bibles and get one of them and you can go through and you Can check these birds like John 1 1 you ought to read that one in a
New World Aryan translation It's totally different than what your Bible says so These things are not new they've happened all the way back from the first and second century
These kinds of changes have been made by people who were trying to distort the doctrines of the
Bible Now, let me throw this out at you because we're gonna hit this two or three times
It's the crux of the whole matter when it comes to deciding the different theories on which line of manuscripts is correct the modern
Philosophy and it's interesting because while we were there last week I took a one of the classes offered had to do with how to choose a
Translation and the man who taught it Was one of the translators of the New American Standard.
I was impressed that they would have him there It's really impressive to see this man and hear him speak
He was one of the actual translators Who went to the Greek and the Hebrew and brought it back into the
English in the New American Standard? What's interesting though some people ask him some questions he couldn't answer he answered them, but he had some difficulty in answering them and because he is a believer of the old idea that the
Westcott Hort theory is correct and He believes that you can use modern textual criticism to determine which manuscript we should use the problem with that is this
Dean Burgin back in the 1800s wrote a beautiful argument against this idea He said you cannot use the same methods that you use to criticize an ancient manuscript of Homer or even of Shakespeare Because the difference is in the
New Testament There are doctrines that people change on purpose because they don't want to believe those doctrines
Whereas with Shakespeare and Homer nobody cares There's no doctrinal beliefs that anybody would have any reason to change
So you can go with the idea that the oldest manuscript of Homer is probably closer to the
Accurate to the original because it's closer to it But that does not always hold true with the
Bible because the oldest manuscript you find May be found in a Vatican library and may be an
Aryan document, even though the Roman Catholics are not Aryan The Aryan manuscript that it came from probably back from origin was certainly
Aryan And so your oldest one might not be the best one depending on where you found it so you cannot use the same arguments in and judging the manuscripts of the scriptures that you could with an ancient book of Secular origin and I believe
Dean Burgin was absolutely right about that. I don't believe anyone's ever Used better reasoning than he did when he made his argument back in the 1800s
About the time he was arguing against Westcott and Hort when they when they put their work out
All right, how could we know the difference between a counterfeit and the real thing?
That's a difficult question That's a very difficult question Because you have different theories and good men believe both theories even today
How could you know the difference well, that's what this whole discussion is about So why don't we hold that one off till the end?
We'll see if we can come to a conclusion on that You know in verse 8 the 8th question was more
To be funny than anything else. Do you have to go to seminary to be able to tell the difference? I really don't think you do.
I think here's what I and Dean Burgin said this and I don't have the quote with me but it's in the Next Sunday sermon if we get through all of this one
It may be Sunday after next but I've got it in that those notes not in these a quote from him is so beautiful What he points out is that when you have a version of the
Bible that's been around for several generations like the King James Version and Been used of God and revivals with over 10 million people that we know made professions of faith through Billy Sunday through Spurgeon through Whitfield all of the great revivals you've ever heard of in history came from the received text
At least that's the Bible that was being preached at the time. They happened we know they came from the Holy Spirit not from there not from the actual paper, but The Word of God together with the
Holy Spirit is what made it happen Now what's interesting about it is that?
Since the received text was used so often the English mind has word formulas in it
They come from that text and when a preacher gets up to preach and in the middle of his sermon
He quotes a fragment of a verse or a part of a verse that really draws bearing on the subject
It makes your heart sing out if you're a Christian I mean just hearing a part of that verse where it fits into the text so well and you go
Amen, and it just sings out from your heart when you begin to change those old familiar word formulas to modern
English It reads like a comic book it does not do the same thing for the heart and Dean Burgeon eloquently argued that point that even beyond the accuracy of the manuscript
We probably shouldn't be changing the King James because those word formulas have been burned into our hearts for so many generations
That when you begin to change them, then the preachers have to start all over Creating new word formulas and you lose a lot in the preaching and I agree with him on that Although I wouldn't say that's the strongest argument.
It is certainly an argument now. Let's go on into this this morning We have a little bit more time left. We started out.
