Appendix A
Infallibility and Inerrancy
It is a given that I believe that New Testament Scripture
is the inspired word of God - infallible and inerrant in its original
autographs. As to its currently being infallible and without error,
I have begged the question, “Which version?” All extant bibles, transcriptions
and translations are the valiant efforts of those who have done the
best that is humanly possible to preserve to mankind the word of God
in the most accurate form they could manage, according to their ability,
with what limited resources they may have had at their disposal. We have
over 200 New Testament translations to choose from today, and over 5000
New Testament manuscripts to support them. All claim to be the word of
God. The variance of whether one prefers the Alexandrian text-type or the
Byzantine text-type is the only real point of contention. It is dishonest
to imply that those utilizing the Alexandrian are purposely undermining
the faith of those prefering the Byzantine. It is merely a matter of preference.
If we all waited for perfection to come along, or resolution of the text
argument regarding the New Testament, none of us would have a single one
to read at this present hour. The word of God was indeed inspired, infallible,
and without error in the original apostolic New Testament autographs; but
we no longer have them at our disposal; so transcription and inspiration
aside, inerrancy and infallibility are, if you will, dead issues. Bringing
these two doctrines of man up to support a position one holds because his
faith is in a particular brand of book, which would be threatened otherwise,
just muddies the water with obscurity, pushes away intelligent inquiries
into the things of God by thinking individuals, and raises issues that would
not always be brought up otherwise. It matters not that something is often
repeated - that does not make it true. If there were indeed a valid doctrine
of infallibility and inerrancy, why did not God preserve his word perfectly,
without the multitude of manuscript textual variances we have at hand today?
If it was true, the manuscripts would not vary a whit, and we would have
no need for textual scholars to produce a Greek text to work from. These
two doctrines are designed to keep people in bondage to brow-beating ecclesiastical
tyrants who are resisting the credibility factor. Expositors would have
no need to refer to the underlying Greek texts and modify the translation
if the 1611 King James translation was indeed infallible and inerrant, and
all-sufficient. It is the best English version available because it has
been translated without an agenda, but it is not infallible and inerrant.
Case in point: Genesis chapter 20 where Abraham says, “She
is my sister,” This passage belongs before chapter 18:11-12 where it
says that Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken with years, and
that it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. It fits
between Genesis 13 verses 1 and 2. This puts a dagger into the doctrine
of inerrancy and infallibility. Indeed, Spinoza was at least partially
right because of the nominal Abram/Abraham comparative differences in
the texts. So we most probably do have two creation accounts woven together
in Genesis - by the original author - Moses, as he remembered them from
oral tradition learned from the Israelites in Goshen and his father-in-law
Jethro. As Napoleon Bonaparte has said to atheists regarding the stars,
"You must get rid of these first." This quote from Napoleon can also be
applied to those who denigrate other rational thinking beings because
they cannot believe the earth is only "six thousand years old." You must
get rid of the periodic fossil evidences first. There is fossil evidence
of man's contemporaneousness with dinosaurs; for in the Paluxy River's
bed is uncovered a fossilized dinosaur foot print with a man's foot print
within it. I have seen the photograph. This is supported in the book of
Job - the oldest book of the Bible. Again, spectacular academic gymnastics
are wrought in order to make science fit the six thousand year hypothesis,
all in an effort to protect the infallibility and inerrancy doctrine.
Genesis covers many thousands of years in one fifth of what
Moses wrote for the Jews after their 400 years of bondage in Egypt.
The other four fifths are four books covering a mere forty years. As
one has said, "Over time, history has become legend, and legend has become
myth." From our modern stand-point, the history of the first century
is quite sketchy when compared to our current recorded chronologies
of daily events. We only have a number of surviving manuscripts, and
the rest has been arrived at through induction. We can thank the printing
press for our modern proliferation of information and knowledge. First
century writings were painstakingly copied by hand, and when destroyed,
were many times lost forever. From the first century standpoint, the events
and doings of record concerning the exodus of the Jews have only the books
of Moses, Josephus, the writings of few pagan historians and an Egyptian
obelisk to fall back on for information. Before and during the Hebrew
bondage in Egypt, their men relied upon memorization of oral genealogies,
histories and traditions that were passed down from generation to generation
beginning with those set forth by Noah and his sons after the flood, which,
by the way, is supported by the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. (But if the
flood were merely local, why would not God more easily tell Noah to travel
somewhere else?) Noah and his sons were the only surviving source of those
things which transpired before recorded history as presented in the first
book of Moses, prehistoric events are even sketchier by comparison. The
Sumerians, the Egyptians, and others were hammering out systems of writing
to record for posterity their happenings. We of today had to crack the
code in order to make sense of hieroglyphics, sanscrit and the like. The
Rosetta Stone was a great help. I believe that much of man's oldest history
and genealogy has been lost with the ancient antediluvians, and Moses
just touched on the significant high points he could remember from legend,
folklore, and the surviving geneologies in oral Hebrew history, according
as he had learned them from the Israelites and his father-in-law, Jethro.
