Biblical Changes through the Ages?

Recently, word has spread regarding a soon-to-be-released study that has been carried out by the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. The purpose of this study: to catalog all of the changes that have been made to the New Testament from its origins to modern times. On March 27, 2011, the Times Picayune (New Orleans’ newspaper) featured an article describing this work in some detail. The newspaper article can be seen here:

http://www.nola.com/religion/index.ssf/2011/03/changes_to_the_bible_through_the_ages_are_being_studied_by_new_orleans_scholars.html

The research team is reputable and thorough, and their work would be hard to question. Yet, they have concluded that certain famous New Testament passages and even the some of the words of Christ were never actually recorded in Scripture but added later. Decades of work and thousands of pages of documentation support their findings. The potential destructive consequences of such findings would be difficult to overestimate. Christians believe in the inerrant word of God recorded in the Scriptures. We believe that God is bigger than the subjectivity of man and that He is able and indeed has perfectly preserved His word in Scripture. According to some, including the author of the article in the Times Picayune, Bill Warren and his team at NOBTS are challenging that notion. Their work is among the most popular Christian research going on today. They are being noticed, especially by those who wish to attack Christianity on an intellectually emotional level.

However, is this really what is going on? The author in the Times Picayune appears to think so. When you read the article, pay close attention to what the author presents as “obvious” statements about how Scripture was clearly changed over the centuries. Furthermore, read some of the comments made by readers of the article that follow the text. Many make the same logically flawed observations… that no document ever translated so many times can remain as it was originally preserved. Such an statement may be true when applied to fallible man, but it most certainly does not apply to a sovereign and omnipotent God! Furthermore, many comments on the article lift up the US Constitution as a document to be revered and the Bible as a document that promotes violence and bigotry. It is not my agenda to argue against their place of the US Constitution, however it is quite clear that the commentators are completely naïve when it comes to the teachings and actions of the historical Jesus of Nazareth.

Furthermore, Bill Warren and his team at NOBTS are not at all interested in tearing down Scripture and its authority. To see this, one must only visit their webpage on the Seminary’s website:

http://www.nobts.edu/Publications/News/CNTTSDatabase.html

The video and the text presented here clearly show the unbiased and objective approach the team is taking to meticulously search out the truth of God’s word and to glorify God in their work. They continue to point out, as Josh McDowell and many other have in the past, that the vast majority of textual variants are of little to no concern and do NOT change the meaning of any of the passages. A few notable variants are found (as opposed to the thousands of inconsequential ones), but Dr. Warren and his team have taken great care to explain the cultural context under which such variants may have arisen.

According to the team's webpage, a Scriptural variants "range from spelling differences to the reverential abbreviations of sacred names to the addition of details that can clarify the meaning of the text." Clearly, this is not the catastrophic Christianity-killing homerun that secular society was hoping for. If I write "Dr. Warren" instead of "Doctor Warren," that would constitute a fairly profound variant according to the Biblical research being carried out in New Orleans.

Perhaps the biggest truth that we can gather from this research and the team carrying it out is that NONE of the researchers has questioned their orthodox Christian faith in the face of all that they have found. On the contrary, it appears that all of the men and women involved have been strengthen in their Christian faith and convinced of the validity of claims of Christianity. This research, when viewed objectively, should serve to only solidify our faith in Christ and bolster our arguments against the powers of darkness.