Questions About the Bible (03/18/2001)

Park Meadows Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

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

00:08

Bible says about the Bible and if you haven't been with us for the previous sessions

00:13

We will have outlines available for this whole thing so you can pick them up Don't have them this morning.

00:19

But before this little series On the Bible is over. We'll have those for you

00:27

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

00:45

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

00:54

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

01:06

If the Lord tarries a while may find themselves in a world where there aren't as many

01:11

Bibles as you see today And it may even have a different meaning it may mean there are more

01:17

Bibles than you see today But they're all different Confused versions and you don't know which one has the

01:23

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

01:31

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

01:55

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

02:05

That's where he'd like to quote so it makes it important for us because it deals with the truth the very

02:12

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

02:21

Why the Lord would do that, but he has done so now he's made us some promises and some

02:29

Chapter 12 in verse 6 and 7 the words of the Lord are pure words as silver tried in a furnace of earth

02:37

Even though the furnace of earth pictures the men that God used to give us the

02:42

Word of God the human beings Fallible human beings that's pictured by the earth.

02:47

He still says that is purified seven times that pictures God's hand

02:53

Man cannot thwart God man cannot thwart God's purposes and it is God's purpose.

02:59

Look if it's shown in verse 7 Thou shalt keep them. Oh Lord thou shalt preserve them from this generation

03:08

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

03:20

Says as for God his way is perfect. The Word of the Lord is tried

03:25

He is a buckler to all them that trust in him Chapter 19 in verse 8 the statutes of the

03:32

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

03:44

Psalm 119 152 Psalm 119 89 Matthew 24 35 1st

03:50

Peter 1 23 and Others all teach the fact that not only has God given us the inspired word

03:57

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

04:12

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

04:34

Were those called the unseals? and if you remember Those are called that because they are written in all caps in the

04:44

Greek Lettering now, we're predominantly speaking of the New Testament.

04:49

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

05:00

Word of God Today and to be very accurate because of the scribes the

05:05

Hebrew scribes. We know some of their practices we know how when a

05:12

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

05:25

New Testament. So we're primarily dealing with New Testament manuscripts Greek Manuscripts Latin manuscripts and so forth.

05:32

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

05:47

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.

05:57

There's a book by Kurt Alland Which is one of the better books? today that will

06:03

Document for you all the manuscripts and collate them under the different groupings very interesting book

06:10

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?

06:21

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

06:27

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

06:36

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.

06:46

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

06:57

Vaticanus which is given the letter capital B Those are capital letters, by the way, the a through Z your capital letters

07:05

It's given the capital letter B. It was dated back to about 350 to 370 ad

07:12

They don't know the exact dates. They try to use carbon dating and different things to date them and also, they have

07:20

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

07:26

Animal skin and and date give an approximate date So that's the approximate date 350 to 370 ad a very ancient manuscript

07:35

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

07:54

Yet it's interesting to point out that this most perfect remarkably pure beautifully preserved highly legible

08:00

Document was found in the Vatican Library in the year 1481 Apparently had not been used up till that point and it does not

08:08

Contain the entire of Genesis 1 1 through Genesis 46 28. So there is no fall of man found in this

08:15

Bible It does not contain the middle of the heart of the Bible Psalm 106 through Psalm 138

08:21

It does not contain any of the pastoral epistles which teach us how a church ought to be run

08:27

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

08:41

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

08:56

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

09:06

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

09:17

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

09:25

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

09:37

Bible and Yet this is the one that the whole Westcott Hort theory and all of your modern

09:42

Versions other than the King James Bible in the English language all of the modern versions have come from a

09:48

Greek Manuscript that was redone and redesigned by Westcott and Hort in favor of this

09:54

Vaticanus manuscript There are many problems with this theory and your pastor does not hold to it

10:01

But most scholars today do and most preachers in fact do Which I think is sad

10:08

It's interesting because this battle was really fought back in the 1800s and I believe it was won predominantly by a man named

10:17

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

10:26

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

10:34

What's amazing is the things that Burgeon said back in his days in the 1800s

10:39

Have never been proven wrong even by new findings One of the things that he said is he said

10:45

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

10:57

Greek line of manuscripts that the King James came from. In fact, it's the line of manuscript

11:03

Use me manuscripts that most Bibles Starting from the time of Westcott and Horton going back

11:10

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.

11:17

Well Westcott and Hort changed all that and made over 5 ,000 changes in the

11:22

New Testament alone To the received text and made those changes predominantly based on this unseal called

11:30

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

11:41

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,

11:50

I want to go back over these questions that we asked the first one was this did God author and inspire the

11:57

Bible and I asked you to find some scriptures to prove that The second question was would

12:05

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?