He certainly didn't learn it from the Egyptians, but he could have learned
some of it from the slaves. But what he did write was true, as evidenced
by the multitude of confirming archaeological discoveries, but I do not
think that we have all of it. The book of Genesis appears to have been a
compilation of relevant data, doing the best one man can with memory and
tradition, and without the aid of lost archives. I do not believe that it
alone was dictated by God to Moses, for if it were, there would be a complete
comprehensive tightness to it that could not be cracked by the wisest of
individuals. Genesis is replete with epexegetical commentary supplied by
Moses to update and reintroduce the Jews to their native land and their
suffering oral tradition. A lot can be forgotten in 400 years of slavery,
and what they did know was from Joseph and his father and brothers, handed
down by tradition; and there is recorded on the inside of an Egyptian tomb
the arrival of Joseph's father and brothers into Egypt supporting that event.
The slaves were probably not given the luxury of writing materials. The
sons of Esau may have been the repository that preserved much of what Moses
had learned from Jethro, but this is speculation.
But the point is not: we should doubt in the God of the
Jews and Judaism, and by extension the Christ of Christianity, because
we can find fault with the book of Genesis: the point is that we can
believe in Judaism, and by extension, the Christ of Christianity,
because we have abundant evidence that God began to deal with his people
again after those 400 years of silence through the deliverance by miracles
of his chosen people from the bondage of Egypt, and the applied administration
of the Law. This dealing began afresh with the book of Exodus onward,
and there is plenty of archaeological evidence in Egypt, on the Island
of Santorini, and in recorded Jewish history to back this up. The mountain
we mistakenly call Mount Sinai (Mount Horeb) on the Sinai Peninsula is
not where the Jews met with their God. There are no traces there that
anything ever happened. This meeting took place at what we today call
Jabal al Laws in Saudi Arabia. The rocks on its peak are burned black,
and there is abundant evidence all around its base that the Jews were
encamped there for some time. The only problem is that the Saudis won't
let anyone near it. A covert incursion by a couple of biblical archaeologists
provided filmed evidence for us all to see. God had selected and delivered
a people for his Name's sake (reputation) in the Hebrew slaves he brought
from the bondage of slavery in Egypt by Moses after 400 years of silence,
thus beginning the dispensation of the Law; and he did so again, only
this time for all of mankind, after another 400 year period of silence,
by sending the miracle-working Messiah, Jesus, the Christ, thus beginning
the dispensation of the Church age. Therefore, Genesis aside - I mean
that it is always the book referred to by detractors - from the book of
Exodus on, we can believe the history in our Bible. But translations still
are not infallible and inerrant. Words morph in transition when translating
them.
Those who promote the false doctrine of infallibility and
inerrancy only keep those thinking intellects, who would otherwise
consider and believe in our Christ, at arm's length as they tenaciously
defend and promote this fallacy which is rooted in the all or nothing
protestant doctrine of "sola scripura." It seems one either has to accept
their package, or stay out of the Church all together. These men have
never been to the scholarly side of textual criticism. They have no
idea how the Bible truly came to be as it is. They only parrot what they
have been taught by their evangelical fundamentalist teachers, and they
do spectacular scholarly gymnastics in order to support and legitimize
their point of view. When they press me with their ignorance, again I always
respond: "Which translation?" For translation is a continuous process -
a living thing - which meets the need of every generation. Matthew 27:28
has Jesus with a scarlet robe. Mark 15:17 has Jesus with a purple robe.
And this difference is not even related to translation, but the underlying
Greek text, so therefore I rest my case. There is a contradiction. At
least Jesus was given a robe. There are also some grammatical errors in
the Received Text: Matthew 10:25 for example: "Since they called, named
or styled the Head of the household or family (of God) Beelzebub (Satan),
how much more (will they denigrate) those of his household or family?"
