2 Timothy 2:15

Ugh I am a horrible person lol sorry this is so late!

The Infallible and Authentic Word of God

     In the book of Leviticus the scripture records "These are the statues and judgments and laws, which the Lord made between him and the children of Israel... by the HAND of Moses." (26:36) This verse indicates a two fold revelation on the authenticity and reliability of the Word. First, that the originating source of the words recorded were directly from God to Moses and second, that "by the HAND of Moses" they was recorded or a written word. While the oral tradition of storytelling plays a large role in the transmission of most scripture throughout the history of Israel, the Urtext, which is a term for the main written text that began the work, was indeed a written word and inspired directly from God. The Urtext that Moses had recorded is lost to history along with all the following "autographs", another term this time indicating the original work of a copied text, that were recorded by the patriarchs of the Jewish and Christian faiths. The reason for these losses can be attributed to a number of situations.
    The Israelites were lead out of captivity by Moses, who, as we have established, during this period of wandering went on to record the Urtext, and it may be presumed that, having been the son of Pharaoh for a time, Moses had been familiar with the Egyptian's practices concerning scribes and the written word. For writing the Egyptians had developed the medium of papyrus, an early form of paper consisting of beaten and pressed pulp from water reeds. While this early form of paper made recording written words easier and far more accessible then say clay tablets it also came with its downfalls. Papyrus was easily destroyed and with the elements and persecution of the Hebraic people that associated their forty year journey, it is not hard to imagine that the Urtext was lost from one form of consumption or another.
    We must also take into account the ritualistic way in which sophers, a Jewish guild made up of scribes, recorded copies of texts. The original text written were considered "Holy Word" and so important to them that when a ms began to wear with age or use they would studiously rerecord the contents of that original work. Once that copy had been completed a group of word counters, another Jewish guild called the Masoretes, would go through the entire work and count each word to ensure there was no numerical fallacy in the copies. If a Masorete counted less words then were contained in the original text that copy would be burned and the scribe would begin again. If the ms was verified as being a complete copy, Masoretic text, the scribe would then take the original text and bury it in an unmarked grave so that no one could reuse it. To the Israelite society the contents (words of God) recorded on the papyrus were more important than the physical copy and so much diligence was paid to the correct recopying of those words. Through 40 years of traveling in the desert and hundreds of years of war and turmoil in their country we can assume there are thousands of texts that have been buried and in the process of time turned back into dirt therefore inaccessible to us in original form.
    The use of papyrus continued throughout the centuries and the original works of the New Testament (NT) were also recorded on this ancient form of parchment. We have already established the fallibility of papyrus as an explanation to the lack of earlier autographs and may ascribe this explanation to the autographs of the patriarchs of the Church as well. But we must also take into account the persecution of the early church when considering the NT autographs. Any documents that might have survived through the ages and come to use were almost religiously hunted out by the enemies of the church and vehemently destroyed.
    At one time, the Roman emperor, Diocletian, declared a personal war against Christianity. He established a place in the middle of a city for burning the Holy Bible and inscribed above it "Extinct is the name of Christians". It is recorded that a pile of ashes set below this inscription and we can presume that many of the citizens of Rome took as readily to the destruction of the Holy Word, turning over captured articles to soldiers to be consumed by the Diocletian fires. While we look back on horror at this act of atrocity it is with righteous pride that history accounts not more than 22 years had passed when Constantine came into power. Being a convert to Christianity set a commission that a copy of the Holy Scriptures be made available to him. To the surprise of all an abundance of copies were readily at hand, these had been hidden by devout members of the Church and officially compiled into a Biblical form. The indestructibility of the Word of God blooms even through the ashes!
    We must consider the possibility that the original mss of Matthew, Peter, Paul and the others were destroyed in the Diocletian ousting. We may however presume also that perhaps one or two autographs had made it through this mass consumption.  But the persecution of the Word didn't end with the Roman empire.
    The enemy had also infiltrated the halls of the "Church" in the form of the Catholic Councils and Popes who proclaimed numerous times throughout history a moratorium on the Bible. Beginning with Council of Toulouse in 1229 and continuing through Papal decree by Pope Leo in 1897 the Bible could only be reasoned and interpreted by the clergy and all those with personal copies of the Bible were outlaws. they were required to turn over their copies immediately or personally destroy them by fire. That is over 568 years in which Bibles were destroyed by faithful saints who had been told that only heretics had personal copies and therefore had their place in Hell with Lucifer. Considering the history of God's Word and it's enemies the reliability of the Bible we have now versus the original texts or autographs is often brought into question.
    The earliest copy scholars had of the Word was found dating back to A.D. 1000, far removed from the original works. Due to it's late production theologians and biblical scholars admitted that there could have been numerous errors made from one scribe to the next as it came 1000 years down throughout history. But in the 1900's a herdsman stumbled across a cave in which was stored , in remarkable condition, numerous antiquarian scrolls. The first of these scrolls to come to the attention of the biblical community in 1947 was determined to be a copy of the Book of Isaiah dating back to approximately 200 B.C.. Excitement at this discovery coursed through the world and a group of translators where put to work immediately in an attempt to not only preserve the historical discovery but also shed light on the fallacies that were contained in the modern Bible they had. This Bible is the same Bible you have in your hand today and to the surprise of many, and I'm sure the chagrin of a few, it was discovered that the two copies contained only three differences on record and those three fallacies were simple spelling differences. How awesome is the infallibility of the Word of God that even after 1200 documented years of written transmission and thousands of years of oral accounts, the Word remains complete and true.
    On hand at this time we have over 24,000 ancient mss that have been discovered and preserved of the New Testament. The bible, even in ancient times, had been rigorously translated into many languages. In Greek alone we have over 5,000 copies of the NT in one form or another. These copies serve as a continuing witness to the strength of the authenticity of the Word of God. While secular historical works, such as Homer's "The Iliad", which has only 643 ancient mss, and Livy's "History of Rome", which has even less references, boasting a mere 20 partial copies, enjoy the safe scholarly stamp of authenticity, the Bible with all of this evidence to support Christian and Jewish claims of infallibility, remains, in the eyes of scholars, unauthenticated.
    The contents of the Bible have proven time and again they will remain, "the word of the Lord endureth forever" (1Pt 1:25), the only viable truth in the Universe. They have been tried against destruction, against fallibility by prophecy(about 3,300 verses of prophecy have been fulfilled "Dake annt ref. Bible Pg 241 notes on 2tim"), against the possibility of an un-seamless narrative through 40 authors distant in time and space authoring 66 books, against even that great leveler, time and in each instance has come out unscathed and more true than ever. As a member of a democracy I have seen the Word removed from halls that it had helped establish and be attacked by lives it had given freedom to. The joy of personally learning that our great country was founded on the shoulders of men who believed in this Christian message is assuring to the testament of the infallibility of His Word. We have an apostolic mandate to "preach the gospel to every creature." (Mk 16:15)and must then "study to show ourselves approved...rightly dividing the word.. " (2tim 2:15) This is the importance for establishing the infallibility and authenticity of the Word of God.