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The story about Jesus forgiving an adulterous women is not in the original copy, but that's the version we most commonly have. So how does that make the Bible inerrant, given that many important parts were added or removed?

Further reading

Flimzy
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user4951
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1 Answers1

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The belief in biblical inerrancy does not require that the copies or translations of the Bible be completely inerrant. It is generally accepted that:

(1) Copies are subject to human error

(2) Translations are subject to human interpretation

Biblical inerrancy is the belief that the original manuscripts are inerrant. Unfortunately, we do not have many original manuscripts (if we have any), so we study the copies that we have, compare them, and try to determine the text of the original manuscripts. We may not be able to do so perfectly, and areas of ambiguity are often noted in modern Bibles (John 8, Mark 16).

However, it stands to reason that we have a reasonably accurate representation of the original manuscripts, with the essentials preserved.

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    Excellent answer. It might also be worth noting that in none of the textual discrepancies like the one noted ones in John 8 or Mark 16 do any theological points depend on one version of the copy or another. No understanding of God or salvation or Christian life hinges on a possibly disputed bit of the text. – Caleb Nov 21 '11 at 16:09
  • Well many of the passages that change are the important ones. Just look at http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/DT32BibSac.pdf we even have a polytheism there. I do not even know if YHWH is the same with El Elyon (most high) or whether El Elyon is YHWH's boss. – user4951 Nov 22 '11 at 02:49
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    @JimThio: If you have a question about polytheism in the Jewish/Chrsitian Bible, that would probably be best as a separate question, not a comment on this unrelated one. – Flimzy Nov 22 '11 at 18:38
  • Yea. I get it. It's good answer nevertheless +1. I am just trying to point out how verses that are added or removed are important. In fact, that's how our religious life is so much different from ancient christians or ancient jews. – user4951 Nov 25 '11 at 11:28
  • However, it's only half of the doctrine of ineracy. Inerrant people believe that 1 the original is perfect, 2. it's preserved perfectly till now. As the most official bible translations itself change all the time, they can't all be the same with the original. Also in many important cases, we don't know what the original said. – user4951 Nov 25 '11 at 11:30
  • @JimThio, not so. Though some Christians believe that the Bible is "preserved perfectly till now" (typically this view is held by KJV-only denominations), that belief is separate from the doctrine of inerrancy. –  Nov 28 '11 at 15:48
  • So separate doctrine. I see. – user4951 Nov 30 '11 at 06:22
  • Okay good answer then. – user4951 Dec 14 '11 at 14:37
  • The thing is, in some books like book of kings and books of chronicles. Some content in one book is the content in another book with words like Yahweh replaced by some other word. I forget. So both can't be original. One is obviously a slightly different copy of another – user4951 Oct 24 '21 at 04:47
  • I think the answer miss the point. Take a looks like the story of adulterous women. We don't even know whether the story is in the original or not. Hence, the original cannot possibly be preserved because we don't even know if it's original or not. – user4951 Oct 24 '21 at 07:21