We're talking about the unseals The first one we discussed is the Vaticanus or the B the second great one that we would read about In this category is called the
Sinaiticus and that's spelled s I in a t a I see us s
I in a t a I see us and it's given the letter
Excuse me alif in the Greek alphabet And it dates back to about 340
AD Now some people date it slightly older than the Vaticanus But I would say most scholars probably date it slightly younger than the
Vaticanus about 340 AD What's interesting? This was used a lot by Westcott and Hort when they found a portion of scriptures missing from the
Vaticanus They would then go to the Sinaiticus to try to find it if they found it there that would hold the authority over the received text but what's amazing so they kind of go back to these two texts and they hated the received text and They loved the
Vaticanus and the Sinaiticus But what's interesting about it is that the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus do not even agree with each other
They vary from each other in hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of places for example in John 3 13 in John 935 in Romans 14 10 and 1st
Timothy 3 16 the Sinaiticus agrees with the
Vaticanus against the deity of Christ Let me give you an example
Let's see brother. Which one did I give? Yeah, brother bill read 1st
Timothy 3 16 in that version and the rest of you turn in your Bible to 1st
Timothy 3 16 Now in this particular verse the
Vaticanus and the Sinaiticus both agree With the version that brother bill is about to read and brother
Clarence could also read it from The revised standard version bill has a new American standard any of you who may have brought a new
American standard You'll see that it agrees with with bills, but it disagrees with the King James Who Deborah would you read the
King James for me? Okay, stop right there
Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. What would that teach?
What doctrine would that teach It teaches
Jesus is God Jesus is God manifest in the flesh That's a deity of Christ. If you were an Aryan, would you like that verse to be in your
Bible? It'd be a problem, wouldn't it? All right bill read yours Stop It didn't have the word
God in it it said he who was revealed in the flesh that could be anybody
Yeah, it's he rather than God So it could be Jesus and so it could be teaching that Jesus has come in the flesh
Which we all know that doesn't prove whether he's a man an angel or God it just proves he came in the flesh
But the received text says God was manifest in the flesh It's perhaps the strongest verse in the
Bible in the deity of Christ All the modern versions have changed the word God to the word he
Now that can seem like a small insignificant change and you might say well, he still means God Well, it does to you because you're not an
Aryan But if you were an Aryan and I've argued with them and they've shown me this verse in their New World Translation They said doesn't say
God there. It says he I said well funny my Bible says God and I said, yeah But your Bible is wrong So you think it doesn't make a difference argue with one of them and let them take away your best verse and see how you like It because I've been there and done that I used to sit on porches for hours
Arguing with these people before I learned it didn't do much good All right. So the
Sinaiticus and the Vaticanus, would you read that? Did you look it up clearance? It's hard to see isn't it?
Yes, it's a small print Okay, so it's he and both it'll fact that'll hold true on all the modern versions
Now what's interesting is the Sinaiticus agrees with the Vaticanus on that and they both say he rather than God But all of the thousands and thousands of received text documents that we have all say
God in them But what's even funnier than that if you go into Colossians Chapter 2 verses 9 through 10 and Mark chapter 1 in verse 1 the
Sinaiticus Keeps the deity of Christ in those verses, but the Vaticanus takes it out now
I really did not check in your two versions on this one They may keep it in because it depends on whether Westcott and Hort took it.
I don't know whether they favored Why don't you read one of those bill? Why don't you read Colossians? 2 9 and 10 and let's see if they went with the
Vaticanus or the Sinaiticus Well that pretty much
I Think that pretty well stays there.
What? What about look up mark 1 1 See sometimes
Westcott and Hort would go with the Sinaiticus over the Vaticanus, but not often Mark apparently there they did mark 1 1
Okay, they kept that they kept they got that from the Sinaiticus What's interesting is the Vaticanus removes the word
God there in mark 1 1 and it removes the deity of Christ from Colossians 2 9 through 10, but the
Sinaiticus keeps it So there's an example of where the two of them disagree Now what's interesting is they would use two
Manuscripts and say they were the best and most accurate because they're the oldest but the two of them don't agree with each other So one of them's wrong or both of them are wrong on these particular types of verses and that's just one demonstration
Of the lack of agreement between the ones that these modern scholars try to use and they try to say they're better than the received text, but They disagree not only with the received text but with each other
Now we'll get back into some more of that in a minute. So keep keep your Bibles there gentlemen We'll look at them here a few minutes, but let me give you the next unseal.
