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Do We Have the Very Words of the Biblical Authors? 79
This historical reality is an objective standard that we can approach
through textual criticism. Without this conviction, the contemporary
versions and translations are set adrift in a sea of subjectivism with no
objective standard to measure their faithfulness. Thus, affirming the
inerrancy of the original manuscripts is a higher, more faithful, view
of inerrancy. This is why our Affirmation of Faith says, “We believe
that the Bible is . . . verbally inspired by God, and without error in the
original manuscripts.”
Controversy and Consensus
In the past decade, one of the most intentional attacks on Christian belief
has come in this field of textual criticism. Some scholars have argued
that the Bible, as we have it, does not give a sure foundation for historic
Christian belief. 6 Serious and responsible books 7 have been written to
answer these arguments, and the debate goes on. I don’t see this present
book as the place for the kind of detailed historical argument that
would be required if we were to respond to the arguments against the
reliability of the text we have.
Moreover, I am convinced that in the end none of us settles the issue
of biblical authority decisively on the basis of historical arguments.
If that were the way God intended us to arrive at certainty of truth,
the vast majority of people in the world would be excluded from the
knowledge they need for living and dying as Christians. I will argue
in the coming chapters how ordinary people, with little chance of following
complex and obscure textual and historical arguments, may
6
Most notably, biblical scholar Bart Ehrman has written and spoken about his own departure from Christian
orthodoxy and has argued that the Bible, as we have it, does not give a sure foundation for historic
Christian belief. Bart D. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological
Controversies on the Text of the New Testament (1993; repr. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press,
2011); Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (New York:
HarperOne, 2007).
7
Timothy Paul Jones, Misquoting Truth: A Guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman's “Misquoting Jesus”
(Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity, 2007); J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace,
Reinventing Jesus: What the DaVinci Code and Other Novel Speculations Don’t Tell You (Grand Rapids,
MI: Kregel, 2006); Daniel B. Wallace, Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament: Manuscript, Patristic,
and Apocryphal Evidence (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2011); Daniel B. Wallace, “The Reliability of
the New Testament Manuscripts,” in Understanding Scripture: An Overview of the Bible's Origin, Reliability,
and Meaning, ed. Wayne Grudem, C. John Collins, Thomas R. Schreiner (Wheaton, IL: Crossway,
2012); Robert B. Stewart, ed., The Reliability of the New Testament: Bart Ehrman and Daniel Wallace
in Dialogue (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2011); Craig Evans, Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars
Distort the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity, 2008); Craig Blomberg, Can We Still Believe the
Bible?: An Evangelical Engagement with Contemporary Issues (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2014); Michael
Bird, ed., How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus’ Divine Nature: A Response to Bart
D. Ehrman (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014).