12:17

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

12:26

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?

12:43

And the eighth question is does God bear witness to a preserved text or must you go to seminary to find it?

12:50

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

13:01

God author and inspire the Bible What does it say?

13:19

I suppose it could I never thought of it that way, but it certainly could because Jesus is the

13:26

Hebrews chapter 1 verses 1 through 3 would bear that out brother bill because it says in the former days

13:33

He spoke through the prophets of old but in these last days he hath spoken by his son

13:38

And anybody give me another one what's the most famous one? Mm -hmm just kind of paraphrase unless, you know the whole thing

13:54

Correction that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

14:00

So that one says all that's first or second to me Always forget is it second

14:07

Timothy? I get them backwards to second Timothy 316 You guy remember the 316 parts like John 316

14:14

But that is a very important verse because where it says inspired in the in the Greek language

14:20

It is literally God breathed all scripture is God breathed So that that would definitely prove that point number one is true.

14:27

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

14:34

God inspired text and then lose it It would have an answer for me there Could he lose it

14:44

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

14:52

Throughout all generations So if he inspired it and he then promised to preserve it could he lose it?

14:59

Could it be lost on the face of the earth? Could there be any generation that had lost it from the time of the

15:06

Apostles? Well We'll look at that a little closer later on in the study

15:14

What about the third question If God would inspire it would he preserve it?

15:19

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?

15:27

What's your answer there Well, I don't know that there's a verse for that one

15:35

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,

15:58

I've lost the verse as the Lord You know what

16:07

I'm talking about, let me look it up got too much active head in my head this morning

16:14

I See now

16:20

I'm having to do your homework for you, it's not fair. I Hope one of you will find it before I do

16:44

Well, I'm not gonna try anymore. I'm gonna waste our time, but it speaks of the fact that the

16:51

Holy Spirit's that the Here it is. My hands right on it second

16:56

Peter 1 20 and 21 knowing this first that no prophecy of the scriptures of any private interpretation

17:04

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

17:11

Holy Ghost That verse along with Deborah's indirectly talk about it, but not directly

17:17

Fact is the answer number four It is true that God sometimes will use evil people even to fulfill his will

17:27

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

17:36

Bible where he used evil people or people who were doing evil things to To accomplish his will such as the

17:44

Pharaoh in Egypt He was exactly in the middle of God's will and there wasn't a thing he could do about it

17:49

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.

17:59

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

18:11

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

18:19

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

18:28

The fifth question would there be any counterfeits of the preserved text circulating around the world who would answer that one?

18:44

To promote false doctrine Yes Satan's ministers appear as ministers righteousness is a good verse

18:55

How about 2nd Corinthians 2 17 where all the way back even in the time when the

19:00

Bible was still being pinned? the Apostle Paul said for we are not as Many which corrupt the

19:08

Word of God. Can you believe that that the corruptions were beginning to pay take place? Even before the

19:14

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

19:21

Word of God the scriptures So yes, there were counterfeits Circulating around the world dating all the way back to the first century.

19:29

In fact, most of the worst corruptions that have happened to the New Testament happened the first 100 years

19:35

Isn't that amazing are certainly within the first 200 years? What kind of men would these corruptions come from would you think?

19:46

corrupt men Right corrupt men who are corrupters well usually from men who want to prove a certain doctrine that is a fallacy

19:58

Are you familiar with Arianism? What does Arianism teach in a nutshell we need to know this

20:14

I've forgotten some hoping you'll remember now What is what is Arianism? It was one of the earliest heresies

20:20

Come on somebody tell me We had one up. We had an

20:25

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

20:37

Some material and Ben came he said Luke dad some books about Jesus Arians brought him

20:45

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

20:54

No, no. No, I mean the main thing. There's a there's a hundred things you start listing them.

21:00

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?

21:07

worst heresy Jesus is not God Jesus is not

21:15

God. Who is he to to the Arian? He's a he's

21:20

Lucifer's brother He's Satan's brother the Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the Mormons believe it, but they did not invent it

21:27

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

21:38

And that's why it's called Arian Heresy and So this has been

21:44

Battled out from the very beginning that one of the earliest corruptors of the scripture. I believe was a man named

21:51

Origen who Created a book that had four columns in it and each one had different versions of the

21:59

Greek and He quote corrected the Bible But what's interesting is origin was an

22:05

Arian Who did not believe Jesus was God and in a moment when we reach from some of the modern versions

22:10

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

22:18

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

22:30

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

22:43

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?

