Bible Studies

Is the Word of God really infallible? The answer to a friend's question

by Bridget Howe
04/02/16
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A friend of mine on Facebook asked some very pertinent questions pertaining to the Christian faith which I think deserve a worthy answer. I tagged some of my other Christian and non Christian friends with these questions to see what kind of responses I could get. Then I decided to simply address her questions myself. Fortunately or unfortunately I tend to be exhaustive when addressing these things so a simple post on Facebook would simply not be effective enough so I decided to do all the research, write it all down and then post the link to this article. I posted answers to two other questions on FB because they were easier to answer. However, she asked a question pertaining to the Codex Sinaiticus and the King James Bible and there are apparently a significant number of differences. The issue targets an age old dilemma. How can a document, called the Bible which we call the word of God written by humans be considered infallible?

Let me say first of all that as believers we should never ever be afraid of challenges to our faith. We may not have the answers to the questions and challenges, but we can find them. Those challenges are meant to cause us to look deeper and learn something and it gives us an opportunity to open ourselves in relationship to people who need to know God better and they need to see God in us. So when someone throws us a curve we respond with grace.

I had never heard of the Codex Sinaiticus before so I said, “I'll get back to you. Let me do some research.” I found out that the term Codex Sinaiticus means Sinai Book and refers to a complete copy of the Greek Bible which was discovered by Constantin von Tischendorf at St Catherine's Cathedral at Mt. Sinai. He dated it to be around 400 AD. Besides 14,800 corrections, canonized material from the text was erased and it contains heretical material and apocryphal books. Some text that had been altered revealed gnostic influence. There were multiple differences in the text of the Codex Sinaiticus and the King James Bible. Those who revere the King James Bible would naturally dismiss the Codex Sinaiticus. Quite frankly I would probably do the same. However, the King James Bible, though it is still considered a very good translation, has its problems. The one major problems is that King James altered the text himself. He hired a committee to translate the Bible from the Codex Receptus. He changed the name of one of Jesus's disciples from Jacob to James in honor of himself.

This is exactly the problem with Bible translation. Translators are humans and subject to errors and corruption. So how can we say that the word of God is infallible? In fact even in the Bible the Scribes are rebuked for deliberately altering the text of the scriptures. The Massoretes also were known to do the same. Yet we say that the word of God is infallible. How to we call the Bible the infallible word of God? That is a very fair question and worth a very fair answer.

First of all we have to recognize that God exists and that he desires to communicate with us. We also have to recognize that he has to communicate with us in a way we can understand, yet he is an invisible God. We relate to the world through our five senses, and we normally don't relate to our invisible God that way. In other words, we don't call him on the phone, send him emails, sit in the coffee shop and have a cup of coffee with him. He doesn't publish books that you can buy up at Amazon.com etc unless you are going to buy a Bible. So how does God communicate with us? Well I am going to go to the “infallible” word of God to start. Let's take a look. Hebrews 1:1, 2 HRB says, “In many ways and in various ways of old, Elohim spoke to the fathers in the prophets. In these last days He has spoken to us in the Son, whom He appointed heir of all, and by whom also He made the worlds.”

Consider that God is an eternal being. He has no beginning and no end. In the Bible there are 66 books written over a period of about 1500 years. Bible scholars believe there were about 39 authors of those 66 books. Now lets think a minute. God never changes. (Malachi 3:6 HBR “For I am Yahweh, I do not change.”)He remains constant over that entire period. All of those authors, some of whom may have known each other and some of whom many not have known each other, are all writing about the same God. They are writing on scrolls, papyrus, parchment or not at all just passing things on word of mouth. There is no printing press so there is no wide dissemination of printed material. Everything is hand copied. There is one way to ascertain if all these people are writing about the same God. He has the same name. He has the same personality characteristics. He never changes. He is consistently the same person for all those 1500 years during which the Bible was being written. The attributes of God must be consistent.

The Bible is also clear that we can understand God from what can be observed from nature. Romans 1:20 HRB says; For, from the foundations of the world, the invisible things of Elohim are clearly seen and understood, in the things He created, even His eternal power and divinity; so they might be without excuse;..”, We can observe from nature that God is an orderly God, not a God of chaos. We can observe that God values life and not death. That God intends for living beings to be provided for. We can also ascertain that he is a very powerful God to have created a universe as intricate and fine tuned at the one we live in by the word of his mouth.

