Is the Bible the infallible Word of God?
Or Not?
In the final chapter of Revelation the author placed a curse on any person who dares to make any changes to the manuscript.
“I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: if anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life.” NIV
These are harsh words indeed. Why was it deemed necessary to include such a stern warning? Obviously because this is what must have happened to manuscripts at the time when Revelation was penned. It might even have been a common occurrence.
Do we have any proof that this happened to the books that make up the Bible -that anything has been added to or omitted from it? I think we do.
Older versions of the Gospel according to Mark ends with a description of Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome on their way to the grave of Jesus. It was just after sunrise on Sunday morning. They planned to anoint his body with the spices they brought with them. When they came to the grave they found that the stone that was in front of the entrance, had been rolled away. Jesus was not there any longer. In the grave was a young man wearing a white robe who told them that Jesus has been raised.
“So they went out and ran from the tomb, distressed and terrified. They said nothing to anyone because they were afraid.” NIV.
This was where the book originally ended.
Later additions to Mark give an account of Jesus appearing first to Mary Magdalene and then to his disciples. The disciples were commanded to preach the gospel to the whole human race. They would be able to heal the sick, drive out demons and speak in tongues. Furthermore they were told that they would drink poison and pick up snakes without harm coming to them. It then goes on to describe how Jesus was taken up to heaven.
According to Bible scholars Mark is the oldest of the four gospels. It was written about 30 years after the crucifixion of Jesus. John the last gospel to be written, was composed 40 years after that. The additions to Mark are in keeping with accounts found in the other three gospels. The added text therefore does not change the message of the New Testament as such. It was probably added to make up for what early Christians felt were omissions in the book.
If you forge my signature, and sign a document I probably would have signed in any case, you could argue that no harm was done. According to modern standards however, it is still considered to be fraud.
It was also common practice to write under the name of someone else. Only seven of the fourteen Epistles of Paul can be attributed to him, the rest were probably written by his students.
If God was directly responsible for the accuracy of the Bible did He by mistake omit a part of one of the gospels, and had to rectify it at a later stage? I doubt that any Christian would agree with this notion.
Except for not giving an account of Jesus being taken up to heaven in the original version, what else was omitted from Mark? The account of the virgin birth for one. The belief that Jesus was not the biological son of Joseph possibly arose only after Mark was written.
The fact that text was added to Mark begs the question, what else were added or omitted, not only to Mark’s account of the life of Jesus, but possibly to other books in the Bible as well?
In an early version of John, the tale about the woman caught in the act of adultery and whose life was saved by Jesus telling the crowd that the person without sin should throw the first stone at her, is absent. It was put in Mark at a later stage and it even migrated to some manuscripts of Luke, because a scribe must have thought it would make a fitting addition to that book.
The Johannine Comma was added to 1 John 5:7–8. It first appeared in a Latin version of the Bible in the fourth century and in the 15th century was included in the Greek version of the Bible. You will find it in the King James Bible but it has been removed from most of the newer translations. It states that the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost are one and was used to prove the doctrine of the Trinity.
When a house is renovated it is more likely that a bedroom will be added instead of the lounge being knocked down. To build a house is expensive and it makes more sense to add to an existing structure, rather than to remove part of it. The same holds true for manuscripts. It is more likely that additions will be made to a book rather than to remove valuable text from it.
It is very likely that Christian beliefs evolved over time. It was only about three hundred years after the ministry of Jesus that he officially became God. One would expect that the teachings of the gospel written last would be different from the first one because of beliefs changing over time.
Matthew stressed the humanity of Jesus while in John he is portrayed to be very close to divine. This could be interpreted as steps in the evolution of Christian doctrine. It may however also be that the different gospels merely addressed different groups of people.
Matthew was written for Jewish Christians while John was meant to be read by a different audience with different belief systems. Matthew states that it is important to observe the Law of Moses to enter the kingdom of heaven. John puts more emphasis on Jesus as the saviour.
In the end both gospels were probably edited after they were written, to make the New Testament as a whole, more consistent.
During the first three centuries after the crucifixion of Jesus there existed a number of Jewish Christian sects, as well as different groups of non-Jewish Christians. The different sects held different opinions regarding Jesus. The Ebionites were Jews who saw Jesus as a righteous man, the biological son of Mary and Joseph. God chose him to be a prophet. They followed the laws of the Old Testament and rejected the atoning death of Jesus and his virgin birth. They were monotheists and would have considered the doctrine of the Trinity to be heretical. The only gospel that forms part of the Bible as it exists today they acknowledged, was the gospel of Matthew without the birth narrative.
I think that most of the tenets of Christianity were already formed when the gospels were written between about 30 and 70 years after the death of Jesus. It is conceivable that as time went by these writings may have been altered to reflect the changing beliefs, as it evolved, during the early Christian period.
The idea of the necessity of the death of Jesus for the salvation of mankind probably arose within a few weeks or months after his crucifixion. It would have helped his followers come to terms with the fact that the Messiah that was supposed to deliver them from suppression, was executed by the very Roman empire they were hoping to be delivered from.
In my opinion the books that make up the Bible were written by mystics who experienced the presence of God. Jesus himself was such a mystic who strived to do what God required of him. The gospels mention that he spent a lot of time in prayer looking for guidance.
I sometimes read accounts written by Christians who start to deconstruct their faith and find themselves on a slippery slope. They invariably end up being atheists because they cannot come to terms with contradictions in the scriptures, and end up writing off religion completely. This is certainly not the only reason why people lose their faith but it has to be a contributing factor.
Some religious people spend a lifetime devising elaborate arguments trying to explain inconsistencies in the Bible. It seems that the only people who think that the Bible should be interpreted literally are fundamentalist Christians and atheists.
Thomas Jefferson cut and pasted text from the Gospels in an attempt to get rid of the parts that had supernatural connotations. He completed the task in 1820 and called the resulting compilation of Bible verses the Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.
When the miner, after having toiled in the hot sun for many days washes the gravel and finds a large diamond — does he compare it critically with the gravel in which it was hidden? No, certainly not! Rejoicing, he hurries home to celebrate his good fortune with family and friends. For gravel has little value, but diamonds are rare and very precious.
If one is willing to accept that the Bible has been influenced by the opinions of fallible humans and is therefore not inerrant, you do not have to either believe every word of it, nor reject it completely. It then becomes possible to search for gems in the Scriptures without getting sidetracked by dirt and gravel.
