Has The Bible Been Tampered With?

Biblegems #295

Question: Jeremiah 8:8 says that the scribes who copied God’s Word sometimes falsified it. If this is true, how can the Bible be trusted at all if it can’t be trusted in part?

Here’s the text:

         Jer. 8:8  How can you say, “We are wise, for we have the law of the Lord,” when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely?

To understand this verse, two questions need to be addressed: (1) Who were these “scribes;” and (2) what is meant by the phrase, “the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely”?

The Scribes

The scribes of the Bible were typically chosen from the tribe of Levi.

         2Chr. 34:12b-13  …The Levites—all who were skilled in playing musical instruments—had charge of the laborers and supervised all the workers from job to job. Some of the Levites were secretaries, scribes and gatekeepers.

Their task was to study, teach, and explain the meaning and application of “the Law of the Lord” —meaning the first five books of the Bible, plus all of the commands, teachings, rules and regulations found elsewhere in God’s Word. They were Bible scholars, the Bible experts who advised how to apply God’s “law” to everyday life. Ezra is a classic example of a good and godly scribe.

Another responsibility of the scribe was to provide accurate copies of God’s Word. In that capacity, they were the equivalent of today’s copy machines. They worked in teams, copying biblical text onto a new surface, such as vellum or papyri, checking and correcting each other’s work. This highly respected and trusted role in the community continued on into New Testament times and beyond.

The “Lying Pen”

God accused certain specific scribes of misinterpreting the law of the Lord in such a way that would make some unacceptable, sinful behaviors appear to be acceptable to God. God did not condemn the scribes as a whole, but specifically those who abused their responsibilities.

Were these irresponsible scribes actually changing the text of Scripture as they copied the old to new? Not likely. For one thing, others carefully edited each scribe’s work in order to ensure against copying errors—intentional or otherwise. Several sets of eyes helped to insure the incredible accuracy of the Scriptures.

“The lying pen” refers to the written interpretations of the Scriptures the scribes compiled to suit their own opinions. In the Gospel of Matthew (20:41-44), for example, Jesus challenges the teaching of the scribes on Psalm 101:1 as a misinterpretation. He then warns His disciples:

         Matt. 20:45-47a  “Beware of the teachers of the law [i.e., “scribes”]. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers.”

If anything, Jeremiah 8:8 proves how trustworthy the Bible is, for God does not ignore those who seek to abuse it, change it, or misrepresent it. As Jesus concluded in Matthew 20:47b, “These men will be punished most severely.”

Who Is Elhanan?

Biblegems #119

Question: According to 2 Samuel 21:19, Elhanan killed Goliath, yet 1 Chronicles 20:5 states that Elhanan killed the brother of Goliath. Who is Elhanan, how does this relate to David and Goliath, and how is this apparent discrepancy explained?

All right folks, buckle up your Bible Gems seatbelts—this one gets a little technical—but its well worth the ride!

The solution to the problem lies in the translation of the various Hebrew and Greek (LXX) texts available. It is important to remember that when translators talk about the “original text,” they are not referring to one single document that everyone agrees on as being the original. Instead, they are referring to the original language used in the most ancient and authoritative copies of the original document.

The fact is, truly “original” documents from Moses, David, Paul, etc., are called “autographs,” and none of them are in existence (so far as we know) today. What we do have are hundreds, sometimes thousands of copies, and copies of copies made by professional scribes, in varying degrees of completeness and condition. Some of these copies are very ancient, some are much more recent (archeologically speaking). All of this can lead to difficulty in accurately translating what the passage actually says, and therefore in translating what was in the original autograph.

The role of the Jewish scribe was to act as kind of a human copy machine, duplicating the Scriptures from one document to a new document so there would always be fresh copies for future generations. Scribes would occasionally make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes were not caught in the proofreading process and would end up in the new edition of the Scriptures. Such is the case with 2 Samuel 20:19. Accounting for scribal error, a more accurate translation of 2 Samuel 20:19 would be:

         “the Bethlehemite [killed] Lahmi the brother of Goliath.”

Today, Bible scholars have the advantage of comparing these ancient texts, finding scribal errors, and determining which reading is closest to the original autograph. Part of determining the accuracy of a copied text also includes comparing that text with similar passages in Scripture. For instance, we already know without dispute that David the son of Jesse from Bethlehem killed the giant Goliath (1 Sam 16:1, 18; 17:58; 1 Sam 17:51, 57; 18:6; 19:5; 21:9).

We also have this parallel account concerning Elhanan:

         1 Chr. 20:5 In another battle with the Philistines, Elhanan son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, who had a spear with a shaft like a weaver’s rod.

The Word of God is perfect and without error in the original manuscripts. The translation process, however, from ancient times until now, is a human endeavor and subject to error. Fortunately, those errors are miniscule and do not affect doctrine and the Truth of God’s Word. And where there are human errors, God in His grace gives us the tools and talented people to uncover those mistakes and provide correction. So, between the testimony of Scripture and the use of translation skills and resources not available to earlier generations, we are increasingly able to unravel the confusion that arises from a simple human mistake, and God still gets the glory!

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Revelation 8:13 Eagle Or Angel?

