Is the original Bible still in existence?

Can We Still Trust the Bible? A Journey to Find the Original Word of God

In the quiet moments of our faith, a powerful question can surface in our hearts, a question born not of skepticism, but of deep love and reverence for God: Is the Bible I hold in my hands the same one that God originally gave to His people? When we read the words of Jesus, are we truly reading His words? When we find comfort in the Psalms, are we hearing the same songs that King David sang?

This is a precious and important question. It touches the very foundation of our trust in God’s communication with us. In a world of shifting truths, we long for an unshakable anchor, and we look for it in the pages of Holy Scripture. The thought that the originals might be lost, or that the text might have been changed over time, can be unsettling.

This journey we are about to take is meant to bring peace to that question. We will walk through history together, exploring what the “original Bible” truly was, how it was miraculously guarded and passed down through thousands of years, and why you can open your Bible today with powerful confidence and joy. You will discover that the story of the Bible’s survival is not a story of dusty relics and forgotten archives, but a vibrant, living testimony to the faithfulness of a God who preserves His Word and ensures it always reaches the hearts of His children.

What Do We Mean by the ‘Original’ Bible?

When we think of the “original Bible,” our minds might conjure an image of a single, ancient, leather-bound book, perhaps locked away in a vault, containing the entire text from Genesis to Revelation. It’s a natural picture to have, but the reality of how God gave us His Word is even more wonderful and complex. The truth is, the “original Bible” was never a single book, but a sacred library of scrolls, composed and collected over an immense span of history.

The Bible is a collection of dozens of individual books, written by about 40 different authors over a period of roughly 1,600 years.¹ The earliest parts of the Old Testament were written down more than 3,400 years ago, Although the final book of the New Testament was completed around 100 AD.¹ These books were originally written on scrolls, typically made from either papyrus (a paper-like material made from reeds) or parchment (specially prepared animal skins).² The familiar book format that we use today, known as a “codex,” only became the common way to preserve Scripture in the second or third century after Christ.²

So, when scholars talk about the “originals,” they use a specific term: the autographs.⁵ This refers to the very first physical documents that the inspired authors wrote—the scroll on which Isaiah first penned his prophecies, or the letter that the Apostle Paul sent to the church in Rome.⁷ These autographs are what Christians believe were “verbally inspired by the Holy Spirit”.⁸ This doctrine of inspiration means that God, the divine author, revealed His perfect message to the human authors, who then wrote it down precisely, using their own unique vocabularies and writing styles.¹

This beautiful partnership between the divine and the human was woven into the process from the very beginning. Many New Testament authors, for instance, used a professional scribe, called an amanuensis, to write down their words as they dictated them.⁶ We see a touching glimpse of this in the book of Romans. At the end of the letter, the scribe adds his own personal greeting: “I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord” (Romans 16:22).⁶ God’s holy word was delivered through the voice of Paul and transcribed by the hand of Tertius.

To authenticate his letters, Paul would often take the pen from his scribe at the very end to add a final greeting in his own distinctively large handwriting. He mentions this in several letters, such as Galatians 6:11, telling his readers, “See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand.” This personal signature acted as his stamp of approval, confirming that the message dictated to the scribe was his own authoritative teaching.⁶

This helps us understand what “original” truly means. It’s not necessarily a single physical object that could be lost or destroyed. Rather, the “original” is the author-approved message that was sent out and circulated among God’s people.⁶ The focus was never on preserving a relic, but on proclaiming a living message. God’s Word was not meant to be a static product locked in a museum, but a dynamic, divinely-guided revelation unfolding over centuries, carried forward by a partnership of the Holy Spirit and faithful human hands.

If the Originals Are Gone, How Can We Trust What We Have?

It is a simple and gentle fact of history that the original autographs of the Bible, as far as we know, no longer exist.¹ This is not a secret, nor is it unique to the Bible; the original documents of virtually all other ancient writings have also been lost to time.⁴ The reasons are straightforward and practical.

