Reliability of the Holy Scriptures

 

 

⚪ The Holy Scriptures have been preserved

Knowing that God by his holy spirit inspired the Holy Scriptures, thus making them reliable, we choose to let HIM do the interpreting by his records of fulfilled prophecy and by the things which he has caused to occur in modern history to fulfill prophecies due to come to pass in our day. Source : 🇺🇸 1946 - Let God Be True, page 20 + Cover

Paul's fellow apostle, Peter, was of the same mind on the matter of giving first place to the Holy Scriptures. Peter quoted again and again from the Hebrew Scriptures and wrote : "But the word of the Lord endureth for ever..." Source : 🇺🇸 1946 - Let God Be True, page 18 + Cover

Any who say your Bible today lacks evidence of accurate transmission, therefore, are evidently unaware of these wellestablished facts. Certainly we should expect God to see to it that his Word would be preserved in such a way that the truth, principles and understanding it conveys were protected. The Bible itself contains God's promise to preserve it in this way. - Daniel 12:4; 1 Peter 1:24, 25; Revelation 22:18, 19. Source : 🇺🇸 1969 - Is The Bible really the Word of God, page 158 + Cover

Amazed at the harmonious testimony, proving an unexpected but satisfactory answer, he undertook systematic Bible research, and was brought to a complete confidence in the Bible as being inspired by an all-wise, powerful, just and loving Creator, worthy of adoration and worship. Source : 🇺🇸 The Watchtower, January 1 1912, [4947] + Cover

God made sure that the Bible was accurately copied and preserved. Source : 🇺🇸 What does god require of us, 1996, page 3 + Cover

 

⚫ The Holy Scriptures have been altered

The original writings of the Hebrew prophets and of the apostles and their associates were inspired, but till the fifteenth century A.D. their writings had to be copied by hand. Mistakes due to human imperfection crept into the making of these copies. [...] But it was in the field of translating the original Scriptures into foreign languages that the Devil's greater opportunity lay for perverting or coloring the sacred teachings of God's Word. [...] Aside from Matthew's own translation into Greek, no written translation of the Scriptures down to this day is inspired. [...] So no recent translation of the Holy Scriptures should be venerated as inspired, not even the most popular Bible translation, the King James Version, nor the Latin Vulgate or Martin Luther's Version. Source : 🇺🇸 The Watchtower, September 15 1950, page 310, page 311 + Cover

But apart from that, no ancient Greek manuscript that we possess today of the books from Matthew to Revelation contains God's name in full. Does that mean that the name should not be there? That would be surprising [...] There are thousands of copies of the Christian Greek Scriptures in existence today, but most of them were made during or after the fourth century of our Common Era. This suggests a possibility: Did something happen to the text of the Christian Greek Scriptures before the fourth century taht resulted in the omission of God's name? The facts prove that something did. Source : 🇫🇷 1984 - The Divine Name That Will Endure Forever, pages 23, page 24 + Cover

Why, then, is the name absent from the extant manuscripts of the Christian Greek Scriptures or so-called "New Testament"? Evidently because by the time those extant copies were made (from the third century C.E. onward) the original text of the writings of the apostles and disciples had been altered. Source : 🇫🇷 1971 - Aid to Bible understanding, page 887 + Cover