The Alexandrian Text has "epekalesan:" "they called," 3rd person plural
1st aorist active indicative. The Received Text has "ekalesan:" "I called,"
1st person singular 1st aorist active indicative. The first choice is
more correct in this context. Also, in Matthew 15:27: "Yea, Lord: but
even the little dogs underneath the table are always eating of the children's
bits, crumbs and morsels falling from their lord's eating-table." Both
the Received Text and the Alexandrian Text are wrong in having "esthiei:"
"you are always eating," 2nd person singular present indicative. The
Received Text of Mark 7:28 also has this error. It should correctly be
"esthiousin:" "they are always eating," 3rd person plural present indicative,
as is solely in the Alexandrian text of Mark. But for the Alexandrian Text
of Mark, all three other occurrances are grammatically wrong in this
context. There are a few more that I have noted in the text of this
work. Doctrinal conflicts: I can prove the doctrine of eternal security,
the doctrine of falling away from the faith, and the doctrine that teaches
we lose our salvation by sinning - all with the same Bible. Those who
follow Jacob Armenius and John Calvin are both right in many respects,
and both wrong in many other respects. Both theories of soteriological
election instruction can be supported with the New Testament documents.
Romans 4:20 states that Abraham staggered not at the promise of God
through unbelief, but was strong in faith. If that is true, then why
did he run ahead of God and have an illegitimate son by Hagar, his wife's
Egyptian slave? We are still paying for that presumption to this day!
He would have never had Hagar if he had not lied saying the half-truth
to the Egyptians, "She is my sister." The Bible is not infallible and inerrant,
and it has literary contradictions and also doctrinal concept contradictions.
Its books are not self-contradictory, only somewhat contradictory when
compared one with another. The Torah aside, each book of the Bible was
an individual entity when produced, and they were gathered to gether into
one volume for convenience. Looking at it realistically, and developing
a new set of parameters for its use would eliminate a lot of confusion,
let alone alleviating resistance by unbelievers. But our faith should
not rest in whether or not a book stands or falls. It should be in Jesus
Christ and his message. That was the purpose of his miracles, and that
is the purpose of the Bible's testimony, and of this book. Withhold judgement
on this work until a fair perusal has been done. You may enjoy it and find
it quite enlightening and useful.
When the apostle Paul states that all scripture is God-breathed
and suitable both for faith and practice he is speaking of the Old Testament
scriptures: the New Testament was not yet in existence. Paul didn't
know he was writing what would become scripture, though he was quite
aware of his apostolic authority when he says, "The Lord says, not I."
The “Jot” and “Tittle” referred to by Jesus in Matthew five is the
Old Testament Law - not the New Testament. Men shall indeed live by
every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, contextual reference
being made by Jesus to the Old Testament in the Jewish dispensation. Men
indeed spoke from God being borne along by the Holy Spirit - contextual
reference being made to the Old Testament. All New Testament references
to Law, such as those in Romans, point to the Old Testament. The Hebrew
Old Testament and the Septuagint (LXX) were the only Bibles the young Church
had; and even in its inception, the Torah aside, that Testament was gathered
one book at a time. Apostolic succession would later bring to the fore
the writings of apostles and disciples, as surviving New Testament documents
for public consumption surfaced and were gathered. The writing of the
Old Testament after Moses was gradual over a long period of time.
The New Testament has a far different history and record
of preservation than the Old Testament; therefore they of neccessity
must be dealt with separately, not as a whole that has been bound together
for convenience in the present volume we now call the “Holy Bible.”
They are separately referred to as "Old" and "New" testaments. They each
have differing histories of transmission and preservation, and they deal
with different dispensations. The Old, as the Hebrew Masoretic Text, has
been meticulously preserved to us in its present form according to the
word in Psalm 12:6-7 (though it is clear that the Masoretes wiped out references
to Christ in the twelfth century since the Christians adopted the Greek
translation of it - the Septuagint - as their Bible). Its usefulness is
for indicating sin for those who take it up and through it examine themselves,
and for providing prophetic indicators which support Jesus the Messiah
as their fulfilment, as well as for foretelling coming future events.