The scrolls were made of perishable materials like papyrus and parchment, which naturally break down over thousands of years, especially when they were being used constantly by the early believers.² the history of God’s people was often marked by turmoil and persecution. The nation of Israel endured devastating exiles and the destruction of both Jerusalem and the Temple, making the survival of any ancient document a near impossibility.⁴ In a beautiful act of reverence, scribes would also sometimes intentionally bury or destroy old, worn-out scrolls after they had made a perfect new copy, to prevent the sacred text from being desecrated.⁴

Knowing this, it is natural to feel a flicker of concern. If the originals are gone, how can we be sure that the Bible we have today is accurate? This is where the story turns from one of loss to one of breathtaking, miraculous preservation. God did not preserve His Word by protecting a single, vulnerable scroll. He preserved it in an even more powerful and resilient way: by inspiring His people to create a vast treasure trove of copies.¹

For the New Testament alone, we currently possess more than 5,700 manuscripts written in the original Greek. When we include copies translated into other ancient languages of the early such as Latin, Syriac, and Coptic, that number soars to nearly 25,000.⁹ No other document from the ancient world comes even remotely close to this level of textual evidence.

Historians use a standard method called the “bibliographical test” to determine the reliability of any ancient text. They ask two questions: how many manuscript copies exist? What is the time gap between the original writing and the earliest surviving copy?.¹² On both of these measures, the New Testament is in a class entirely by itself.

Consider the evidence for the New Testament compared to other famous works of antiquity that historians accept without question.

Table 1: Manuscript Evidence for Ancient Texts

Data compiled from sources 10, and.¹³

The implications of this table are powerful. We trust our knowledge of Julius Caesar’s campaigns based on only ten manuscripts, with the earliest copy written nearly a thousand years after Caesar lived. Yet for the New Testament, we have thousands of manuscripts, with some fragments dating to within a single generation of the apostles themselves.¹⁰ The John Rylands Papyrus, a small fragment of John’s Gospel, is dated to around 125 AD, possibly only 30 to 40 years after John wrote the original.¹⁰ This is not a story that evolved into a legend over centuries; it is the message of Jesus, written down and copied almost immediately by those who were part of its living memory.

Here we see the wisdom of God’s plan for preservation. Instead of leaving a single original that could be lost, altered, or controlled by a single group, He providentially allowed His Word to be copied and scattered across the known world. This incredible number of manuscripts, coming from different geographical regions, forms a powerful, self-correcting network. If an error crept into a copy in Egypt, it could be easily identified and corrected by comparing it to copies from Syria or Italy.³ The sheer volume of manuscripts is not a source of confusion; it is the very foundation of our confidence, a divine safeguard against corruption that makes the New Testament the most verifiably accurate document of the ancient world.

Who Were the Scribes, and Could They Be Trusted?

Having a vast number of manuscripts is one pillar of our confidence. The other is knowing the character and commitment of the people who copied them. The transmission of the Bible was not a mechanical process like a photocopier; it was a sacred trust placed in the hands of devoted, God-fearing individuals who considered their work an act of worship. To understand their dedication is to build an even deeper trust in the quality of the copies they produced.

The most famous of these scribal groups were the Masoretes, Jewish scholars who worked between the 7th and 10th centuries AD.¹⁵ Their name comes from the Hebrew word

masorah, which means “tradition,” and their life’s work was to preserve and faithfully hand down the text of the Old Testament.¹⁵ They inherited a tradition of reverence for Scripture that was already ancient, and they elevated it to an astonishing level of precision.

Their work was governed by hundreds of meticulous rules, all designed to ensure perfect accuracy. The life of a scribe was one of powerful discipline and reverence. Before beginning his work, a scribe would often purify himself through a ritual cleansing.¹⁷ As he copied, he would slowly and deliberately say each word aloud before writing it down.¹⁹ The name of God was treated with such holiness that a scribe might wipe his pen and wash his hands before writing it.¹⁹

The Masoretes also developed what we might call the ultimate quality control system. They were not content to simply copy the text; they documented it with mathematical precision.