In the Bible is something else besides the attributes of God. That is history. Archaeology today is over and over again turning up evidence that what is recorded historically in the scripture is absolutely true. One of the most primary examples I can think of is the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. Most recently a documentary film was released by Timothy Mahoney (Thinking Man Media) in 2015 called Patterns of Evidence which challenged the previous conclusions of multiple archaeologists that there was no evidence of the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. Timothy Mahoney found that those who drew this conclusion had tried to date the exodus at the wrong time but there was a large body of evidence showing it had in fact taken place much earlier. In addition to this documentary two other groups were searching and located in Saudi Arabia a rock jutting out of the ground that had been split in two by a force of water that gushed out of the ground creating a large lake in the desert with enough water to supply a large group of people. If you google split rock research you can read about it and also see it on You Tube (splitrockresearch.org). The story of Moses striking the rock and water coming forth is found in the story of the Exodus and in Isaiah (48:12, HRB And they did not thirst; He led them in the deserts; He made waters flow out of rock for them. And he cut open the rock and the water gushed out.”) Also another group of researchers found the remains of Egyptian chariots at the bottom of the red sea where the Egyptian army would have perished when they attempted the overtake the Hebrews who were crossing. The Red Sea Crossing of Exodus is a detailed explanation of the findings of archaeologists searching for evidence of the crossing of the Red sea available also on You Tube.

Another piece of evidence of the infallibility of the word of God is the infamous shroud of Turin. This piece of fabric being guarded by the Catholic Church is purported to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. Is is really? The Shroud of Turin Research Team, a group of forensic scientists of all sorts, set out to answer that question. There was one Christian on that team, only one. They were all of them scientists and they stuck very doggedly to the scientific methods in their study. They studied the gospels to see just exactly how Jesus Christ suffered and died and compared his suffering and death to that of the man in the shroud. Their findings were detailed in the book written by Kenneth Stevens and published in 2000 called Image of the Risen Christ. This is what they found;

- The image on the shroud was not forged. A real body had been buried in the cloth. It was not painted nor scorched. There were no brush strokes and there was the presence of real blood on the cloth.

-The man buried in the shroud suffered and died in exactly the same way Jesus Christ suffered and died according to the gospel story.

-He had been in that cloth exactly three days and three nights before he came out. This they determined because rigor mortise has set in but there was no decay. (Matt 12:40 HRB And even as “Jonah was in the belly of a huge fish three days and three nights”, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights; Acts 13:35 HRB “You will not give your holy to one see corruption [many versions decay].”)

-He came out of the cloth without disturbing the cloth. In other words he came through the cloth.

-The power that emanated from the body that caused the image to be imprinted on the cloth would have destroyed any normal human body. However, they determined that the only logical explanation for what the evidence presented to them in the shroud was that the man who had been buried in that cloth had been raised from the dead. (Acts 10:40 HRB, “YAHWEH raised him on the third day and allowed Him to be seen openly;)

Here we are back at the original question. Is the Bible completely infallible? Let's be square on this. God's word is infallible. That is the word that proceeds from his mouth is perfect. The people through whom he speaks are not, nor those who copy and translate his word. We can obviously assume that the people who God chose to speak originally were the most capable and competent people for the job. That means the original manuscripts are going to be the most accurate. As the manuscripts are copied and copied again there is increased possibility for error. The scribes created a systematic way of copying the manuscripts that eliminated as much error as possible. However, There was still corruption among the scribes and those who copied the manuscripts. So we can logically assume the the closer back in time we get to the original there is less corruption and more agreement among duplicate copies. Bible scholars look for agreement among copies to determine if a manuscript is corrupt or not. But here is the challenge for you. God gave you the ability to think and reason. He also makes you responsible for perusing him and his truth. God isn't going to make finding truth a piece of cake for you. You have to want it bad enough to hunt for it. The problem is that people can be presented with truth, but they can choose not to believe it, or they can choose to believe in a lie. In Jeremiah 29:13 HRB he says “And You will seek and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.” To that end Don Espisito translated the Hebrew Roots Bible which I highly recommend. Aware that the Massorets and the Scribes had biases that caused them to deliberately alter the scriptures he cross checked those texts with other ancients texts and did his best to ensure he was getting the most accurate translation. There are translators out there who are very honestly trying their best to do just that though they are in fact very human and still very fallible. I very much admire Don Esposito and he writes some excellent commentary. There is a difference between commentary and translation. Commentary has to do with the interpretation of the word. Translation has to do with converting the text form one language to another. This is where we have to be very mature believers. We have to be responsible enough to understand that we have to can disagree with even the experts if something that say just doesn't sit right with us. If it doesn't make sense, if it doesn't sound logical, unscriptural, or for whatever reason our spirit is telling us something is just not right, it is okay to trust our own judgement. God gave you a mind. He intends for you to exercise it. Since we may not speak Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, we might check with several different translations and compare. There are also dictionaries available and some Bibles come with dictionaries like the Spiros Zodhiatis study Bible. You can look up the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic meanings of the words in scripture. Even in you are not a Bible expert you can find the truth for yourself with the many tools that are available to you now, not to mention the web. And you can cross check dictionaries too.