In the discovery of the Qumran scrolls, the text of Isaiah has been compared
to what we have today, and it varies not a whit. The Jews have preserved
pretty well the Old Testament text, translations aside, but the New was
gathered, collated and, sorted, and preserved to us over several centuries
in its present form, translations aside. This was accomplished by fallible
human agents with the best of intentions for the most part, though there
have always been those in every age who held dogmatic prepossessions,
personal prejudices, and subjective biases which would inevitably affect
their work. Its canon was arrived at gradually over about 500 years, Revelation
being the last book allowed. Bible scholars today, when translating the
New Testament, consult early translations such as the Boharic, Sahidic,
Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, Hebraic, Aramaic, etc., because they were translated
from much earlier Greek texts than we have extant now today.
The only recorded physical, miraculous preservation of God's
word deals with the Pentateuch being found in a hole in the wall, but
every human effort was made to keep it pure as found for succeeding generations,
because God works through man to reach man, working within the parameters
of human ability which is at best, fallibility. But this, again, is
a situation where the Pentateuch was reduced to an only copy, subject
to possible deterioration and the possibility of having been shuffled
out of order by its finders, if not having already been shuffled out
of order by those who hid it, as I have already indicated in my example
citing the anomaly of Genesis 20. Also, it was added to over time to include
all of the texts that are not part of the Pentateuch. God said he would
be careful to "perform" his word and "preserve" his word with regard to
the Old Testament, and we have it in our possession to this day, even as
Jesus has said that not one Jot or Tittle can pass away, but Jesus didn't
bother to correct the translation of the LXX from the Hebrew, indicate the
superiority of one over the other, nor did he fix the anomaly of Genesis
20.
Another case in point: we are told that King Solomon wrote
about three thousand proverbs, yet we have preserved to us only about
a thousand. With regard to the Old Testament Scriptures we presently
have, they were diligently preserved by their transmitters as much as
possible. Every king of the Jews was required to write a copy of the
entire Law as part of their ordination. Every scribe wrote the name of
God with a new quill, and if one mistake was made, the entire manuscript
was discarded and a fresh one was made. Jews have relied upon the Old Testament
as truly inspired, infallible and without error in the original Hebrew
autographs as they have indeed been mostly preserved to us that way. But
this cannot be "exactly" the case, since we can still see Genesis 20, and
because we all do not speak Hebrew, and thus rely upon translations.
Translations are inspired in the present day ordinary sense
of the word, but rest upon spiritual guidance and human judgment calls
since words morph in translation from one language to another as any
bi-lingual person will tell you. Jesus also revealed to his disciples,
after his resurrection, all that was said concerning him in the books
of Moses, the Psalms and the Prophets, thereby putting his stamp of
approval upon the existing canon of Old Testament scripture and its
prophecy concerning him as it stood in that time. But did he bother
to correct an anomoly such as in Genesis chapter 20? No. Did he indicate
the Masoretic text over the LXX? No. But the Hebrew Torah was meticulously
preserved as written through Moses by God, and the newly discovered
existence of the Bible Code therein is further testimony to its preservation.
Since the Bible Code depends upon the essentially perfect preservation
of the Torah to work, we must assume, since it works, that what we currently
have is what God meant us to have as it currently stands.
The New Testament had no recorded miraculous intervention
in its preservation. It was entirely preserved by human grit, judgment
and effort. But the world has tried unsuccessfully to rid itself of
the Bible through the ages, though, but in the sense of survival, the
Bible in general has miraculously withstood the onslaughts against it
over time. It is now the most popular book in the world. That aside, the
human element is evidenced in the myriad of extant variant New Testament
Greek text readings which we have that do not always agree textually in
every detail, yet which all agree whole-heartedly with regard to the overall
message of God to mankind. The manuscript agreement has been touted as
95% for the 4,000 or so manuscripts of the Received Text, and including
the thousand or so of the Alexandrian text-type, their agreement becomes
80%. The variances don't amount to more than 15% between the text-types,
and the shorter Alexandrian text-type is shorter by a mere eight pages
out of a thousand or so - about 50 verses, so we need not worry too much
over textual differences. People don't even really try to do all the word
that we do have, so the super-fundies should stop crying over the eight
pages. Only the immature get upset over the missing minute of scripture,
as if all others who prefer other modern Bibles are all going to hell in
a hand-basket. God is bigger than that. He isn't even hung up over the
Easter bunny or a Christmas tree. As already stated, it is a matter of preference
between the two Greek New Testament text-types available today.