• They counted the number of verses in each book.
• They counted the number of words in each book.
• They even counted every single letter in each book.
• They calculated and noted the middle word and the middle letter of each book of the Old Testament.

If a newly completed copy was checked and did not perfectly match the master copy in these counts, it was deemed unfit. The entire scroll, representing months or even years of painstaking labor, would not be used. It would be reverently buried or stored away to ensure that only the most perfect copies remained in circulation.⁷

One of the Masoretes’ most brilliant contributions was a way to preserve the sound of the Hebrew language. The original Hebrew text was written with only consonants; the vowel sounds were passed down orally through tradition.¹⁵ It would be like trying to read the English phrase “God is love” written only as “GD S LV.” As Hebrew faded as a common spoken language, the Masoretes feared that the correct pronunciation—and therefore the exact meaning—of God’s Word could be lost.

To prevent this, they invented a complex system of dots and dashes, called niqqud or “points,” which they placed above, below, and inside the consonantal letters to represent the vowel sounds.¹⁵ This was an act of genius and reverence. They did not alter a single consonant of the sacred text they had received. Instead, they added these points around the existing letters, preserving the ancient text while safeguarding its pronunciation for all future generations.

This deep conservatism is a powerful reason for our trust. The scribes were not editors trying to “improve” or update the text. Their highest goal was to be a clear, unblemished window to the Word they had inherited. Even when they encountered a word in an ancient manuscript that they suspected was a copyist’s error, they would not change it. Instead, they would leave the word as it was written in the text (the ketiv, “what is written”) and place a note in the margin with what they believed was the correct reading (the qere, “what is to be read”).²³ Their powerful respect for the text acted as a powerful shield against corruption. The Bible we have today is a direct inheritor of this sacred labor of love, passed down by generations of faithful worshipers who treasured every letter of God’s Word.

How Do We Sort Through Differences in the Manuscripts?

When people hear that there are thousands of manuscripts and that no two are perfectly identical, it can sometimes cause a moment of unease. Does this mean the Bible is full of contradictions? How do we know what the original said? This is where the scholarly field of critique textuelle comes in, and far from being a threat to our faith, it is a God-given tool that actually deepens and strengthens our confidence in the Bible.

It’s important to understand what the term “criticism” means in this context. It does not mean finding fault with or “criticizing” the Bible. It simply means applying careful analysis and thoughtful judgment, like a detective examining clues, to determine the original wording of an ancient text.²⁴ The goal of a biblical textual critic is not to change the Bible, but to

recover with the highest possible accuracy the words that the inspired authors originally wrote.²⁷

Perhaps a simple analogy can help us see this process in a reassuring light. Imagine a great and miraculous event takes place, and it is witnessed by a thousand people from all over the world. You set out to record the most accurate account of what happened. You interview all one thousand witnesses. You find that 995 of them tell the exact same core story with incredible consistency. A few of the witnesses have minor variations in their telling. One says the man at the center of the event wore a “blue” coat, while another remembers it as “dark blue.” One witness refers to “Christ Jesus,” while another says “Jesus Christ.” One tired witness accidentally skips a short, descriptive phrase that all the others include.

Do these tiny variations cause you to doubt that the miracle happened? Of course not. In fact, they do the opposite. The overwhelming agreement of so many independent witnesses gives you unshakable confidence in the core event. The minor, unintentional differences actually prove that there was no conspiracy or collusion among the witnesses. Textual criticism is simply the careful and reverent process of listening to all one thousand of these witnesses to reconstruct the original event with the greatest possible certainty.