22:49

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

22:59

God have been changed in all of your modern Bibles because they go back to the Vaticanus and to the

23:06

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

23:15

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?

23:30

It's not in the real Bible. So they just change it. The New World Translation is a great example.

23:36

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,

23:43

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

23:52

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

24:02

These kinds of changes have been made by people who were trying to distort the doctrines of the

24:07

Bible Now, let me throw this out at you because we're gonna hit this two or three times

24:12

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

24:20

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

24:29

Translation and the man who taught it Was one of the translators of the New American Standard.

24:35

I was impressed that they would have him there It's really impressive to see this man and hear him speak

24:41

He was one of the actual translators Who went to the Greek and the Hebrew and brought it back into the

24:47

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

25:01

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

25:15

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

25:33

New Testament There are doctrines that people change on purpose because they don't want to believe those doctrines

25:38

Whereas with Shakespeare and Homer nobody cares There's no doctrinal beliefs that anybody would have any reason to change

25:46

So you can go with the idea that the oldest manuscript of Homer is probably closer to the

25:52

Accurate to the original because it's closer to it But that does not always hold true with the

25:57

Bible because the oldest manuscript you find May be found in a Vatican library and may be an

26:03

Aryan document, even though the Roman Catholics are not Aryan The Aryan manuscript that it came from probably back from origin was certainly

26:13

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

26:29

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

26:38

About the time he was arguing against Westcott and Hort when they when they put their work out

26:44

All right, how could we know the difference between a counterfeit and the real thing?

26:51

That's a difficult question That's a very difficult question Because you have different theories and good men believe both theories even today

27:03

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?

27:09

We'll see if we can come to a conclusion on that You know in verse 8 the 8th question was more

27:16

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.

27:21

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

27:29

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

27:39

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

27:59

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

28:09

Holy Spirit is what made it happen Now what's interesting about it is that?

28:18

Since the received text was used so often the English mind has word formulas in it

28:25

They come from that text and when a preacher gets up to preach and in the middle of his sermon

28:30

He quotes a fragment of a verse or a part of a verse that really draws bearing on the subject

28:36

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

28:44

Amen, and it just sings out from your heart when you begin to change those old familiar word formulas to modern

28:51

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

29:02

We probably shouldn't be changing the King James because those word formulas have been burned into our hearts for so many generations

29:11

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.

29:22

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.

29:28

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

29:38

Sinaiticus and that's spelled s I in a t a I see us s

29:46

I in a t a I see us and it's given the letter

29:54

Excuse me alif in the Greek alphabet And it dates back to about 340

30:02

AD Now some people date it slightly older than the Vaticanus But I would say most scholars probably date it slightly younger than the

30:11

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

30:21

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

30:35

Vaticanus and the Sinaiticus But what's interesting about it is that the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus do not even agree with each other

30:41

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

30:58

Timothy 3 16 the Sinaiticus agrees with the

31:03

Vaticanus against the deity of Christ Let me give you an example

31:10

Let's see brother. Which one did I give? Yeah, brother bill read 1st

31:17

Timothy 3 16 in that version and the rest of you turn in your Bible to 1st

31:22

Timothy 3 16 Now in this particular verse the

31:29

Vaticanus and the Sinaiticus both agree With the version that brother bill is about to read and brother

31:35

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

31:43

American standard You'll see that it agrees with with bills, but it disagrees with the King James Who Deborah would you read the

31:50

King James for me? Okay, stop right there

32:00

Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. What would that teach?

32:07

What doctrine would that teach It teaches

32:12

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

32:19

Bible? It'd be a problem, wouldn't it? All right bill read yours Stop It didn't have the word

32:31

God in it it said he who was revealed in the flesh that could be anybody

32:42

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

32:49

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

32:54

But the received text says God was manifest in the flesh It's perhaps the strongest verse in the

33:00

Bible in the deity of Christ All the modern versions have changed the word God to the word he

33:06

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

33:13

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

33:20

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

33:36

Arguing with these people before I learned it didn't do much good All right. So the

33:42

Sinaiticus and the Vaticanus, would you read that? Did you look it up clearance? It's hard to see isn't it?

33:50

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

34:08

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

34:20

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

34:37

Sinaiticus Keeps the deity of Christ in those verses, but the Vaticanus takes it out now

34:43

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.

34:50

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

34:58

Vaticanus or the Sinaiticus Well that pretty much

35:14

I Think that pretty well stays there.

