So there I was on Wednesday afternoon, on my way driving to church. I am listening to a christian rap song, cause that’s what I like, when halfway through the song, I realized the Song was about Textual Criticism. He talked about Textual Variants, P75, and Various Manuscripts. I got so excited I called my wife and told her someone did a song on textual criticism, and considering it’s a song, he put a relevant amount of information in the song. I got that this was the coolest thing in the world, considering I just did a post on the Issue of translation. Listen to it for yourself-
Here are the Lyrics, for those who would rather read it:
I can hear your questions homie is that book reliable?
Yes it is the testaments are very verifiable
What do you believe in? What do you abide by?
Maybe it’s a mixture of different stuff tie-dye
You boys are all syncretists sinking in your own thoughts
The book that I hold to cohesive and never off
Say my book carrying lies but it’s quite the contrary
66 holy scripts it’s more like a library
Written by about forty authors in three different languages
English is not one of them Greek and Hebrew surely is
Inspired and inerrant woah what does that mean?
It’s from God and without err in absolutely everything
Ya it addresses class in session boy I hope you learn something
Hear them lies from other guys boy I hope you turn from em
Why does it matter though? If the Bible’s false or true
Matter of fact for your answer that let me caution you
Don’t play with epistemology homie we need absolutes
If there’s no such thing as truth then he can do what he want to do
She can do what she want to do and can’t nobody say nothing
If a killer pull them choppers out and feel like spraying something
Ain’t nobody say it’s wrong and we all know that’s a lie
Somebody outside of us has to speak and rectify
That’s just what God did in the Christian holy book
Why don’t you crack it open sit down take a look
God has communicated with us man
The Bible is the most thoroughly documented work of all antiquity
If we can’t trust in the Bible we can’t trust nothing
Let’s go
Why they give my book a hard time? Especially the new testament?
Bi-textural barriers that’s utterly irrelevant
To the proper understanding and translation of the text
Yes with more manuscripts there are more variants
But the more the merrier homie this is not a threat
This is strong evidence we posses the original text
Having these manuscripts different areas different times
Yet they all testify to the same text just blows my mind
God is so (Silence)
Ain’t no words to explain
How He preserve His word through desert plains and heavy rains
But they trying to tell us that the Bible’s been corrected
I say they are misinformed and they might as well cut it
See flame is bout to get deep and I ain’t talking scuba gear
I’m talking real scholarly bought to bring some proof in here
P 75 codex vaticanus
These are two manuscripts from scriptures in the canon
And when I say canon I ain’t talking bout he
But the collection of books that will function as the rule
Back to p 75 it’s from the second century
The other’s from the fourth sorry bout the history
150 years these copies are separated
But it’s so fascinating how they are so closely related
There is no team either controlling the transmission
Just God and His Holy Spirit looking out for the Christians
Another reason I wanted to do a post on this song, cause he does talk about some things I think are vital to understanding me and faith. And I love the way he starts with –I can hear your questions homie is that book reliable? Yes it is the testaments are very verifiable What do you believe in? What do you abide by? And then he goes on to answer that question in the song. Inspired and inerrant woah what does that mean?…It’s from God and without err in absolutely everything Why does it matter though? If the Bible’s false or true.
And for me as Christian when it comes to the bible, this is what I have been taught and kind of based my faith off of. In fact, when people use to ask me why should I trust the bible, I would say without hesitation, “That the bible is the most documented and precise historical books ever, and has been tested through the times of history & archaeology and has come been proven and valid after.” So I guess when we ask is the book reliable this is one part of the answer. The other part of the answer is that it is inspired, so which should imply to a degree of context that it is inerrant. But when one say the bible is not inerrant, but infallible it throws me back cause I don’t know how a believing christian could say something like that and still believe in Christ Jesus. If the bible is now subjective, how do we now interpret biblical truth?
The BitterSweet End 