This is a beautiful picture of what we have with the biblical manuscripts. The “differences” between them, which scholars call “variants,” are overwhelmingly minor. They consist of things like:

• Simple spelling differences, the ancient equivalent of “neighbor” vs. “neighbour”.³
• Changes in word order that don’t alter the meaning, like “Christ Jesus” vs. “Jesus Christ”.³
• The accidental repetition (dittography) or omission (haplography) of a word or a line, often by a tired scribe.³⁰

The result of this reality is one of the strongest arguments for the reliability of the Bible: scholars are confident about more than 99 percent of the biblical text. And in the tiny fraction of the text where there is any uncertainty—less than half of one percent—not a single major doctrine of the Christian faith is affected in any way.³

When scholars do encounter a meaningful variant, they follow a set of logical principles to determine which reading is most likely the original. They prefer the reading that is found in the oldest and most reliable manuscripts, the one that is supported by manuscripts from the widest variety of geographical locations, and often the one that is “more difficult,” since a scribe was more likely to smooth out a confusing phrase than to make an easy one harder.³²

This whole process should give us great peace. The existence of these variants is not a sign of a corrupted text, but of an authentic and transparent history. If a central authority had systematically altered the Bible, we would expect to find a very uniform text. The fact that we have thousands of copies with minor, human variations proves that no such conspiracy took place.³ The footnotes you see in modern Bibles that mention these variants are a mark of scholarly honesty and a testament to the fact that we are getting closer to the original text, not further away. Thanks to the discovery of more and more ancient manuscripts, the Bible you hold in your hands is based on better evidence and more rigorous scholarship than at any other time in history.²⁶

What Do the Dead Sea Scrolls Reveal About the Old Testament?

For centuries, the oldest complete manuscripts of the Hebrew Old Testament dated to around 1000 AD, including the magnificent Leningrad Codex.³³ While scholars were confident in their accuracy, a gap of more than 1,400 years separated these copies from the time the last Old Testament books were written. Skeptics often pointed to this gap as a reason to doubt the text’s reliability.

Then, in 1947, God provided a stunning answer in one of the most dramatic archaeological discoveries of all time. A young Bedouin shepherd, searching for a lost goat near the Dead Sea, tossed a rock into a cave and heard the surprising sound of shattering pottery.¹² Inside that cave, and in ten others nearby, were ancient clay jars containing a priceless treasure: hundreds of ancient scrolls, hidden for nearly two thousand years. These became known as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

These scrolls were a library from a devout Jewish community that lived at a place called Qumran around the time of Jesus. The scrolls dated from about 250 BC to 68 AD, meaning they were over a thousand years older than any Hebrew Bible manuscripts previously known.³³ For the first time, scholars could open a textual time capsule and see what the Old Testament looked like a millennium earlier.

What they found sent a shockwave of awe and confirmation through the world. When the ancient scrolls were compared to the Masoretic Text from a thousand years later, the texts were found to be astonishingly similar—word-for-word identical in more than 95 percent of the cases.¹² The small number of differences consisted almost entirely of simple slips of the pen and variations in spelling.

The Great Isaiah Scroll, one of the most famous of the finds, is a powerful example. It contains all 66 chapters of the book of Isaiah. In chapter 53, a cornerstone prophecy of the Messiah, there are 166 Hebrew words. In the thousand years separating the Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah from the medieval Masoretic text, only 17 letters were in question. Ten of those were simple spelling differences, four were minor stylistic changes, and only three letters involved an actual word (“light,” added in verse 11), which did not change the meaning of the passage in any major way.¹² The message had been preserved with breathtaking fidelity.

The Dead Sea Scrolls did more than just confirm the text we already had; they also clarified it. In some cases, they helped solve ancient puzzles and even restored parts of the text that had been accidentally lost over time.