35:23

What? What about look up mark 1 1 See sometimes

35:36

Westcott and Hort would go with the Sinaiticus over the Vaticanus, but not often Mark apparently there they did mark 1 1

35:49

Okay, they kept that they kept they got that from the Sinaiticus What's interesting is the Vaticanus removes the word

35:55

God there in mark 1 1 and it removes the deity of Christ from Colossians 2 9 through 10, but the

36:01

Sinaiticus keeps it So there's an example of where the two of them disagree Now what's interesting is they would use two

36:08

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

36:19

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

36:32

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.

36:40

This is the third one We'll mention it's from the 5th century. It's called the Alexandrinus Some people call it

36:45

Alexandria's some call it the Alexandrinus and that's given the letter a kept a letter a it it leans strongly towards the

36:55

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.

37:08

We'll get back to that Alright, there's also a C a D and L and a

37:13

Delta those are the most ancient of the unseals now the next type of Group that we come into which would be

37:21

Roman numeral number two and our study here are called the Greek cursives Cursives mean just what it says.

37:29

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

37:41

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

37:47

Vaticanus and Sinaiticus They date back generally to the 9th through the 16th century

37:55

It's interesting that out of the cursives they agree three to one with the received text

38:03

There are three times as many of them that agree with their seed received text as there are that agree with the

38:08

Westcott Hort text Now the third Roman numeral and and type of material that we have to look at our collection

38:15

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

38:23

The lection Aries They contain extracts from the New Testament.

38:29

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

38:38

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?

38:47

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

38:52

And you'll read have responsive reading that's been done for thousands of years And that's exactly what these lection

38:58

Aries were at least one of the things they accomplished was they contain Responsive readings orders of service and so forth in the

39:06

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

39:16

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

39:24

Greek New Testament and So that's kind of gives you some interesting information to to deal with and some very important Information.

39:32

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

39:41

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

39:46

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

40:01

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

40:10

Extant Greek manuscripts that are exist today that some of them are 200 years older than the

40:15

Vaticanus for example, and So there we've already studied this so I won't go over it's mainly in three families the

40:23

Western family I gave all these names of the church fathers to you already and you'll get this in print.

40:29

So don't worry about it The Alexandrian fathers and the Antiochian fathers are sometimes called the

40:35

Byzantine fathers, those are the three groups I Would say that to me the

40:41

Antiochian fathers are the most interesting Because they come from that part of the world that the

40:46

Bible indicates Is where people were first called Christians in Acts chapter 13 verses 1 through 5 in Acts chapter 11 verse 26

40:55

Also, the first missionaries in history were sent out from this place. And so I really like these church fathers

41:02

I tend to have more faith in them than I would those that came from the Western The Roman Catholic group or from the

41:10

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

41:24

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

41:45

The language of the day was not English back in those days. It was Latin in the days of the

41:51

Roman Empire so most many Latin versions are very very ancient

42:00

We have first of all a Latin and Syriac New Testament in the year 382 somewhere between there and the year 470.

42:10

We're not sure exactly when but a man named Jerome Made a revision of the

42:16

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

42:25

There is an ancient Latin text before the time of Jerome now

42:31

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

42:42

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

42:57

Latin text But if you go back and you trace Latin Bibles before his time, they were very pure and very accurate

43:03

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

43:14

Bishop Rabula who also did some revisions Some believe that these revisions follow the

43:23

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

43:37

They get so caught up in their scholarship and their scientific method that they don't look at what the

43:43

Bible says about itself And they don't follow those guidelines and they don't wait those heavily enough

43:48

Nor do they wait the fact that we know the geography of the part of the world where the first Christians began to copy

43:55

Bibles and it was in the Syrian area Antioch area and they don't wait that they would weigh one

44:04

Created over in Egypt just as strong as they would one created right there where the Christians were The earliest

44:10

Christians and so I think they make some errors. I would tend to agree that Jerome probably

44:17

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

44:30

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

44:37

But there are many Latin verses quoted from such a Bible and they match the received text and they differ from Jerome's text

44:45

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

44:58

Latin Bibles that disagree with the modern Jerome Latin Bible, isn't that interesting?

45:05

So even the Latin Bible was changed in about the year 382 to 400

45:11

AD If you go back before that it matched what we have in the King James in the received text much more closely the

45:20

Walden sees who lived in 1100 to 1300 in The Alba guinnesses in the year 1300 to 1500

45:28

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

45:36

He wrote a little book called the trail of blood and it traced the Baptist all the way back through to the

45:43

Waldensians and Some kind of scoff at him because he said well, they weren't called Baptist and it's true

45:48

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

45:56

Baptists but if you go back to the Walden sees it's interesting because they used an ancient

46:01

Latin version called the italic version and It dates back to about 157

46:07

AD in Italy France and Great Britain. They were all provinces of the Roman Empire They were all

46:14

Latin speaking at that time and so the first translations of the Bible in these countries were made from the

46:20

Greek Vulgate into the Latin and The Walden sees in northern Italy had one of the earliest versions of this

46:27

Latin Bible translated no later than 157 AD Which dates back? Almost 200 years older than the

46:34

Vaticanus. What's interesting? Is it more nearly matches the received text than it does the modern versions?