We therefore have now extant several major uncial manuscripts,
plus about 200 newly arising fragments of such, and about a thousand
miniscules of the Alexandrian type. We also have in excess of four thousand
later cursive manuscripts for comparison which contain relatively insignificant
variances relegated to the human element in transcription and transmission
over time supporting the Received Text. Some MSS did belong to heretics
and I do not deny that they did try to support their position by altering
their texts, but most of these were weeded out in the early centuries of
Christianity by the Church fathers. The Gospel of Thomas is such a writing
and it isn't even a true Gospel by definition. There were no printing presses,
so repeated, exactly perfect duplications were virtually impossible. Documents
were copied one at a time by hand by individuals - a tedious and time consuming
task - to preserve to succeeding generations the New Covenant Word of God.
Most scribes took great care, however, some were careless, and a few had
hidden agendas, but as I have already indicated, most gnostic texts were
weeded out by the early Church fathers. Revelation, II Peter, II and III
John and Jude are the only texts that sqeaked through having questionable
origins. They fail canonicity when closely examined utilizing modern comparative
science. Example: the underlying Greek text of the Revelation bears no resemblance
to that of the style revealed in the gospel and epistle of John. Many
times, clarifying notes made it into the body of the N.T. text, because
those that made them had a more intimate knowledge of the incidents at
hand than the one producing the text. Many of the Christian writings were
ordered burned by Diocletian in 303, therefore we lost an awful lot. After
311 the emporer Constantine made Christianity the state religion and ordered
50 copies of the Bible to be made by the bishop of Heiroplois, Eusebius
by name, when Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman
empire and all were compelled to participate. It was no more an underground
Church. Mass book-making was now accessible to Christians. What is preserved
to us is the best textual representations that survived persecution,
usage, and the scrutiny of the ancients. The possibilty exists, that
the preponderance of textual evidence that exists for the Received
Text is due to this sudden and positive proliferation based upon that
chosen by Eusebius, and that the Alexandrian Text could also very well
be the oldest archtype because of this situation; but this is also speculation.
God is in the business of recovery. I believe that God can and does
preserve his word by the power of his Spirit, but within the parameters
of our humanity, knowing the hearts of those who labor therein. Early
transmission and preservation was oral tradition, and the Holy Spirit
was the vehicle for the word. Many of the poor could not read or write
anyway, and only those of means could afford parchment and pen. The
situation is the same today in Africa. If only those who persist in
promoting the “doctrine” of inerrancy and infallibility would just get
real - be realistic in their approach to the matter. This is not compromise,
but realism - addressing the facts objectively. It is because of the
anal ecclesiastical baggage we carry as Christians which lacks valid
support that people stay away. It seems that if we don't accept the whole
Protestant or Catholic package - of whatever variety it may be, we cannot
enter the Church, and many times we are expected to leave our brains at
the door when checking in. If only we could be truly honest in our approach
to the faith. People, including atheists, are not stupid! They have lucid,
and many times valid, objections.
If inerrancy and infallibility were of import to God, there
would not be the slightest variation between texts at all; but obviously
this is not the case with the New Testament documents. It is recorded
that Jesus only wrote in the sand. If it were not for the ministry of
the Holy Spirit, Jesus would have had to have made instruction books
to keep us straight in his absence as was done by Muhammad who recruited
Rabbis and Christians to write parts of the Koran. Muhammad later turned
on them because they would not accept Allah, his false moon god of war
(The word "God" is a generic term. YHWH and Allah are not the same God).
Jesus wrote nothing because he was sent only to the lost sheep of the
house of Israel as the fulfillment of their Old Testament. But he did
send ambassadors bearing his message to the subsequently positive Circumcision
and to the Gentile nations. The apostles gave to us instructions by
means of the Holy Spirit within their epistles. Also valid were orally
transmitted and observed traditions. But these can get out of hand, as
Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for such. He would do the same to churches
again today. God does say that he is careful to perform his word, and also
that his word will not pass away until all things be fulfilled, but again,
the “jot” and “tittle” Jesus mentions refers to the Old Testament Law and
Prophets. Only by a stretch which violates historical fact can Psalm 12:6-7
be applied to the New Testament.