Now I want to address the question of the Codex Siiniticus. I looked at three different sources to examine this book which is a handwritten copy of the entire Bible that allegedly dates back to the 4^th century. The first source is a web sight dedicated to the Codex Sinaiticus, codexsinaiticus.org and gives some general information about the book including basic history. The second was a web page called 1611kingjamesbible.com which compares the Codex Siiniticus with the King James and examines some of the controversy surrounding the book. The third is a film called Tares Among the Wheat a 2012 film production that is available on Amazon.com instant video and is free if you have a Prime membership. There is also a free You Tube version. This film gives a very good background on the appearance of the Codex and also Tischendorf who allegedly discovered the manuscript. The question pertains to the legitimacy of the Codex and how it stands up to the King James Bible from 1611.

The Codex Sinaiticus was “discovered” by a protestant Pastor named Tischendorf at St. Catherine's Monastery at Mt. Sinai. He reported that he found pages of the manuscript in a basket of manuscripts that were about to be burned in the fire. He rescued the manuscript and later retrieved the remaining pages. The manuscript is a complete copy of the Bible including non canonized material that he dated back to the 4^th century. He became very famous for his “discover”y. The manuscript contains 14,800 corrections. Parts of the book of Mark were completely erased and other text was edited. One very telling “correction” is noted in the article at 1611kingjamesbible. It reads as follows;

Lastly Codex Sinaiticus (along with Codex Vaticanus) exhibits clear Gnostic influence. In John 1:18 “the only begotten son” is changed to “the only begotten God,” thus perpetuating the ancient Arian Heresy that disassociates the Son Jesus Christ with God himself by breaking the clear connection between “God” of John 1:1 with “the son” of John 1:18. We know that God was not begotten; it was the Son that was begotten in the incarnation.”

The scripture clearly tells us “Who is the liar except the one who denying that Yahshua is the Messiah? This is the anti-Messiah, the one denying the Father and the Son. Everyone denying the Son does not have the Father. The one who confessing the Son also has the Father (John 1:22 -23 HRB).y,

This is where we have to understand the history of the Codex Sinaiticus. Who is the liar - the antichrist. The Codex was birthed in the fire of an antichrist liar. The Tares Among the Wheat gives a very good background of the issue that pertains to the power of the Roman Catholic Church and the Vicar of Christ. The word “Vicar” means in place of or instead of. The inquisition occurred over this issue. The Pope declared himself to be “King of Kings” and professed that he had the power to tell rulers of all nations what to do because of his position as the Vicar of Christ. Among other things, the Bible had not been written in the language of the common people so the Vicar made a lot of claims, and no one was able to dispute him because they did not know what the Bible actually said. The Roman Catholic church declared that the holy scriptures were too sacred to be read by the common believer. Martin Luther and William Tyndale were among several who challenged that declaration and began translating the scriptures in the common tongue of the people. When people began reading the scriptures for themselves they could clearly see that the Vicar was a liar. The Vicar declared that his word was above the Holy Scriptures and he should be obeyed even if what was written in the world of God was contrary to his commands. True believers at that time refused to bend to his will were called protestants and this brought about the inquisition. Christians were being hotly persecuted by the Catholic Church. The Church created the Jesuit order at that time which was like an intelligence agency who sought out those who opposed the Pope. The Jesuits were a group of assassins. They also pretended to be protestants and became protestant preachers so they could spy on the protestant believers. This went on for a long long time.