• A Missing Verse in the Psalms: Psalm 145 is an acrostic, where each verse is supposed to begin with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. But in the traditional Masoretic Text, the verse for the letter nonne (N) was missing. For centuries, it seemed like a flaw in the Psalm. But when scholars examined the Great Psalms Scroll from the Dead Sea, they found the missing verse, right where it was supposed to be.³⁵ It read, “The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does.” It appears a scribe long ago accidentally skipped the line, and the Dead Sea Scrolls allowed modern translators to restore it.
• “Sons of God” or “Sons of Israel”?: In Deuteronomy 32:8, the traditional text says that God divided the nations “according to the number of the sons of Israel.” This reading had always seemed a bit puzzling. But the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, read “according to the number of the angels of God” or “sons of God.” A scroll fragment from the Dead Sea confirmed this earlier reading, showing that the original text likely spoke of God assigning heavenly beings to the nations, a concept that deepens our understanding of the spiritual world in the Old Testament.³⁷
• How Many Bulls?: In 1 Samuel 1:24, the Masoretic Text says that when Hannah brought the boy Samuel to the temple, she brought an offering of “three bulls.” The Septuagint, But said she brought “a three-year-old bull.” A Dead Sea Scroll of Samuel confirmed the Septuagint’s reading, clarifying that it was a single, valuable animal, which makes more sense in the context of the story.³⁶

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was a gift from God to a modern age of skepticism. It provided tangible, verifiable evidence that the Old Testament text we read today is the same text that was cherished by the Jewish people in the time of Jesus. It is a powerful affirmation that God’s hand has been protecting His Word through the long march of history.

What Are the Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, and Why Are They So Important?

Just as the Dead Sea Scrolls provide a powerful window into the Old Testament, two other magnificent treasures give us breathtaking confidence in the New Testament. They are not scrolls, but massive, book-like volumes called codices, and they are named Codex Sinaiticus et Codex Vaticanus. These are two of the oldest and most complete copies of the Bible in existence, and they stand as mighty pillars supporting the reliability of the New Testament we read today.

These codices were painstakingly handwritten in Greek on hundreds of pages of fine parchment in the 4th century, likely between 330 and 360 AD.³⁸ This means they were created less than 300 years after the apostles wrote the originals, giving us a clear view of the Bible as it was known in the early long before most other manuscripts we have were copied.³⁹

Codex Vaticanus, also known by the letter B, has been housed in the Vatican Library since at least the 15th century.⁴⁰ It is a treasure of the Christian faith, containing nearly the entire Old and New Testaments. For centuries, scholars regarded it as one of the most accurate and important witnesses to the original text of the New Testament.³⁹

Codex Sinaiticus, known by the Hebrew letter א (Aleph), has a more dramatic story. It was discovered in 1844 by a scholar named Constantin von Tischendorf at St. Catherine’s Monastery, located at the foot of the traditional Mount Sinai.³¹ It is the single oldest manuscript that contains a complete New Testament.³⁸ Today, these two codices are considered the chief witnesses to the New Testament text. When they agree on a reading—which they do very often—scholars have immense confidence that they are preserving the original wording from a common ancestor deep in the second century.¹⁴

Like the Dead Sea Scrolls, these ancient codices not only confirm the text but also help clarify it. They have been essential in helping translators resolve questions about certain verses that appear differently in later manuscripts.

• The Ending of Mark’s Gospel: If you look in many modern Bibles, you will see a note before Mark 16:9. This note explains that the oldest and most reliable manuscripts of Mark’s Gospel end at verse 8, with the women fleeing the empty tomb in fear and silence. Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus are those primary witnesses. They both conclude Mark’s Gospel at 16:8.⁴⁶ Most scholars believe that the familiar “long ending” (verses 9-20), which describes Jesus’s post-resurrection appearances, was added by a scribe very early in church history to provide a more complete-feeling conclusion. Although the events in the long ending are true and are described elsewhere in the Gospels, these ancient codices help us understand that they were likely not part of Mark’s original autograph. This is not a loss, but a clarification that helps us get closer to the original text.
• The Woman Caught in Adultery: The moving story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53–8:11) is another passage that is absent from our earliest and best manuscripts, including Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.⁴⁶ In other manuscripts, it shows up in different places, sometimes in John and sometimes even in Luke. Most scholars believe this was a true story about Jesus that circulated orally in the early church and was later inserted into the written text of the Gospels. Again, the honesty of modern translations in noting this fact is a sign of their commitment to accuracy, based on the powerful evidence of these ancient codices.
• The Lord’s Prayer: The beautiful doxology at the end of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew’s Gospel, “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen” (Matthew 6:13), is also missing from the earliest manuscripts like Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.⁴⁶ It was likely an ancient liturgical response, used by the church in worship, that was later added to the text by a scribe.