Translation is a ministry of love, always refreshing to
our minds the word of God in the vernacular of each and every culture
and successive generation. We must rely upon the integrity of those whom
God has raised up to minister to this living challenge, who dedicate their
lives to textual and linguistic study, laboring in the scholarship and
discipline necessary to fulfill their calling - not in the limelight
- but behind the scene, many times in obscurity and anonymity, but every
bit a necessary part of the body of Christ as the preacher or evangelist.
It is wrong to accuse those who have translated from the Alexandrian text-base
of conspiracy or falsehood simply because of a preference for the shorter
text, under the guise that words are missing when compared to the Received
Text.
The point I am trying to make here is that if you stand
back and take a good look at all of our Bibles (with the exception of
a few cultic versions such as those of the Watchtower Society - Jehovah
Witnesses - and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - Mormons),
all basically agree on what the message of God is to mankind - salvation
by grace through faith in Christ Jesus - and therefore can be relied
upon for faith and practice in that regard. Variations in translation
are going to occur. But in the big picture relatively minor differences
are not a hill to die on if they serve to push away or stave off persons
who are turned off by incessant controversy, or snuty pugnatiousness.
I got saved reading cover-to-cover the Revised Standard Version over three
months back in 1977, before I ever knew I needed to go to a church, or
that there were different Bibles. That was the most liberal version around.
Those who thump a certain translation we are all familiar with, and raise
the issue of infallibility and inerrancy, while condemning those who
translate in differing vernacular, or from eclectic texts, are only demonstrating
to the world their legalistic self-righteousness, spiritual immaturity
and abyssmal ignorance. They fail to understand that there is no such
thing as word for word equivalence from Greek to English, and their translation
obviously and painfully makes this point. It has over three hundred words
that are no longer in use or that have changed in meaning. It is indeed
time to make a new translation. It is obvious that God didn’t write the
Bible in heaven and toss it down to us for our use. The Bible has always
been a collection of writings by men of God inspired by the Holy Spirit,
40 authors gathered together into a single volume for the sake of convenience
over a period of 1500 years. Those thumpers are inadvertently doing
their best to discourage and turn off thinking individuals to the things
of God. Read and use the translation you prefer best. The over-all general
message is the same: Salvation by Faith through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The Shuffled Manuscript Theory Explaining Treatment of
Gospel of John Chapters 14-16
It is clear in an overview that Romans embodies the greater
part of the apostle Paul's instruction to the churches, with regard
to the elements of the faith, intended for those he has not yet met.
It is made obvious by Paul himself at the close of this
letter that he had not yet been to Rome, and therefore, he had nothing
to do with the establishment of the assembly of believers there. This
can be especially deduced from chapter 15, verses 20-29, where Paul states
that he was detained from visiting them, for his ambition was to proclaim
the Gospel only in those places where Christ was not yet known; for he
preferred not to be building on another man’s work. This had precluded
his going to Rome in the interim. But now that he had saturated, so to
speak, his designated territory with the knowledge of Christ, he felt
free to go to them after the delivery of the aid gathered by other churches
for the Church which was at Jerusalem.
Since it is so stated that Paul’s intent was merely to be
a stop-over on his way to preach the Gospel in Spain, it is most likely
the reason for the preponderance of doctrine in this epistle. He did
not plan to spend much time there with them, and recorded doctrine would
have a more enduring effect on the Roman church in their journey towards
spiritual maturity.
Since we are now speaking on the subject of the recipients
of this epistle of Paul, it is necessary to clarify a paradoxical situation
regarding the close of this work.
It is established fact that Paul had never yet been to Rome
as an apostle before the writing of this work. Therefore he could not
possibly be acquainted with any Romans with the exception of the possibility
that some might have visited the churches where he was working. With
the opening of this letter he makes no mention there, nor throughout,
of any personal acquaintance, interaction, awareness, nor intimations
as in his other epistles, of the conditions of the church or of any of
its members.
The question then must be posited: Why then at its close
does Paul greet a bunch of Ephesians, and their households by name,
and intimate facts and situations regarding their state, especially
when he greets them as “To all that be in Rome,” with attending apologetic
reasons for his delay in attending to them in verses 8-15, and ending
with the expressed desire to proclaim the Good News to them also? Would
not all of those Ephesians have done the same, and even explained Paul’s
situation to them had they preceded him there?