This is the third one We'll mention it's from the 5th century. It's called the Alexandrinus Some people call it
Alexandria's some call it the Alexandrinus and that's given the letter a kept a letter a it it leans strongly towards the
Byzantine or the received text, but it has some verses that are more like the The Vaticanus and Sinaiticus So it's kind of a mixed text and remember that phrase because we'll get back on our conclusion.
We'll get back to that Alright, there's also a C a D and L and a
Delta those are the most ancient of the unseals now the next type of Group that we come into which would be
Roman numeral number two and our study here are called the Greek cursives Cursives mean just what it says.
They are written in cursive and small letters usually and some people call them the minuscules and We have about two thousand four hundred and twenty nine of them
So we have a lot more of those and we have unseals But they date we don't have any that date back as old as the
Vaticanus and Sinaiticus They date back generally to the 9th through the 16th century
It's interesting that out of the cursives they agree three to one with the received text
There are three times as many of them that agree with their seed received text as there are that agree with the
Westcott Hort text Now the third Roman numeral and and type of material that we have to look at our collection
Aries These are very important. So I don't want you to forget this word. We'll come back to it in our final study
The lection Aries They contain extracts from the New Testament.
There are about a thousand six hundred and seventy eight of those that we have that have been found And what they were they were like, you know, have you ever been in some other church now
Baptist churches don't do this But if you've ever been to an Episcopalian Church service Where they have responsive reading how many have ever been to one?
All right You know how they have books and in the back of the pews you can pick the book out and they'll tell you where to look
And you'll read have responsive reading that's been done for thousands of years And that's exactly what these lection
Aries were at least one of the things they accomplished was they contain Responsive readings orders of service and so forth in the
Greek Church Some of them are very ancient and so you can go back and they'll have verses in them and you can look and see how they the verses were worded which helps you come back and check the
Greek New Testament that you're trying to verify to see if it's accurate or not go back you can find some of these date back older than the actual
Greek New Testament and So that's kind of gives you some interesting information to to deal with and some very important Information.
In fact, Dean burgeon felt that the lection Aries were one of the most important things And I think you'll find in and as we come to our conclusion
In the next week or two, you'll find what how important these are and why they're important So keep them in mind the lection
Aries Roman numeral four is the category of the church fathers. This is very important, too because these are church fathers that wrote sermons that we still have some copies of or portions of their sermons that had where they
Quoted verses it's very interesting to see what the verse read like when they quoted it because these very often date back more ancient than any of the
Extant Greek manuscripts that are exist today that some of them are 200 years older than the
Vaticanus for example, and So there we've already studied this so I won't go over it's mainly in three families the
Western family I gave all these names of the church fathers to you already and you'll get this in print.
So don't worry about it The Alexandrian fathers and the Antiochian fathers are sometimes called the
Byzantine fathers, those are the three groups I Would say that to me the
Antiochian fathers are the most interesting Because they come from that part of the world that the
Bible indicates Is where people were first called Christians in Acts chapter 13 verses 1 through 5 in Acts chapter 11 verse 26
Also, the first missionaries in history were sent out from this place. And so I really like these church fathers
I tend to have more faith in them than I would those that came from the Western The Roman Catholic group or from the
Alexandrian which is the Egyptian group which tended to be the high critics scholars but it's interesting because Many of these ancient fathers no matter where they came from will quote verses that match the received text better than they match the
West Cothort text Which they say is the most ancient and yet these verses found in these old sermons are far more ancient than they are it gets more interesting as you go and Then fifthly we have translations now these are very important and a lot of people try to diminish the importance of them, but you have to understand that the
The language of the day was not English back in those days. It was Latin in the days of the
Roman Empire so most many Latin versions are very very ancient
We have first of all a Latin and Syriac New Testament in the year 382 somewhere between there and the year 470.
