Church Hopping

ChurchHopping.com occasionally addresses issues about disputed texts in the Bible. Most of the time it is of a debate between whether or not the text should be included in the Bible. The obvious concern is that the Bible is supposed to be the inerrant Word of God, but how can it be if there is disputed text? ChurchHopping.com believes that the Scriptures are the Word of God and without errors in the original manuscripts. The disputed texts are a result of man’s intervention with the Bible. However, these errors are extremely insignificant.

Of the 20,000 lines of Scripture in the New Testament only about 40 lines read differently between the accepted manuscripts. That means that only 0.2% of the New Testament is disputed. None of these affect any major doctrines and most are stylistic or spelling differences. Translation of the Bible also takes into account quotations from early church fathers who were so close to the original manuscripts. There are around 86,489 New Testament citations by church fathers in the 2nd and 3rd century. These quotes cover the entire New Testament except for about 11 verses. This means there is a wealth of information that validates what is now in our New Testament.

The New Testament far surpasses any other ancient document when it comes to consistency and accuracy of translation.

If you are interested in more information about the accuracy of the Bible, try listening to the Verdict series by Andy Stanley of North Point Ministries for free on iTunes.

If you are interested in the process and challenges of translating the Bible into different languages, try listening to the two part series entitled The Challenges of Bible Translation provided by Dallas Theological Seminary for free on iTunes.