I therefore submit for your approval “The Shuffled Manuscript
Theory,” a position I have held after much study since 1985, and which
has abundantly proven itself to be true by a preponderance of evidence
contained in the New Testament itself alone. It is said that if one is
aware of what he is looking for, if it is there, he will find it. That
was the motivating factor in this endeavor. For those who might object
to this literary venture on the basis of their training or upbringing,
I respectfully present the following argument in favor of this point of
view, which represents another invariably new paradigm shift.
The Bible as we know it has always been a collation of writings
by men of God inspired by the Holy Spirit, 40 authors gathered together
into a single volume over a period of 1500 years. The Old Testament
has a better record of preservation due to the meticulous efforts of
the Jews, Talmudists and the Masoretes, but the New Testament documents
did not enjoy that same effort at preservation until after the first generation
of Christians had passed from the scene, and even then such efforts left
much to be desired. They suffered a first generation state of deterioration
which I will now attempt to make clear. Keep in mind that what I am about
to propose happened before the solidification of our present day cannon
of New Testament scripture. With all of the above in mind, I would like
to fully explain this paradigm shift as proposed in “The Shuffled Manuscript
Theory”.
The original inspired texts of what became The New Testament
when later collected and collated were hand-written on rolls of papyrus
called scrolls. It is not unreasonable to assume, considering how manuscripts
of the first century were made, that with age they would assume a state
of deterioration common to those things that receive regular use necessitating
replacement in time, if that option were considered by the possessor
of the document.
In the first century manuscripts were basically produced
in three different sized sheets of papyrus, varying in price with the
size, the most common size for the average man because of its affordability
being five by eleven inches. These were sold in a roll of about twenty
sheets pasted together in linear fashion edge to edge. When both written
upon and read, the scroll would be unrolled from one hand and re-rolled
in the other as it would go from sheet to sheet in a continuous fashion
from right to left, much as a computer can “scroll” vertically today. This
eliminated the necessity of having a long table for both reading and writing
of the scroll.
Pages were generally not numbered because of their continuity
in scroll fashion, but depending upon the writer, most carried a certain
number of uncial characters and a certain number of lines on each, the
columns being generally two or three inches wide with small margins. A
common example would be about 24 characters per line with about 12 lines
per page. Since there were no spaces between characters indicating the
beginning and end of a word and the characters would follow one another
line to line, many words would be split between lines, but they would never
split a word to the next leaf, nor even a sentence, the idea being not to
break the train of thought while rolling to the next page.
The text was written from left to right along the fibers
in broader or narrower columns, the writing coming on the inside and
the end of the text being rolled last. In order to start reading, one
had to unroll and roll the whole book, thus creating a situation of double-handling;
the consulting of another passage was far from easy; and regular use
made considerable wear and tear unavoidable, especially with the brittle
papyrus. Mark’s Gospel would have been a roll about nineteen feet long,
Romans about eleven and a half feet; while II Thessalonians could be written
in a five column roll fifteen inches in length. They were written with
a reed pen with an ink made out of soot and gum, which was very legible
except when blotted or washed out. The roll was then rolled, and some folded
twice, then bound with thread and sealed.
They were generally saved in a box or chest with documents
of similar character. With age and usage they would tend to come apart
where they were pasted together because they were both brittle and could
not endure repeated handling, and the separated leaves of the scroll
would end up being hopelessly out of order making the manuscript unintelligible
without some effort of reassembly employed on the part of the owner.
The folded type would become frayed at the folds much like an old road
map, and would be more likely to fragment with time. If a manuscript
consisted of more than one roll it was likely to become separated or
confused with some other work, especially if dealing with the same subject
matter.
Early great works were mass-produced in large rooms with
a caller or reader and many scribes, so there was not much chance that
the order of a great work would be lost or confused, but these were mostly
afforded by the rich, and libraries, and were replaced when necessary.
However, the New Testament documents did not enjoy this
luxury. Traditions were mostly orally transmitted, and many early sayings
of Jesus were scrawled upon shards of pottery. A letter or gospel was
considered to have served its purpose once written and sent, and was
seldom if ever rewritten by either the sender or the possessor of the
work, whether lost, damaged, or worn out; and it is not likely that the
writers of our New Testament were aware that what they were writing would
become what we call scripture today, else they would have taken the pains
necessary to preserve their work. This is even more credible when one
considers that Jesus himself left no writings at all, other than what
he wrote in the sand.
