The Bible: Transcultural Truth
The Bible, as God’s word, is not confined to a single time or culture. It claims to be the very word of God to us (e.g., 2 Timothy 3:16). Consequently, it can be challenging to read, understand, listen to, and apply in various ways. The Bible being outside of us makes it best suited to speak to us. Even if, for that very reason, it’s difficult for us to receive.
The Bible is, as Christopher Watkin has said, “a book that does not share our contemporary assumptions or blind spots and that was not written for our particular culture. More than that, it is a library of old books, illuminating our blind spots and assaulting our prejudices from a kaleidoscopic range of angles simultaneously.”[1]
So, the very thing that some people balk at in the Bible is one of the very things that shows its worth. We often need a critic of our culture even if we don’t think we do, probably especially if we don’t think we need it. The Bible being outside our culture is best able to speak to our culture. “The Bible will affirm some aspects of all cultures and challenge some aspects of all cultures, and it can find a home in all cultures as it transforms each of them from within.”[2]
If you think the Bible is out of date or not in line with your sensibilities, that might be just what you need. Your date and sensibilities are not the arbiter of truth. You need a measurement other than yourself. You need a compass outside your culture.
The Bible is much more than a map, but a map helps us not because it tells us what we want to hear, but because it aligns with reality. In fact, a map helps us in proportion to how much it matches reality. We need something outside of us to orient us, even if we don’t like it or naturally agree with it. Perhaps especially if we don’t agree with it; that’s when a map or GPS is most helpful, when we’d be most lost without it.
A treasure map like I used to make as a kid, with a squiggly line and an “X” marking the spot, doesn’t do anything to orient us. It’s fully autonomous.[4] Sometimes, however, we don’t like accurate maps. For instance, I don’t always like where the GPS says I am located in reference to my destination, especially if I’m late for an appointment. It’s true. It’s useful. But it’s not always enjoyable.
The Bible is not like a mirror reflecting an image of ourselves, but yet it is a mirror showing us ourselves.[5] But through the mirror of God’s word, we see ourselves not alone, but in reference to God, so we see ourselves as we were meant to be, and not just as we are (James 1:22-25). The Bible, in contrast to science (not that science is bad!), gives us what ought to be, not just what is.
I’m not trying to be unkind in saying this, but if we think about it for more than a moment, I think we should be able to realize that our autonomous reason is not the most reliable truth-discerning tool in the universe. If, however, there’s a God like the Bible describes, He’s smarter, and His judgments are more reliable than mine. If He and I differ on a matter, and He’s God and I’m a creature, it’s reasonable to assume He’s correct and I’m mistaken. If the Bible’s God exists, His reason and ways are more reliable than mine.[3]
God is much more than a cosmic referee, and the Bible is much more than a measuring stick. It is that. It tells the truth (John 17:17). And we need that. But the Bible tells a story. A big, grand, true story. A story that starts before time and ends in eternity, ends in happily ever after. It tells the story of a wise and loving King, a fierce dragon set to destroy, and a rebellious people in great need of rescue.
So, the Bible is not only transcultural truth, it’s a transcultural story. God not only speaks the truth to the world, but He loves and provides salvation to the world (John 3:16). The Bible narrates a cohesive story with Jesus as the central figure who fulfills every promise of Scripture and defeats sin, death, and the dragon of old. This story calls for a response, urging individuals to accept or reject Jesus and His promise of eternal life in a new creation.
Conclusion
The very thing that some people find objectionable in the Bible is one of its greatest strengths. We often need a critic of our culture, even if we don’t realize it, especially if we don’t think we need one. The Bible’s external nature is the quality that makes it both difficult to receive and inestimably valuable.
The Bible, as God’s word, transcends time and culture, challenging and affirming aspects of all cultures. It serves as a compass, aligning with reality and providing a grand, true story that offers a perspective beyond our own.
Notes
[1] Christopher Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory, 333.
[2] Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory, 583.
[3] Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory, 135.
[4] The ancient Greek word autonomos, which means “having one’s own laws” or “self-governing.” It combines autos (“self”) and nomos (“law”).
[5] God is not like us; He is not a mirror in the sky reflecting our reflections back at us. Instead, He is a window that shows us something beyond ourselves. He rebukes our pride and never quite conforms to our idea of how He should be (Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory, 522).
*Photo by Meredith Spencer
Is the Bible Reliable?
Christians believe that the original manuscripts of the Bible give us God’s authoritative words, and we have very accurate copies of those original manuscripts. As the Bible says, God’s word will not pass away (Psalm 119:89; Isaiah 40:8; Luke 21:33; 1 Peter 1:23, 25).
