Textual Confidence

Posted at Gentle Reformation:

(Guest post by Rev. Stephen Steele, minister of Stranraer RPC Scotland and current Moderator of the RPCS)

Has God’s word been deliberately tampered with over the years? Have verses teaching the deity of Christ been systematically removed from our Bibles? Are the differences between ancient, modern and Reformation-era Bibles so significant that some of us have completely different Bibles from our fellow church members? Does admitting uncertainty about any part of the Biblical text (as the KJV translators did in their footnotes), mean that we can’t be certain about any of it?

You may have heard such claims. In fact, you may have heard them from two opposite ends of the spectrum. You may have heard them from liberals and sceptics such as Bart Ehrman, or you may have heard them from some in the church who could never in a million years be confused with a theological liberal.

Either way, it leads to the same result. It leads to the confidence of God’s people in their Bibles being shaken. And that is an unspeakable tragedy.

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