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(→Question: What can textual criticism tell us about the Bible?) |
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[[es:Pregunta: ¿Qué nos puede decir la crítica textual sobre la Biblia?]] | [[es:Pregunta: ¿Qué nos puede decir la crítica textual sobre la Biblia?]] | ||
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[[pt:Pergunta: O que pode a crítica textual nos dizer sobre a Bíblia?]] | [[pt:Pergunta: O que pode a crítica textual nos dizer sobre a Bíblia?]] |
What can textual criticism tell us about the Bible? Does it have anything to say about the Bible being without error, as some Christians claim?
Most Latter-day Saints are not interested in searching the Bible for errors, or highlighting its flaws, though they readily admit that no text can be perfect or without error when mortals are involved in writing, transcribing, transmitting, or translating it. (See Book of Mormon—Introduction.)
The flaws in the Biblical text present a problem to those who believe the Bible is without error, but not to Latter-day Saints. Some additions or removals might have been corrections that came from earlier unknown sources (see the example for Hebrews 1:3 above in this page, and "Words missing in Alma 32:30" as an illustration), but still in a scholarly point of view, it is evident that the Bible has been changed many times and contains errors.
Bart Ehrman was a Biblical inerrantist when he entered the study of the New Testament (he started off at the very conservative Moody Bible Institute), but ultimately lost his faith over the 200,000 to 400,000 variant New Testament readings.[1] As he wrote, "There are more variations among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament."[2]
Ehrman's slide into agnosticism illustrates the dangers of inerrantism. His inability to have complete confidence that every word of the Bible was correct led to an inability to trust any of the Bible's witness about Jesus as Lord, Son of God, and Savior.
Latter-day Saints do not rely on scripture—biblical or otherwise—for their knowledge of Christ. They rely instead upon that which provided the scripture in the first place: revelation by the Holy Ghost. They treasure the scriptural witnesses, but do not require perfection from any mortal or mortal work to have faith in the revelations of God.
Let's begin by defining "textual criticism":
Textual criticism or lower criticism is a branch of philology or bibliography that is concerned with the identification and removal of errors from texts and manuscripts. Ancient manuscripts often have errors or alterations made by scribes, who copied the manuscripts by hand. The textual critic seeks to determine the original text of a document or a collection of documents, which the critic believes to come as close as possible to a lost original....[3]
"Criticism" in this case does not mean "faultfinding." It's a technical term referring to the methods of studying texts or documents for the purpose of dating or reconstructing them, evaluating their authenticity, and analyzing their content or style.[4]
Many fundamentalist Christians believe the Bible is inerrant or infallible. They reject the possibility that the Bible could have errors. For many inerrantists this belief only applies to the original manuscripts of the Bible as written by their authors; some, however, believe that infallibility extends to modern printed Bibles or to a specific translation of the Bible.[5]
Latter-day Saints reject both Biblical inerrancy and Biblical infallibility. They believe that no book of scripture is "perfect" (in any definition of the word) because, although it contains the will of God, it is communicated through the writings of fallible human beings. This includes not only the Bible, but also the Book of Mormon and other modern scriptures.[6]
Latter-day Saints also claim that the Bible has undergone many changes since it was written. Joseph Smith taught:
I believe the Bible as it read when it came from the pen of the original writers. Ignorant translators, careless transcribers, or designing and corrupt priests have committed many errors.[7]
The LDS Church does not take any position on which verses in the Bible are accurate and which are not. From a point of faith we use the Bible as a spiritual guide and don't try to pick it apart. Textual criticism is the realm of the scholar. The Church is an institute of faith and revelation, not scholarship.
From the scholarly point of view, the differences in various Biblical manuscripts are well-documented. A few well-known variants include:
(Additional variant readings can be found on Wikipedia's article on textual criticism.)
Notes
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