We do not have an original copy of any piece of the New Testament (an “autograph manuscript”). The process known as textual criticism, however, helps us get back to what was originally written. What would have happened with the original writings of the New Testament, the autograph manuscripts, is they would have been carefully and painstakingly copied and then passed on to the next group of early Christians to carefully copy. These copies would have then been copied as well. Eventually, the original writing would get worn and torn.
We do not have original copies, but we have manuscripts that are very close to the date of the autographs. One of the amazing things about the New Testament is the sheer number of copies we have as well as how close they are to the original manuscripts, both in accuracy and date.
There are three main types of manuscript variants. Daniel Wallace, a specialist in Koine Greek and New Testament textual criticism, says that over 99 percent of textual variants don’t affect the meaning of the text, are not viable, or “don’t have any likelihood of going back to the original, or both.”[1] The largest category is spelling difference. “This accounts for over 75% of all textual variants.”[2] The second “largest category involves synonyms, word order, or articles with proper nouns.”[3] Neither of these categories impacts the message of the text in any meaningful way. There is a third and much smaller category, however, in which the meaning of the text can be affected. Two examples are the long ending of Mark (Mark 16:9-20) and the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53-8:11). In this third category, manuscript evidence must be weighed and considered. But even in this last category, no Christian doctrine is changed. Even Bart Ehrman, a popular New Testament scholar who is not a Christian, has written, “Essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.”[4]
We can be sure that we accurately have the words of God, but in a few places, we have needed to get back to the words of God, so we have had to trim back what is not supported by the manuscript evidence. So again, that’s what there are notes in most Bibles about the long ending of Mark and the woman caught in adultery.[5]
It should also be understood that “many textual variants exist simply because many ancient manuscripts exist. The amount of the manuscript evidence is one thing that makes the New Testament stand out among other works of antiquity.”[6] Other ancient works are supported by a dearth of manuscripts. Of course, with fewer manuscripts, you have fewer variants, but you also have less evidence to weigh to get you back to the original work.
The Bible’s number of manuscripts is especially impressive considering the Roman emperor Diocletian’s “Edict against the Christians” during the Great Persecution. In Eusebius’ Church History, he talks about the edict “commanding that the churches be leveled to the ground” and the Scriptures be destroyed by fire.[7]
So, is the Bible historically reliable? The Bible reports actual historical events and the manuscripts for the Bible are very reliable. Nothing in ancient literature matches the historical documentation of the Bible. Nothing comes close.
Compared with other ancient writings, the Bible has more manuscript evidence to support it than any ten pieces of classical literature combined.[8]
The reliability of the New Testament history is overwhelming when compared to that of any other book from the ancient world.[9]
The New Testament is easily the best-attested ancient writing in terms of the sheer number of documents, the time span between the events and the documents, and the variety of documents available to sustain or contradict it. There is nothing in ancient manuscript evidence to match such textual availability and integrity.[10]
Christians can be confident that most English translations of the Bible are fair representations of what the biblical authors wrote. A vast number of variants exist only because a vast number of ancient, hand-copied manuscripts exist. No textural variant anywhere calls any essential Christian doctrine into question or indicates completely different, competing theologies among the New Testament authors. We have not lost the message of the text. God has preserved his Word, and the text’s wording is trustworthy.[11]
In comparison with the average ancient Greek author, the New Testament copies are well over a thousand times more plentiful. If the average-sized manuscript were two and one-half inches thick, all the copies of the works of an average Greek author would stack up four feet high, while the copies of the New Testament would stack up to over a mile high![12]
Here’s a table[13] so you can see a visual representation of the manuscript data:
Therefore, “to be skeptical of the resultant text of the New Testament books is to allow all of classical antiquity to slip into obscurity, for no documents of the ancient period are as well attested bibliographically as the New Testament.”[14]
The Bible is historically accurate and other historical works collaborate information we see from the Bible. Tacitus, a first-century historian, wrote this about the early Jesus movement:
Therefore, to scotch the rumour, Nero substituted as culprits, and punished with the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. Christ, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and a pernicious superstition was checked for the moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue.[15]
Thus, early non-Christian sources support the main details about Jesus. The authors of the New Testament were either eyewitnesses to Jesus themselves or interviewed eyewitnesses, so we have accurate historical accounts about Jesus (e.g., Lk. 1:1-4; 2 Pet. 1:16; 1 Cor. 15:1-8; 1 Jn. 1:1-3).