Consider the mentality of the first century Christian -
that the coming of the Lord for his church was imminent - so little
was done to remedy those things which had fallen into disorder. Every
New Testament document was subject to the same danger of disorder so
long as it remained an only copy, and every New Testament document was
an only copy in its first generation.
Now with the passage of time, and the passage of the apostles,
and the apparent delay of our Lord’s second coming, second generation
Christians became aware of the necessity of preserving, recording, and
duplicating the writings of the apostles for successive generations of
Christians for their instruction and edification. Thus a proliferation
of literary production ensued, along with transcription of apostolic and
disciplic works which were garnered out of storage, not yet reverenced
as scripture, but soon to become so.
A gathering of first generation apostolic works was made
from the various assemblies, and an attempt at restoration followed.
They had single leaves, and at times intervals of two, three, or even
four leaves, which had been stuffed and rolled together out of order;
and with both the writers and recipients gone, they had to make the best
of what they had. In order to reproduce these works they of necessity
had to be restored to some kind of relative order so that they would be
intelligible to the reader, and this was done to the best of the ability
of those doing the work.
Thus copied they have remained in that state without any
consideration to better or further their restoration to their approximate
original form as they had left the hands of the apostles due to an adopted
inordinate sense of reverence, and they have been perpetuated as they
are to date, how be it ever obvious to the eye and ear, and the sense
conveyed to the mind, that something was amiss, which shows itself even
in its many translations.
For example, take the Gospel of Mark and consider its lost
ending from chapter 16:9 to the end. Surely some well-meaning individual
sought to replace what was a missing portion with something at a later
date so that it would be complete; but what was missing was most likely
the cover-leaf of the scroll exposed to all the wear and tear of repeated
handling as disciples sought to become better acquainted with their Lord.
The epistle of Paul to the Colossians is an example of a
scroll which had escaped the fate of “loose-leaf” shuffling, and which
is intact today probably because it was copied and passed on due to the
apostle’s instruction that it also be read in the church of the Laodiceans.
Again, if one is aware of what he is looking for, if it
is there he will find it. That was the motivating factor in this endeavor,
and what confirmed my thoughts on the matter. When one reads the New
Testament - especially in a modern translation - one becomes aware
of the abrupt changes of thought and context - almost erratic in occurrence
- and a later resumption of the same train of thought in other places,
irrelevant to the surrounding context in which they are found. It
becomes obvious to the objective reader that these could be taken apart
and reassembled, like the pieces of a literary jig-saw puzzle, in a
more sensible order than in which they now appear, much as I have indicated
with our passage in Genesis 20. But what was necessary was some controlling
criteria that would remove some of the subjectivity in the decision-making
process.
This was found in the Greek texts of the various scholars
who work in the field of textual criticism providing texts for the use
of translators. Preserved for all time, in all the various texts, are
the gaps necessary for determining where a segment of text begins and
ends. Some of the gaps are obviously paragraph separations, but others
indicated where there were breaks in the text, obviously preserved by
the initial editors for the determination of future generations.
The texts used to determine the gap sequences are the Nestle,
Von Soden, Westcott & Hort, Trinitarian, and the eclectic text
of Aland, Black, Martini, Metzger, and Wikgren. These are all derived
from the myriad of manuscripts available for their research in the preparation
of these texts for scholarly study. Where one text neglected to supply
a suspected gap in the text, another supplied it. Since all do research
in the supporting manuscripts, one was considered as valid as another for
this purpose, even if the text itself was not one which was supported by
the preponderance of texts available.
Using the discovered gaps, I was able to rearrange the text
according to subject matter, mood, language, inflection, and contextual
comparison, bringing to light for the second time, the epistles of
the apostles as I believe they were originally written in all their
beauty, inspiration, and intelligence - no verses missing - but all
the pieces of the puzzle fitting together in harmony with nothing left
over.
Here are three relatively simple samples for you to play
with in the learning process: Photocopy Philippians and 1st and 2nd
Thessalonians. Take each separately and cut and tape together in the
following order and receive a blessing:
Philippians: 1:1-2:18; 3:1-4:9; 2:19-30; 4:10-23.
1st Thessalonians: 1:1-3:13; 4:13-5:11; 4:1-12; 5:12-28.
2nd Thessalonians: 1:1-2:17; 3:6-15; 3:1-5; 3:16-18.