The existence of these incredible manuscripts is a gift. Their agreement provides a powerful foundation for our New Testament text, and their differences, honestly noted by scholars, build our trust in the translation process. They are tangible links to the faith of the early assuring us that the Bible we cherish today rests on a firm and ancient foundation.

How Were the ‘Right’ Books Chosen for the Bible?

Another question that often arises in a believer’s heart is how we ended up with the specific 66 books in our Protestant Bible. Who decided which books belonged and which did not? Was it a small group of men in a smoke-filled room making arbitrary choices? The truth is far more organic, beautiful, and guided by the hand of God.

The key principle to understand is this: the church did not determine the canon; the church reconnues the canon.⁴⁸ The term

“canon” comes from a Greek word that means a “measuring rod” or a “standard”.⁴⁸ It refers to the list of books that were accepted as divinely inspired and therefore authoritative for the faith and life of God’s people. A book was not made authoritative by a church council’s decision. A book was recognized as canonical because it was authoritative from the moment God inspired its writing.⁴⁸ The process of canonization was the centuries-long journey of God’s people, guided by the Holy Spirit, coming to a consensus about which books bore the unmistakable “voice” of their Shepherd.

Pour le Ancien Testament, the process was largely complete long before the time of Jesus. The Hebrew Scriptures were recognized by Jewish rabbis and scholars as falling into three sections: the Law (the first five books), the Prophets, and the Writings (including Psalms, Proverbs, etc.). Jesus Himself affirmed this established canon when He spoke to His disciples after His resurrection, saying that “everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44).⁴⁹

Pour le Nouveau Testament, the process was more gradual, unfolding in the first few centuries of the church. It began with the apostles themselves. The Apostle Peter referred to Paul’s letters as “Scripture” (2 Peter 3:15-16), and Paul quoted Luke’s Gospel, giving it the same status as Old Testament Scripture (1 Timothy 5:18).⁴⁸

As these apostolic writings were circulated, the early church began to recognize which ones carried divine authority. They applied a few key principles to discern the truly inspired books:

1. Apostolic Authority: Was the book written by an apostle or a close associate of an apostle (like Mark with Peter, or Luke with Paul)? This ensured the book was rooted in the direct testimony of those who walked with Jesus.⁴⁸
2. Universal Acceptance: Was the book accepted and used by churches across the wider Christian world? Books that were only used by a small, isolated group were viewed with suspicion.⁴⁸
3. Doctrinal Consistency: Did the book’s teaching align with the core faith that had been handed down from the apostles? Books that contradicted the established understanding of the gospel were rejected.⁴⁸
4. Evidence of the Spirit’s Power: Did the book have the self-authenticating quality of God’s Word? Did it have the power to convict, nourish, and transform the lives of believers?.⁴⁸

Over time, a clear consensus emerged. Early church fathers like Irenaeus and Hippolytus listed the vast majority of our New Testament books as Scripture.⁴⁸ Later councils, such as the Council of Hippo (393 AD) and the Council of Carthage (397 AD), met to formally affirm the list of 27 New Testament books that the church had already, by and large, come to recognize through the guidance of the Spirit.⁴⁸

What about the so-called “lost books of the Bible,” like the Gospel of Thomas or the Book of Jasher mentioned in the Old Testament? These books were not “lost” or removed; they were ultimately rejected by the early church.⁵² Some, like the Gospel of Thomas, were forgeries written centuries later that contained heretical teachings.⁵² Others, like the Book of Jasher, were simply historical documents that were referenced by the biblical authors but were never considered inspired Scripture themselves.⁵³

The formation of the canon was not a human power play. It was a beautiful, Spirit-led process where the books that truly nourished the soul of the the ones that consistently bore the mark of divine inspiration, rose to the surface and were embraced by God’s people as their sacred standard for truth.

