Rev. Harlan C. Vanden Einde is pastor of the Oakdale Park Christian Reformed Church of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
From a Canadian reader comes a question which concerns the “infallibility of the Bible.” When we talk about this and think about the many translations and the reader states further that he dislikes the grammar paraphrased books on the Bible one comes to ask this question: “which Bible do we have in mind‘?” Though the reader states further that he dislikes the grammar of the King James Version, he does admire this translation most of all.
Much has been written on this subject recently, undoubtedly because of its great import and significance. Where we stand with regard to the Scriptures will surely determine where we stand in regard to every issue that faces us. So I can deeply appreciate your question and your concern about the Bible.
I believe with all my heart that the Bible, as originally inspired by the Holy Spirit, is totally trustworthy and dependable in all matters. It is infallible and inerrant, as our Lord testifies in John 10:35, “the scripture cannot be broken.”
When I say that, of course, I am talking about the original writings, commonly called the “autographa.” God inspired these men to speak and write so that everything they said and wrote was without error or contradiction. But we do not have these original manuscripts in hand any more today. We have countless copies of these manuscripts, but not the originals themselves. And here the problem lies. Did God inspire the copyists in the same way as the original writers? Dr. E. J. Young, in his book Thy Word Is Truth, writes in respect to this (p. 55): “If the Scripture is ‘God-breathed,’ it naturally follows that only the original is ‘God–breathed.’ If holy men of God spoke from God as they were borne by the Holy Spirit, then only what they spoke under the Spirit’s bearing is inspired. It would certainly be unwarranted to maintain that copies of what they spoke were also inspired, since these copies were not made, as men were borne of the Spirit.”
It is not impossible, therefore, that some of these copies have errors. If you were to copy a dozen pages out of your English Bible, you would likely discover, after reading and carefully checking your work a second time, that you had made some errors in copying. That would not mean there are mistakes in the Bible, but merely that there are some mistakes in what you had written out.
Can we say then that these copies are the inspired Word of God? To the extent that they are faithful to the original, the translations are the inspired, infallible and inerrant Word of Cod. And if that sounds like a loophole which permits anyone to say that the Bible is fu ll of errors, let me hasten to add that l’ believe we have translations today which are very accurate and remarkably true to the original manuscripts. But there are some obvious differences in the translations which do not permit us to say that they are all right at the same time. If you will look up John 5:4, Matthew 23: 14, Mark 11:26, Luke 17:36 and Luke 23:17 in the American Standard Version, the Revised Standard Version, and the New International Version, you will likely be frustrated, for you won‘t find them. They are, however, in the King James Version. Without getting into the debate as to which version(s) is correct, the point is, they both (the KJ and the other versions) cannot be correct at the same time.
Translators of the Bible do have a very important and weighty responsibility . I appreciate very much the words of Dr. E. Palmer in an article which he wrote in the November 11, 1977 issue of The Banner. He wrote: “All of us who work on the New International Version believe the Bible is the infallible, inspired Word of God in the autographa. We begin each day asking the Holy Spirit to assist us in the translation. But this kind of assistance is not the equivalent of the original inspiration. We do not pray for a new revelation. The Holy Spirit does not come on us in such a way that we are just as good as Moses, Zephaniah and James. God inspired His Word once and for all. It is finished. But now we ask that God will illumine Our minds and grant us the right choice of words, so we will be as idiomatic as possible, and yet so that we will not depart from the meaning of the original. Then we begin to argue vociferously as to the best translation. In the course of the argumentation, the opinion of some of the translators will change, and finally a decision will be made. There is by no means one hundred percent agreement as to the translation; many times fi ve may vote for a proposal and four against. And maybe the next day even that vote will be reversed.
“No, we are not infallible. And we may make mistakes, even though we ask the Holy Spirit to lead us and even though we have a large number of translators, all of whom are true christians and scholars.”
Dr. Young, to whose book I referred earlier, gives a very meaningful and helpful illustration of this matter on page 57: “Suppose that a school teacher writes a letter to the President of the United States. To her great joy she receives a personal reply. It is a treasure which she must share with her pupils and so she dictates the letter to them. They are in the early days of their schooling, and spelling is not yet one of their strong points. In his copy of the letter Johnny has misspelled a few words. Mary has forgotten to cross her t’s and to dot her i‘s. Billy has written one or two words twice, and Peter has omitted a word now and then. Nevertheless, despite all these flaws about thirty copies of the President’s letter have been made. Unfortunately, the teacher misplaces the original and cannot find it. To her great sorrow it is gone. She does not have the copy which came directly from the President’s pen; she must be content with those that the children have made.
“Will anyone deny that she has the words of the President? Does she not have his message, in just those words in which he wrote it to her? True enough, there are some minor mistakes in the letters, but the teacher may engage in the science of textual criticism and correct them. She may correct the misspelled words, and she may write in those words which have been omitted and cross out those which are superfluous. ‘Without any serious difficulty she may indeed restore the original.’”
So it is with the Bible. We are sorry that we do not have the originals. But from the many copies that we have, we are able to restore the original to a very, very close approximation of what it was, and confidently say we have God’s Word to us.
In conclusion, let me say that God, in His good providence, has preserved His Word to us in a most remarkable way. The parts of which we are unsure are few, and their subject matter is quite insignificant. If you read His Word with a prayer for the Spirit’s guidance, you will be blessed and enriched. Continue to pray too for those who are involved in the work of translation.