We're not sure exactly when but a man named Jerome Made a revision of the
New Testament text So that tells us that there was a Latin text older than that that was not revised that becomes important in our studies
There is an ancient Latin text before the time of Jerome now
Most of the writers the modern scholars if you read they start talking about a Latin text. They're talking about Jerome's Revised Latin text where he came in and quote corrected it
That's always been the words that were used for people that wanted to change it to fit their doctrine they say we're correcting we're making corrections and really they were making changes and Jerome was one of the worst and So he is the one who sort of demolished the
Latin text But if you go back and you trace Latin Bibles before his time, they were very pure and very accurate
In fact, they they match the received text Very well, we'll mention some of those a little later on The year 411 through 435 was a man named
Bishop Rabula who also did some revisions Some believe that these revisions follow the
Alexandrian scholarship of origin from two centuries previous And I would strongly tend to believe that See, I would strongly tend to believe that the scholars of those days were no more different than they are today
They get so caught up in their scholarship and their scientific method that they don't look at what the
Bible says about itself And they don't follow those guidelines and they don't wait those heavily enough
Nor do they wait the fact that we know the geography of the part of the world where the first Christians began to copy
Bibles and it was in the Syrian area Antioch area and they don't wait that they would weigh one
Created over in Egypt just as strong as they would one created right there where the Christians were The earliest
Christians and so I think they make some errors. I would tend to agree that Jerome probably
Got a lot of his quote corrections from origins four -column Bible Now You can go beyond that Latin as I said earlier to an old
Latin text Which can be dated back to the 2nd century You don't really I don't know that there's a copy of one
But there are many Latin verses quoted from such a Bible and they match the received text and they differ from Jerome's text
So that's how we know that there wasn't more ancient Latin text Tertullian in the year 150 to 220 and Cyprian in the year 200 to 259 both quote
Latin Bibles that disagree with the modern Jerome Latin Bible, isn't that interesting?
So even the Latin Bible was changed in about the year 382 to 400
AD If you go back before that it matched what we have in the King James in the received text much more closely the
Walden sees who lived in 1100 to 1300 in The Alba guinnesses in the year 1300 to 1500
There was a little booklet written by Carol who was the president of Baylor University back in the good old days before it went liberal
He wrote a little book called the trail of blood and it traced the Baptist all the way back through to the
Waldensians and Some kind of scoff at him because he said well, they weren't called Baptist and it's true
They weren't but what his point was they were people of the book They didn't have any creed other than the Bible itself and in that sense they were similar to the
Baptists but if you go back to the Walden sees it's interesting because they used an ancient
Latin version called the italic version and It dates back to about 157
AD in Italy France and Great Britain. They were all provinces of the Roman Empire They were all
Latin speaking at that time and so the first translations of the Bible in these countries were made from the
Greek Vulgate into the Latin and The Walden sees in northern Italy had one of the earliest versions of this
Latin Bible translated no later than 157 AD Which dates back? Almost 200 years older than the
Vaticanus. What's interesting? Is it more nearly matches the received text than it does the modern versions?
The renowned scholar Beza stated that the italic Church dates from 120
AD Alex another outstanding scholar stated that enemies had corrupted many manuscripts
While the italic Church handed them down in their apostolic purity That's a quote from Alex churches of the
Piedmont on page 11 ,000 288 but this man
Alex who wrote this church history book states that the italic Church Handed down the scriptures in their apostolic purity.
That's the old Latin before Jerome changed it I know this is a lot of material you don't get it in print, too
So I think you'll be okay when you go back over it in print. You'll remember some of these things and you'll see
Where some of these quote corrections were made later on in time the old Latin which
Tertullian spoke of and the Waldensians used So this is just some interesting history another
Ancient translation is called the Syrian This would be the third ancient translation
It's very interesting because it comes from that part of the world We were talking about where the we believe the originals were in fact,
I can give you three books we can quote from from scholars Who say that the origins of the
New Testament come from the Asia Minor Syrian? Antioch part of the world and that when the canon was first put together
That's where it was So it would stand to reason is that the best copies of it would come from that area at least that would be a very strong argument
There's a man named Harnack who wrote a book called the origins of the New Testament There's a man named
Goodspeed who wrote a book called the foundation of the New Testament There's a man named Kilpatrick who wrote a book called the origin of the gospel according to Matthew and all of these scholars agree that the original autographs were probably
Taken into the Asia Minor Syrian area and that's where the first copies came from The next would be
Tatian's diatessaron, which dates back to 110 to 172
AD and it matches the received text in Luke 2 33 and John 9 35 where the deity of Christ has been removed and The virgin birth has been damaged in the modern versions this old version matches it
And it's 200 years older than the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus So they don't always when they say the most ancient manuscripts are the most accurate
They don't always follow their own theory because if the most ancient one matches the received text they don't go with it.
