Copying Bible manuscripts
produce error ?
This is an apologetic essay written by David Lim in defending allegation from errantists that the manuscripts of the Bible contain scribal errors due to repeated copying, therefore the texts are corrupted and are not inerrant.
Allegation 1)
Try copying a passage a thousand times, by a group of people, and see how copy errors appear in your passage.
How can you honestly believe that the Bible manuscripts after being copied hundreds of times would stay exactly the same, and free from copy errors?
1) Nobody saw the mistakes being made.
It is a conjecture that mistakes are actually made during the copying/reproduction of Bible manuscripts.
2) Decent writing and careful copying.
Have a look at the Vaticanus Codes B or the Aleph Beth. Have a look at the Jesus papyrus and the Dead Sea Scrolls. What do you see?
Good, formal and decent hand-writing. Why?
It is because people who copied scriptures are chosen people, who prepared themselves for the task. They are not Tom, Dick and Harry, any common folks. They are trained not to make mistake.
And if a mistake is made due to tiring eyes, they would be replaced.
No one saw this process and supervised the copying. And if anybody did, he will be dismissed as failing to pay full attention and indeed, he also missed the words. True?
Modern Jews also hand-copied their Torah. And how do they do it? Letter by letter; and very slowly.
If you are given a task of copying as slow as you can, just a page a day; and would face abandonment for life upon making one mistake, just one stroke, would you pay extra attention?
Architectural draftsmen are trained to draw bricks, literally brick by brick. Have you seen one brick in between many looking like something else? Why not? Well, he is trained to do the mundane task very well.
Have you seen a professional airbrush artist spraying out of line? Why not?
He is trained to be accurate, and he has masks and guideline to help him stay on line.
And you think scribes did not have any masking or any tools to help them stay on line?
Do you think they were really that stupid?
Copiers also have decent handwritings, as the copies they made have to be read by many, who could face life-abandonment upon making one reading mistake.
The manuscript copies also have to look nice. Some are for display. Rough work is not preferred at all times.
Allegation 2)
If you compare manuscripts of the same passage, you can actually find discrepancies.
1) Do discrepancies equate copy error?
With the concept of PARALLEL INSPIRATION, it could be taken that scribes in different regions were divinely guided to add words into the texts they have to illustrate and emphasise certain elements.
This concept is supported by the reinforcing ideas the dissimilar copies are yielding. Whereas unattentive errors normally create laughters in the meaning they come to create.
With reinforcing details, the manuscripts do not speak with self-destructive forces. Ie: Scriptures do not tear themselves (apart) to pieces from the inside (inside out).
The enemies of scriptures down the centuries would have picked on the conflicting discrepancies to their advantage, if there is any strange doctrine caused by such discrepancy.
Church unity will be affected as different factions would pick on different passages that favours their particular denominational doctrine.
2) Some New Testament manuscripts might have been copies privately by individuals who are not fully qualified for the job.
We do find some seeming error, of wordings from the line above repeating at the line below.
Strange enough, new doctrines are not made out of such discrepancies.
My question is, if such error is really so blatant, why did the copier not cross it out in the beginning? What is the chance that the copier never read his work twice?
Allegation 3)
The Bible is very thick, it is easy to make copy mistake when you have a lot to copy.
1) You do not have to copy everything at one go.
2) Look at the size of papyri and scrolls.
They are, at most, one book long; and in lines and columns.
The copier can take a break from line to line.
There is the providence of God that if He can cause people to write out His Word that life and creation is dependent on, He could just as easy find ways to preserve the necessary details and parts for prosterity.
What is so strange/unacceptable that the Almighty God has all the might to preserve anything He desires?
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