Misquoting Scripture

Every Word of God is flawless, He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him.

Do not add to His words, or He will rebuke you and prove you a liar.

Proverbs 30:5-6

     The Bible is pretty clear on the shall's and shall not's regarding scripture; you say it as it is, add nothing and don't take anything away (aka add an omission). "Interpretation" stirs up huge debates, a strictly literal reading, a deeper historical reading and so on all can result in radically varying viewpoints and opinions on what a text says and means. But I'm going to keep with the easy stuff; don't mess with what the Bible says.

      Why? It's quite simple. "All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16). God, using human writers, gave us His words (and sometimes, such as in the case of the Mosaic law, He wrote it down Himself). The scriptures are what we needed to know about Creation, Fall, Flood, Israel, Christ, and the Early Church. From this He also gives us codes of conduct and gives us clear differentiation (in most cases) from right and wrong. Frequently, however, we don't like what's in the Bible. So we... modify it to better suit our desires. Misinterpret a verse here, ignore a passage there, add the book of Opinions and suddenly being a Christian got a whole lot easier (there is no book of Opinions, and if your Bible has one I'd suggest getting a new Bible). But it doesn't work that way. The Bible God gave us is the one we are to live by. Not with an addendum (i.e. The Book of Mormon, the Quran and so on).

      But how do we know we even have the Bible God originally wrote down? Number one: if God is as powerful as He claims to be in the Scriptures, He would have very little trouble maintaining the fidelity of a series of words in a few documents. Second, the Christian Bible has more archaeological and historical evidence than any other major work in or before its time period, COMBINED. Don't believe me? Here's a nice little chart that outlines it all: http://carm.org/manuscript-evidence .

     This article is really short, mostly because there isn't much I can add to the issue. Christianity is incredibly unique in the completeness and accuracy of its text. The Bible doesn't need to be changed to suit history, the Bible shouldn't be changed to fit our moral wants, and Scripture is clear that the Bible is what it is, and God intended it to be that way.

Leaping Lizard