Bible Gems #89

Question: I use 2 Bible versions while at church. KJV (on my phone) & ESV. The KJV said angel(s) where ESV said eagle(s). It was in Revelation 8:13. Would you happen to know the reason for that? 

The most accurate reading is "eagle," not "angel." Here's why: 


One of the most daunting tasks Bible translators face is that of looking at the hundreds of ancient manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments and deciding which manuscript is the most accurate—especially when there are minor differences in word choices between them. I recommend reading Bible Gems #59 & #60, which deal with the translation process and the reliability of modern versions of the Bible.

Deciding between the wording of different ancient manuscripts is the case here, in Revelation 8:13. Some manuscripts of the Greek New Testament have the word “aetos” (“eagle” or “vulture”), while others use the word “angelos” (“angel”). If you were a Greek New Testament scholar and Bible translator, one of the guidelines you would use to help determine accuracy would be the age of the manuscript. Typically, the closer a manuscript is in time to the original, the more likely it is to accurately reflect the original.

The oldest Greek manuscript available to the translators of the King James Bible dated from about 900 AD (over 800 years after the New Testament was completed). One such manuscript is called Codex Porphyrianus, which includes the book of Revelation, and uses the word “angelos” (angel) instead of “aetos” (“eagle” or “vulture”).

Since the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls in 1947, Bible Translators now have Greek New Testament manuscripts dating much closer to the original writings of the apostles. Some of these (Codex Sinaiticus, etc) have become the standards of accuracy by which later manuscripts are judged. These older manuscripts use the word “aetos” (“eagle” or “vulture”) in Revelation 8:13.

“So why did later manuscripts change from eagle to angel?”

No one knows for certain. But Bible translator Bruce Metzger suggests that some scribes who were making fresh copies of Revelation from older manuscripts thought they were making a needed correction. Before Revelation 8, announcements from heaven were made by angels. So they changed the word “eagle” to “angel” “to harmonize what is done by the eagle into line with what is ascribed to angels elsewhere” (Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament  [New York UBS, 1971], p. 743).

This demonstrates again the beauty of God’s Word. The Bible is without error, as originally given by God:

         2 Tim. 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness…

Even when the Scriptures have been copied and recopied over thousands of years, translated into numerous languages, and updated into a variety of versions—still God’s Word remains faithful and true. The fallibility of man over the long centuries has resulted in only the smallest of inaccuracies, and none of those inaccuracies alter the truth or the message of God’s Word. In fact, as God has allowed archeologists to discover these very ancient Bible manuscripts, the farther away we get from them in time, the closer we are getting to their original form. To God be the glory!

Contradicting Numbers In The Bible

Biblegems #64

Question: Why is it that one event involving numbers, such as a person’s age or the number of soldiers in an army, can be recorded in more than one place in Scripture and those references give apparently contradictory numbers?

For example, 2 Samuel 24:9 and 1 Chronicles 21:5 both give an account of the same event—a census of the number of fighting men available to king David throughout Israel and Judah, but give different numerical totals:

2 Sam. 24:9  Joab reported the number of the fighting men to the king: In Israel there were eight hundred thousand able-bodied men who could handle a sword, and in Judah five hundred thousand.

1 Chr. 21:5 Joab reported the number of the fighting men to David: In all Israel there were one million one hundred thousand men who could handle a sword, including four hundred and seventy thousand in Judah.

A second example has to do with a discrepancy over the age of Jehoiachin when he began his reign as king—was he 18, as recorded in 2 Kings 24:8, or 8 years old, as it says in 2 Chronicles 36:9?

These examples represent two of the most common types of apparent contradictions in the Bible when it comes to numbers. The first is an example of misunderstood context, while the other is an example of a scribal error during copying of the biblical text.

The issue of context is familiar to Biblegems readers. In the case of 2 Sam. 24:9 and 1 Chron. 21:5, the key to the problem is found in the reference to “able-bodied men”  (“valiant men” KJV) in 2 Sam. 24:9. The term in Hebrew is “hayil,” meaning “battle-seasoned” troops. So the passage in 2 Samuel represents Joab’s report of 800,000 seasoned veterans ready for duty if called upon. The accounting in 2 Chronicles, however, is larger by 300,00 because it lists “all who could handle a sword,” in addition to the veterans.

The second example represents an error made by a scribe in the process of copying the text. Early Hebrew writing, such as that used in 2 Kings 24:8 and 2 Chronicles 36:9, used horizontal lines with a downward hook on the right end to represent a “10”. The number 20 would be shown as 2 of these hooked horizontal lines, one above the other. Vertical lines represented the number “1”. So 12 would be two vertical lines followed by a hooked horizontal line.

A scribe copying the number “18” onto a new parchment could easily misread the number as “8” if one of the horizontal lines were smudged, obscured by a crease or missing because of a tear in the original document.  This is not an error in Scripture, or a contradiction, but a human error made in the process of copying. The miracle is how few—and how insignificant—such scribal errors are!

For those interested in an overview of further explanations of apparent Bible contradictions, I refer you to Debate Topics Apologetics 101 at http://debate.org.uk/topics/apolog/contrads.htm