What Is the Catholic Church’s Stance on the Bible?

To have a full picture of how Christians view the Bible, it is helpful and important to understand the perspective of the Catholic Church. While sharing a deep reverence for the Bible as the inspired Word of God, the Catholic tradition has a unique understanding of how God’s revelation is handed down and interpreted.

The core of the Catholic understanding is the “deposit of faith”—all the truth that Christ revealed for our salvation, which is entrusted to the Church.⁵⁰ Catholics believe this deposit of faith is transmitted through two distinct but deeply connected channels:

Écriture Sainte et Tradition sacrée.⁵⁴ This is different from the Protestant principle of

Sola Scriptura, or “Scripture alone.”

The Second Vatican Council, in its document Dei Verbum (“The Word of God”), explains this beautifully. It describes Scripture and Tradition as two streams that flow “from the same divine wellspring,” which “in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end”.⁵⁴

• Écriture Sainte is the Word of God as it was written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.⁵⁴
• Tradition sacrée is the Word of God that was entrusted by Christ and the Holy Spirit to the apostles, who then passed it on orally through their preaching and teaching.⁵⁴ This living transmission continues through their successors, the bishops.

The Catholic Church points to verses like 2 Thessalonians 2:15, where Paul urges believers to “stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter”.⁵⁶ This shows that in the early authoritative teaching came through both written and oral forms.

To guard and authentically interpret this single deposit of faith, Catholics believe that Christ established the Magistère, which is the living teaching authority of the exercised by the Pope and the bishops in communion with him.⁵⁰ The Magisterium is not

ci-dessus the Word of God; its role is to serve the Word of God, ensuring that it is faithfully preserved and explained to each generation.⁵⁰

This different framework also helps explain why Catholic Bibles have more books in the Old Testament than Protestant Bibles. These seven books (plus longer versions of Esther and Daniel) are known as the Deuterocanonical books by Catholics and the Apocryphes by Protestants.⁵⁰ The historical reason for this difference is that the early church often used the

Septante, an ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament that included these books. When Protestant reformers in the 16th century translated the Old Testament, they chose to follow the Hebrew canon, which did not include these later, mostly Greek-language, writings. The Catholic at the Council of Trent, formally affirmed the canonicity of the Deuterocanonical books that had been part of its tradition for centuries.⁵⁰

Although the frameworks for understanding authority may differ, it is important to recognize that both Catholic and Protestant Christians share a foundational belief in the Bible as God’s inspired, authoritative, and life-giving Word. Understanding these different perspectives can foster greater respect and unity within the broader Christian family.

How Are Modern Bible Translations Made?

We have journeyed from the original scrolls of the apostles and prophets, through the careful hands of scribes, to the great codices of the early church. But how does that ancient text get into the Bibles we hold in our hands today? The process of modern Bible translation is a careful, scholarly, and prayerful endeavor that connects us directly back to the most reliable ancient sources.

A common misconception is that modern Bibles are translations of other translations (for instance, that a new version is just an update of the King James Version, which was itself a translation of a translation). This is not the case. Modern translation committees work directly from the best available scholarly editions of the Bible in its original languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.⁵⁷

The source texts they use are the fruit of centuries of textual criticism:

• Pour le Ancien Testament, translators primarily use a standard critical edition of the Hebrew Bible called the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS). This text is based on the Masoretic Text, with the Leningrad Codex (from c. 1008 AD) serving as its primary source, carefully compared with the Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient witnesses.⁵⁷
• Pour le Nouveau Testament, translators use critical Greek texts, most commonly the Nestle-Aland (currently in its 28th edition) or the United Bible Societies (5th edition). These are not based on a single manuscript, but are master texts carefully constructed by scholars who have weighed all the evidence from thousands of manuscripts—giving special weight to the earliest and best witnesses like Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus.¹⁴