Isn't that interesting? I Find that to be kind of hypocritical Then There's an
Egyptian translation we have two different kinds called the Sahitic and that's in the southern
Egypt and there are about five of those manuscripts available and in the Boheric or the
Coptic which is found in the northern part of Egypt. There are about 80 of those they generally are closer to the
Alexandrian text and usually agree with origins text and These have what we believe to be some corruptions that were placed in the
Bible around the year 150 to 400 AD The next
Great division of annual manuscripts and this takes us to Roman numeral six
Are called the papyrus fragments and these are very very important They were not written on the luxurious vellum, which was animal skins
These were really written on their kind of paper that they had in those days So naturally it tended to rot and to disintegrate much more quickly
And yet we have many of these that have been discovered and some of them are quite old and In fact when you read
Kurt Allen's book It deals with the more current or the most recent finds among the papyrus finds
They they totally blow Westcott and Hort's theory Completely destroy it and Kurt Allen himself said that and I'll give you a quote from him in next times study
But these papyrus fragments they come from the biblos plant
Which was cheap paper of the day and first they appeared as scrolls and then they can be put into a codex or what?
We would call a book They were used by Soul winning believing Christians and copied and recopied and recopied as the people use their
Bibles just like we use them today They are numbered 1 through 19 by Kenyon Who found several of these in the year?
1912 most of them are found about 120 miles south of Cairo and the Libyan desert
Because of the arid nature there they didn't tend to rot So they lasted through the years.
They're usually average about 30 inches long and 9 to 10 inches wide There is a group called the
Chester Beatty Fragments found in the year 1933 through 37.
There's the Bodmer papyri fragments found 1956 through 1962
Some of those are the more recent finds and then there's the Rylan's papyri Currently, they're about 54 in all and they're given the numbers 1 through 75 and not all those numbers are used
They're only about 54 of the actual fragments It's interesting that modern critics often reject these old manuscripts or these papyrus
Fragments when they agree with the received text, even if they're older They just don't talk about them very much
But Kurt Allen, as we'll show later, has pretty much shown that the papyrus fragments destroy the
Westcott Hort theory completely And then seventh we have this division of fragments
Sermons from early church preachers that have verses in them where you can compare those verses to the different manuscripts
So that gives you the different things that we have out there the different manuscripts. There are over 5 ,000 of them
And that doesn't even include the lectionaries the Sermons from early preachers and so forth.
So we have thousands and thousands of documents to collate and compare to see which text holds up in which text holds true and So that's all the time that we have for today that gives us that takes us through the different divisions
At least when now we know what's out there to look at and next time we'll talk a little bit about how different scholars
Try to put this maze in this puzzle together to come up with our
Greek New Testament I think you'll find it very interesting. Let's stand and have prayer together We'll start next time
I thought we would get to some of this today But we'll actually be reading some different verses from the different versions next time we'll be asking the question is older always better and And Let's pray together father.
We thank you for your word. We thank you that you've promised us. You've Preserved it through each generation and for each generation
Lord, we thank you that you've given us your word and we have it and we hold it dear and father if if we couldn't believe that it was
Protected we wouldn't know which verses were true So we thank you that you've promised us that you have preserved it perfectly for us through each generation
You've given it to us We in turn must preserve it and give it to our children and grandchildren until the
Lord Jesus comes back And father we thank you for the great truths that are in your word and for the fact that you've lifted your word up above your name, which shows us the important of Importance of this the written
Word of God which brings the objectivity to our faith It brings us the standard
To our faith and all things must be measured against it and we thank you so much for it
We would be in total darkness without it Now father we ask you to go with us into the time of fellowship and bless our meal together