Has God's Word Been Lost Over Time?

In this episode, we welcome Wesley Huff, a Christian apologist. He specializes in the study of how the New Testament was transmitted and preserved through the centuries since Jesus walked the earth. We’ve enlisted Wesley’s help to discuss some of the important issues related to Biblical inerrancy highlighted in the article, Does the Bible Contain Mistakes?

Biblical inerrancy means that the Bible does not err on any truth claim that it makes. This has become an extremely important issue for Christians today as more and more skeptical voices in our culture cast doubts on the trustworthiness of the Bible.

One of the chief criticisms of Christians that Wes helps us tackle is the charge that since we don’t have the original copies of the New Testament writings, God’s actual words to us have somehow been lost over time.

Wes helps us make some very important distinctions between the original copies that no longer exist, and the text that they contained. Much confusion has been created by skeptics like Bart Erhman, and even Christians, when confusing God’s inspired and living Word with the physical copies of the scriptures themselves.

In this episode, Scott and Wes discuss:

• What is "inerrancy" as it relates to the Bible?
• What's the difference between Biblical inspiration vs inerrancy?
• Are there mistakes in the Bible?
• How should we answer Bible skeptics?

You'll leave with some great resources to dig deeper and grow your confidence that the Bible we possess in the 21st Century is as much the Word of God as the original copies penned by the apostles.

Key quotes referenced

Quote 1 - Paul Feinberg

“Inerrancy means that when all facts are known, the Scriptures in their original autographs and properly interpreted will be shown to be wholly true in everything they affirm, whether that has to do with doctrine or morality or with the social, physical or life sciences.” (Paul Feinberg, “The Meaning of Inerrancy,” in Inerrancy, Norm Geisler ed, p. 294)

Quote 2 - Bart Ehrman

“I began to see that not just the scribal text but the original text itself was a very human book…even if God had inspired the original words, we don’t have the original words. So, the doctrine of inspiration was in a sense irrelevant….”

“…if [God] really wanted people to have his actual words, surely he would have miraculously preserved those words, just as he had miraculously inspired them in the first place.” (Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, p. 211)