ADDING AND SUBTRACTING FROM THE BIBLE

 

Unfortunately, in Bible study, novelty is rarely a plus and often leads to Scripture twisting. As one example, consider the occasions of adding or subtracting.

In Appendix 1 below is a list of entire NT verses you will find in the KJV that were totally removed from most modern translations, let alone a number of additional changes within other verses. Those who swear by the KJV are incensed over this blatant disregard for God's word while those who embrace the modern translations make fun of those who are still clinging to a translation that is filled with material that has crept into the text over the years. One is accused of subtracting while the other is accused of adding to the Word. Of course, this wouldn't be an issue if all of our handwritten manuscripts of the Bible read the same. Unfortunately, that isn't the case.

Here is where the science (and art, I should add) of textual, or "lower," criticism comes in. The goal is to figure out as closely as possible what the original writings actually said. Why don't all the copies agree? There are a number of ways in which unintended mistakes in copying can arise, especially in the NT where most of the copyists were not trained scribes. There are even a very few suspected examples of purposeful changes in the text. The situation is quite similar to the field of family genealogy. Certain lines in your ancestry will proliferate because one branch will have lots of children while another branch may die out entirely. In a similar manner, the many existing copies of the NT that we have tend to fall into two different families with similar characteristics, the Alexandrian text and the Byzantine text. So what do we do?

When I was in junior high science class, the teacher asked this question of the class: when you boil water, is that a chemical or a physical change? He then went down each row asking each student in turn. The first student said, “chemical change.” Since the teacher didn't jump all over that answer, every student from that point on gave the same answer until he got to the next to last row and came to a good friend of mine who was an actual genius, and he said, “physical change.” I was in the last row and I gave the same response. I already knew it was the correct answer, but even if I hadn't, I would have gone with my friend's opinion, weighing it against the collective ignorance of the rest of the class.

This illustrates the classic fallacy of counting evidence instead of weighing it. And that is basically the same fallacy followed by those who rely on the Byzantine text. There may be many more manuscripts that all say one particular thing, but if they all copied the same errors over and over, sheer numbers don't count for much. Instead, modern translators tend to assign much higher weight to the earliest manuscripts since they are closer in time to the original writing with not as much time for errors to arise and accumulate.

By the way, if this whole discussion worries you and you now doubt whether you can trust any translation, keep in mind that the vast majority of differences in manuscripts have no effect whatsoever on any Christian doctrines. In addition, we are much much more certain of the NT text than we are of comparably ancient documents in terms of the number of manuscripts we have to compare and the relatively short amount of transpired time between the original writings and copies we have. Evidence That Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell is a popular and helpful treatment of this subject.

ADDITION With that out of the way, here is the first type of creative change to discuss: expansion or addition. And it takes many different forms. Going back to the Garden of Eden example, what is wrong with Eve adding to God's command that they should not even touch the tree? Wouldn't that make doubly sure that they didn't eat of it? That was exactly the technique used by the Pharisees called "building a fence around the Torah." Jesus had a lot to say about this mindset:

You say that if anyone tells father or mother, “'Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban' (that is, an offering to God')-- then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this. (Mark 7:11-13(

Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel! (Matthew 23:23-24)

Concentration on minutia distracts from discerning the really important things that God wants you to believe and do. Another unfortunate fallout of this mindset is that your children can see through the nonsense you have tacked on to your brand of Christianity and may reject it along with the gospel message itself. I have seen this happen a number of times regarding cultural, scientific or political views that their parents are convinced are part and parcel of God's word, but really aren't.

One Sunday after services I went out to the parking lot and found that someone had put fliers on everyone's windshield. It was election time, and the flier conveniently listed all the candidates a Christian should vote for and the “core biblical values” that they upheld, including less restrictive gun control laws. You can believe whatever you want concerning gun control, just don't claim in any way that the right to gun ownership is somehow taught in God's word.

Then there are those who are rightly concerned about the problem of alcoholism who sometimes go to the extreme of trying to explain away the references to wine in the Bible by claiming that the Jews used unfermented grape juice for their Passover services and that this was the “fruit of the vine” that Jesus and the apostles drank.

One of the most distressing examples of this sort of strong association of Christianity with a special cause is the fact that among my daughters' contemporaries today the word “evangelical” has one meaning and one meaning only – a member of the political right wing. And if that doesn't happen to be their own political stance, they will use that association to reject our religious beliefs as well.

Another way to add to God's word is simply to overemphasize the importance of one passage, especially an obscure or controversial passage, way beyond its original importance. In I Corinthians 15:29, Paul makes a passing allusion to baptism on behalf of the dead during his discussion on the reality of the resurrection. This one verse is the sole biblical basis for the Mormon practice of baptism by proxy of one's ancestors, with the net effect of turning family genealogy into multi-million dollar businesses for some of their members. But keep in mind that Paul neither condoned nor condemned the practice. And it may not even refer to vicarious baptism on behalf of someone physically dead. It may mean that when the Corinthians commemorated their own baptisms it was also a reminder of the fact that their dead brothers and sisters in Christ would rise again, so it was conducted in part with those dead saints in mind (on their behalf). Other scholars feel that “dead” in this verse means those who are alive in body but spiritually dead. Thus, a Christian's baptism is a witness to those not yet saved. Just remember that any important teaching in the Bible will occur more than once.