46:41

The renowned scholar Beza stated that the italic Church dates from 120

46:46

AD Alex another outstanding scholar stated that enemies had corrupted many manuscripts

46:53

While the italic Church handed them down in their apostolic purity That's a quote from Alex churches of the

47:01

Piedmont on page 11 ,000 288 but this man

47:07

Alex who wrote this church history book states that the italic Church Handed down the scriptures in their apostolic purity.

47:16

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

47:22

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

47:30

Where some of these quote corrections were made later on in time the old Latin which

47:35

Tertullian spoke of and the Waldensians used So this is just some interesting history another

47:47

Ancient translation is called the Syrian This would be the third ancient translation

47:54

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,

48:02

I can give you three books we can quote from from scholars Who say that the origins of the

48:10

New Testament come from the Asia Minor Syrian? Antioch part of the world and that when the canon was first put together

48:18

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

48:26

There's a man named Harnack who wrote a book called the origins of the New Testament There's a man named

48:32

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

48:49

Taken into the Asia Minor Syrian area and that's where the first copies came from The next would be

48:57

Tatian's diatessaron, which dates back to 110 to 172

49:03

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

49:19

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

49:28

They don't always follow their own theory because if the most ancient one matches the received text they don't go with it.

49:34

Isn't that interesting? I Find that to be kind of hypocritical Then There's an

49:41

Egyptian translation we have two different kinds called the Sahitic and that's in the southern

49:48

Egypt and there are about five of those manuscripts available and in the Boheric or the

49:53

Coptic which is found in the northern part of Egypt. There are about 80 of those they generally are closer to the

49:59

Alexandrian text and usually agree with origins text and These have what we believe to be some corruptions that were placed in the

50:09

Bible around the year 150 to 400 AD The next

50:16

Great division of annual manuscripts and this takes us to Roman numeral six

50:21

Are called the papyrus fragments and these are very very important They were not written on the luxurious vellum, which was animal skins

50:30

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

50:39

And yet we have many of these that have been discovered and some of them are quite old and In fact when you read

50:49

Kurt Allen's book It deals with the more current or the most recent finds among the papyrus finds

51:00

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

51:12

But these papyrus fragments they come from the biblos plant

51:17

Which was cheap paper of the day and first they appeared as scrolls and then they can be put into a codex or what?

51:25

We would call a book They were used by Soul winning believing Christians and copied and recopied and recopied as the people use their

51:33

Bibles just like we use them today They are numbered 1 through 19 by Kenyon Who found several of these in the year?

51:41

1912 most of them are found about 120 miles south of Cairo and the Libyan desert

51:47

Because of the arid nature there they didn't tend to rot So they lasted through the years.

51:54

They're usually average about 30 inches long and 9 to 10 inches wide There is a group called the

52:00

Chester Beatty Fragments found in the year 1933 through 37.

52:05

There's the Bodmer papyri fragments found 1956 through 1962

52:12

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

52:26

They're only about 54 of the actual fragments It's interesting that modern critics often reject these old manuscripts or these papyrus

52:36

Fragments when they agree with the received text, even if they're older They just don't talk about them very much

52:42

But Kurt Allen, as we'll show later, has pretty much shown that the papyrus fragments destroy the

52:48

Westcott Hort theory completely And then seventh we have this division of fragments

52:56

Sermons from early church preachers that have verses in them where you can compare those verses to the different manuscripts

53:01

So that gives you the different things that we have out there the different manuscripts. There are over 5 ,000 of them

53:10

And that doesn't even include the lectionaries the Sermons from early preachers and so forth.

53:16

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

53:31

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

53:37

Try to put this maze in this puzzle together to come up with our

53:42

Greek New Testament I think you'll find it very interesting. Let's stand and have prayer together We'll start next time

53:52

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.

54:06

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

54:14

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

54:25

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

54:33

You've given it to us We in turn must preserve it and give it to our children and grandchildren until the

54:40

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

54:53

Word of God which brings the objectivity to our faith It brings us the standard

55:01

To our faith and all things must be measured against it and we thank you so much for it

55:07

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