Tischendorf, amazingly, though he professed to be a protestant preacher, enjoyed great favor with the pope. So while Tichendorf was kissing the Pope's ring his fellow protestants were in the dungeon of the Vatican being tortured which makes him very suspect.

In the 19^th century Tischendorf claims to have rescued parts of the Codex Sinaiticus which the monks of the monastery were throwing into the fire to be burned. He was later able to retrieve the entire manuscript. He claims that the manuscript dates back to the fourth century. However, there was one who challenged him claims. Constantine Simonides was a Greek paleographer who was given a copy of the manuscript that Tischendorf claimed he rescued from the fire. Simonides claimed responsibility for the manuscript himself. He said it was his work. He was making a copy of the Bible for the Russian Czar which he never completed. Simonides was also qualified because of his profession to make statements about the age of any manuscript and Tischendorf was not. None of the monks at the monastery would verify Tichendorf's story. One monk named Kalinicus wrote a letter in support of Simonides testimony because he was there while Simonides was working on the manuscript. Simonides was also in possession of a catch of very old manuscripts which he had inherited from his uncle who was also a paleographer. In his possession he had the only known copy of the Greek version of the Shepherd of Hermes which is contained in the Codex Sinaiticus. The pages that were burned which Tischendorf claimed to have retrieved from the fire had markings made by Simonides which the fire burned away. It appears that Tischendorf burned those pages himself to erase Simonides markings. In addition, the pages had been washed in lemon juice making them appear older than they really were. It seriously appears that Tischendorf created a forgery from Simonides work in support of the mission of the Vatican to stamp out any biblical translations what would discredit the claims of the Vicar of Christ including the 1611 translation of the King James Bible. The Vatican, by the way had a history of forging documents in support of their agenda which was at that time world domination.

The King James 1611 Bible came into existence when the Puritans of England objected to the Bible's then in use which would have been the Bishops Bible, the Great Bible and the Geneva Bible. The Puritans objection to these Bible's is that they were corrupt. King James became King of England in 1604 just after Queen Elizabeth, his cousin, has passed on March 24^th that year. He was also King of Scotland at that time. The desire for a new Bible translation was related to the Protestants' desire to distance the church of England from the Roman Catholic Church which was at that time proclaiming that the Roman Catholic Church was the only church and Protestant Christians were still being persecuted by Rome. King James wanted all the churches in his realm to be using the same Bible. Thus he appointed a committee which included the best scholars in Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew. It was translated from The Textus Receptus which was complied by DesideriusErasmus using the most accurate manuscripts. Erasmus opposed the excesses of the Roman Catholic Church; 

Erasmus was a constant and verbal opponent of the many excesses of his church. He berated the papacy, the priesthood and the over indulgences of the monks. He stated that the monks would not touch money, but that they were not so scrupulous concerning wine and women. He constantly attacked clerical concubinage and the cruelty with which the Roman Catholic Church dealt with so called "heretics." He is even credited with saving a man from the Inquisition (chick.com; Operation Somebody Cares).

The manuscripts that were used to compile the Textus Receptus agreed with each other 95% of the time. The Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are in the group of Alexandrian manuscripts which are not consistent with each other much of the time. They are considered corrupted manuscripts . The Rabbinic Bomberg text was used for the Old Testament translation (David W. Daniels, Bible Version; chick.com; 2001). This text is highly trusted among Bible Scholars However, the committee finished their translation of the King James Bible in 1610 and handed it to King James who promptly handed it over to Sir Francis Bacon who kept it for a year and filled it with Satan/Masonic symbols. This was the Bible that King James sent to the printer and this Bible was rejected by the Puritan and Pilgrim leaders as a wicked thing (cuttingedge.org; Defending the King James Bible). The translation might have been a good translation and today is still revered by many, but the original King James Bible was filled with Satanic imagery. A subsequent version of the King James Bible was corrupted.

As I said earlier in this article, the truth is absolutely available, but you have to want it and you have to search for it. We are human and sinful and it is very easy to take the path of least resistance and believe what makes us feel the most comfortable. However, the challenge remains to us to seek the truth, to seek God with all our hearts which may cause us some consternation from time to time. It is well worth the effort for the benefit to our souls and our relationship with our Creator.