The translation process itself is typically undertaken by a large committee of scholars from a wide range of Christian denominations. This helps to ensure that the final translation is free from any single individual’s or denomination’s bias.⁶⁰ The team meticulously analyzes each verse, debating the best way to render the original language into clear and accurate modern English. They also test drafts with pastors and laypeople to ensure the translation is not only accurate but also readable and understandable.⁶⁰

As they work, these committees must choose a translation philosophy, which generally falls along a spectrum:

• Formal Equivalence (or “word-for-word”): This approach seeks to translate the Bible as literally as possible, preserving the structure and even the word order of the original Hebrew and Greek. This is excellent for deep study. Examples include the King James Version (KJV), the New American Standard Bible (NASB), and the English Standard Version (ESV).⁵⁷
• Dynamic Equivalence (or “thought-for-thought”): This approach focuses on translating the original meaning or thought of a passage into the most natural and readable equivalent in the target language. The goal is for the modern reader to experience the text with the same impact as the original audience. Examples include the New International Version (NIV) and the New Living Translation (NLT).⁵⁷
• Paraphrase: This is not a direct translation but a restatement of the biblical text in the author’s own words, designed to make the message more accessible and impactful. A famous example is The Living Bible.⁵⁸

The existence of many different translations is not a sign of confusion or unreliability. Rather, it is a blessing that reflects different, faithful attempts to bring God’s unchanging Word to people in a way they can understand. It allows each of us to choose a Bible that best suits our needs, whether for in-depth academic study, daily devotional reading, or outreach to a new believer.

Is God’s Hand Still at Work in Preserving His Word?

Our journey has taken us across thousands of years. We have seen how God’s Word was first written on fragile scrolls, painstakingly copied by reverent scribes, confirmed by astonishing archaeological finds, and faithfully translated into the language of our hearts. Through it all, one truth shines brightly: the preservation of the Bible is a miracle of God’s faithfulness.

This is not just a conclusion we draw from the evidence; it is a promise God Himself makes in His Word. Jesus declared with absolute authority, “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished” (Matthew 5:18). He promised, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Matthew 24:35).³ The prophet Isaiah, speaking by the Spirit, proclaimed the same eternal truth: “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isaiah 40:8).⁶²

These verses point to the beautiful Christian doctrine of Préservation. This is the belief that the same sovereign God who divinely inspired His Word has also, through His singular care and providence, supernaturally protected it through the storms of history.²⁸ He has ensured that the Scriptures remain pure in their essential message and are always available to His people.

Le Saint-Esprit, who breathed out the Scriptures in the beginning (2 Timothy 3:16), has been the divine agent of this preservation every step of the way.⁸ It was His Spirit that instilled such reverence in the hearts of the scribes. It was His Spirit that guided the early church to recognize the books that belonged in the canon. And it is His Spirit today who illuminates the words on the page and opens our hearts to receive them as God’s very own truth.⁶⁴

When we step back and look at the whole story, we can see the powerful wisdom in God’s plan. He did not entrust His eternal Word to a single, perishable artifact that could have been lost, hidden, or destroyed. Instead, He entrusted it to His people. He scattered it like seeds across the globe, allowing it to take root in countless communities. He preserved it in thousands of manuscripts, creating a witness so vast and resilient that no human power could ever silence or corrupt it. The “problem” of the lost originals and the thousands of copies is, in fact, the glory of God’s perfect solution.

Therefore, you can open your Bible with the deepest confidence and peace. The words you read are not the product of chance or the result of a long, unreliable game of telephone. They are the words that God intended for you, protected by His power, delivered by His people, and confirmed by overwhelming evidence. They are the very words of life, and they will stand forever.