Some thoughts on the preservation of God’s words
By Will Kinney
I do believe God has preserved his words from generation to generation. I do not deny that. But you have to think about what that means. At the time Psalm 12 was written, the Jews had only about half a bible. Much more needed to be written for the O.T. and the N.T. wasn’t going to come along till many hundreds of years later.
God was not promising a preserved complete Bible for every generation because there was no complete Bible. But he does preserve his words. Who had them for the first 4000 years of recorded history? Only the Jews.
“He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation; and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye the LORD.” Psalms 147:19-20
It is God who preserves them. He alone knows which ones they are. But the scriptures do not tell us where he preserved them.
When the N.T. started to come along the originals never did make up a complete N.T. Copies were made of letters and these were sent to other churches. People began to make copies for themselves and then to translate them into Latin or Syriac or Gothic, Armenian, Slovenic, etc.
Did they all have perfect bibles? No. But God was still preserving his words. The bible tells us that very early on “many corrupted the words of God” 2 Cor. 2:17.
Over time there were many corruptions, additions and omissions. These all needed to be weeded out and purified for there to be a perfect and inerrant Bible, and if you are going to combine a Hebrew O.T. with a Greek N.T., there has to be a translation into another language.
I believe God began this purifying process of the words he had preserved and knew which ones they are with the time of the Reformation and the printing press.
God’s words are purified 7 times.
I think Tyndale began this process and there were 6 English bibles till we get to the 7th, the KJB.
Anyway, this is how I see it. If people say there must have been a perfect bible before the KJB, then show it to us. Tell us which one it was. They never will.
And the ones who complain and criticize the KJB have nothing else to give us but their own personal opinions and preferences, but no complete and inerrant Bible in ANY language. Just ask them.
I hope this helps. I also have an article I wrote on this subject. Actually 2 or 3 of them.
Here is one that may help for those interested.
Absolute authority, God’s historic witness to the KJB