There are reasons to trust the Bible from an archeological (and even an astronomical[16]) perspective as well. For years, many people thought the Hittites the Old Testament talks about did not exist. However, archaeological research has since revealed that the Hittite civilization did exist. There are many similar examples.
Various inscriptions support things we see in the Bible. The Pool of Siloam, once doubted, has been found. The James Ossuary seems to support facts about Jesus’ family. The Shroud of Turin, though debated, is potential “hard evidence.” In fact, “No book from ancient times has more archaeological confirmation than the Bible.”[17]
The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus are attested by various historical accounts. I believe a persuasive argument can be made for the validity of the actual physical resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. I believe the resurrection of Jesus best explains why the disciples were willing to die for their claim that Jesus was the resurrected Messiah and why the Jews would switch from gathering for worship on the Sabbath (on Saturday) to gathering on the Lord’s Day (Sunday, the day Jesus rose from the dead). I think it best explains why people, including Jews, would worship Jesus. It best explains all of it; the church,[18] the New Testament, and various parts of the Old Testament. So, we can trust the Bible to give us accurate historical accounts.
Notes
[1] Darrell L. Bock and Mikel Del Rosario, “The Table Briefing: Engaging Challenges to the Reliability of the New Testament” in Bibliotheca Sacra (vol. 175, January-March, 2018), 98.
[2] Darrell L. Bock and Mikel Del Rosario, “The Table Briefing: Engaging Challenges to the Reliability of the New Testament” in Bibliotheca Sacra, 98.
[3] Bock and Rosario, “The Table Briefing: Engaging Challenges to the Reliability of the New Testament” in Bibliotheca Sacra, 98.
[4] Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 252.
[5] “The New Testament grew in size from the earliest copies to the latest copies—fourteen hundred years later –by about 2 percent. That is a remarkably stable transmissional process” (J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, Daniel B. Wallace, Reinventing Jesus: How Contemporary Skeptics Miss the Real Jesus and Mislead Popular Culture [Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2006], 55).
[6] Bock and Rosario, “The Table Briefing: Engaging Challenges to the Reliability of the New Testament,” 99.
[7] Eusebius, Church History, 8.2.4.
[8] Josh McDowell, The New Evidence that Demands A Verdict, 9.
[9] The Popular Handbook of Archaeology and the Bible, 131.
[10] Ravi Zacharias, Can Man Live Without God?, 162.
[11] Bock and Rosario, “The Table Briefing: Engaging Challenges to the Reliability of the New Testament,” 104-05.
[12] J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, Daniel B. Wallace, Reinventing Jesus: How Contemporary Skeptics Miss the Real Jesus and Mislead Popular Culture (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2006), 82.
[13] See Josh McDowell, Evidence the Demands a Verdict, (San Bernadino, CA: Here’s Life, 1972). Homer’s Illiad is the best-attested ancient work after the New Testament.
[14] John Warwick Montgomery, History and Christianity, 29. “Since scholars accept as generally trustworthy the writings of the ancient classics even though the earliest MSS were written so long after the original writings and the number of extant MSS is in many instances so small, it is clear that the reliability of the text of the N. T. is likewise assured” (J. Harold Greenlee, Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism, 16).
[15] Tacitus, Annals 15.44. There are other examples we could look at. A Rabiniac writing says, ““Jesus was hanged on Passover Eve. Forty days previously the herald had cried, ‘He is being led out for stoning, because he has practiced sorcery and led Israel astray and enticed them into apostasy. Whoever has anything to say in his defence, let him come and declare it.’ As nothing was brought forward in his defence, he was hanged on Passover Eve” (Sanhedrin 43).
[16] “Astronomical records show that there were several significant celestial events around the time of Jesus’ birth” (Paul W. Barnett, “Is the New Testament Historically Reliable?” 246 in In Defense of the Bible. See esp. The Great Christ Comet). This is significant because of the “star” (or comet?) that was connected to Jesus the Messiah’s coming.
[17] The Popular Handbook of Archaeology and the Bible, 139.
[18] For example, “The creation of so many texts and their survival is remarkable and counter-intuitive. Jesus was a Jew, and anti-Semitism was rife in the Greco-Roman world. He came from Nazareth, a tiny village in Galilee, a remote landlocked principality. He was crucified, a brutal and humiliating form of execution reserved for the lowest orders to deter subversives, troublemakers, and slaves like those who followed Spartacus” (In Defense of the Bible, 228-29).
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦
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