Here is another example of expanding the Word: "When he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, 'Why could we not cast it out?' He said to them, 'This kind can come out only through prayer (and fasting).'” Mark 9:28-29

"Fasting" is in KJV and some minor translations that rely on later manuscripts rather than the earliest ones which do not have this word. Famous commentators of a previous generation who relied on the KJV exclusively assumed that “and fasting” was in the original and commented appropriately. For example, Spurgeon wrote: “He that would overcome the devil in certain instances must first overcome heaven by prayer, and conquer himself by self-denial.” A great thought, but one based on a word that probably wasn't in the original. Here is the most logical way this addition arose in the first place. In a hand-written document, the scribe added his own comments in the margin. The next person copying this manuscript may have thought that the previous scribe had inadvertently left a word out and then squeezed it into the margin. So when he, in turn, copied the document, he inserted the word into the text itself, where he thought it must have belonged.

It is easy for us to criticize Catholics for their beliefs and practices which aren't found in the Bible. We 

need to first remember that their Bible contains OT books not found in most Protestant Bibles. They 

call these deuterocanonical books while we generally know them as the Apocrypha (listed in Appendix 

2 with brief descriptions). It is from these apocryphal books that they find partial justification for 

doctrines such as praying to saints and saying masses on behalf of the dead. Should these books be in 

the Bible? That is too large a subject to pursue in this class, but there are several lines of reasoning that 

lead to the conclusion of “no.”

Also, Catholics make no secret of the fact that their faith is based on the Bible plus church tradition 

that supplements or interprets the Bible. II Peter 1:20 is a common proof text used by Roman Catholics 

to show that only the Church has the right to interpret the Bible, not the individual. But it turns out that 

the Catholics, as well as some Protestants, have misinterpreted this passage completely. Verse 20 is 

only part of a sentence, which continues into verse 21. Here is the whole passage: “First of all, you 

must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no 

prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”

Note that the whole sentence is concerned with the origin of scripture, not its subsequent interpretation. 

Here is how two translations bring out this fact:

    “No prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation of things...” NIV

    “No prophecy recorded in Scripture was ever thought up by the prophet himself.” Living Bible

And the following three commentators agree with this understanding:

    “Peter is addressing the divine inspiration of Scripture and not discussing its interpretation by his 

contemporaries or by us today.” Robert Harvey & Philip H. Towner, 2 Peter & Jude

    “Peter is talking about the divine origin of Scripture, not about its proper interpretation.” Michael 

Green, 2 Peter and Jude

    “It seems better to understand the reference to the origin rather than the understanding of Scripture.” 

David H. Wheaton, New Bible Commentary)

But we evangelicals aren't immune from adding to the Bible. For years, the only study Bible in English 

was the Scofield Bible so a whole generation or more of Christians started to treat his notes as if they 

were the only possible interpretation. Today we have a wealth of different study bibles and can 

compare notes with one another. But on occasion, you will still hear someone say in a Bible study,

 “Well, my Bible says...” meaning “the notes in my Bible say.” And on occasion, a commentary on the 

Bible gets elevated to the status of Scripture itself, such as the way Mary Baker Eddy's book is treated 

by Christian Scientists.

Next let's look at what I consider to be one of the most outrageous example of addition to the Bible, the 

gap theory. It proposes that between the first two verses of the Bible there is a gap of millions to 

billions of years. The proponents of this belief state that the original earth was in the hands of Satan 

and he populated it with various hideous prehistoric creatures and hominoids and generally made a 

total mess of things. When God got around to seeing what Satan had done, he kicked him and his 

angels out of heaven and judged that particular earth by wiping out everything on it and then re- 

creating it again according to the way He wanted it, as described in the rest of Genesis 1.

How do they come up with this scenario? First they have to re-translate Genesis 1:1 as “The earth 

became void” even though there is no justification for doing so. Next, they state that the words 

“without form and void” only appear in the context of God's judgment (Isaiah 34:1; Jeremiah 4:23-26), 

which is shading the truth a bit to say the least. And as the clincher, they cite Isaiah 45:18 (“He is the 

God who formed the earth and made it. He established it and did not make it a waste place but formed 

it to be populated.”) in order to prove that God couldn't have created the earth originally as a void. As 

you can see, this passage only says that it wasn't God's intention to leave the earth empty, but to 

populate it.

And where did they get the idea that this was the time period when Satan was kicked out of heaven 

before Genesis 1:2, even though other OT passages show that Satan was still in heaven in much later 

times? They quote, totally out of context, Ezekiel's poetic and sarcastic condemnation of the king of 

Tyre and apply it literally to Satan instead. “You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect 

in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you...I drove you in 

disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you by a guardian cherub from among the fiery 

stones...so I threw you to earth.” (Ezekiel 28:12-17) Read the whole chapter and you will clearly see 

that a human being is being described, not Satan. In reality, a great deal of the gap theory scenario is 

based more on John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost than on the Bible itself.

One step even further is to claim a belief as being biblical based on the fact that its opposite isn't 

mentioned in the Bible. This is the argument from silence, and the most prominent example is the 

banning of musical instruments in the churches of Christ. It is hard to be consistent in this approach. Is 

there any warrant in the NT for the use of pews, each person having a song book written in English, 

employing electric lighting in a church, or of men wearing ties, etc.? By the way, I have nothing 

against the churches of Christ and was actually a member of one wonderful congregation for a year 

before I moved to a different town.

Here is another argument from silence dreamed up by someone who couldn't tolerate the idea that any 

form of gambling might be taught in the Bible. Matthias was chosen by the remaining eleven apostles 

partially by casting lots. Since Matthias is never mentioned again in the Bible, the apostles were 

obviously in error in choosing him since God's choice for the 12th apostle was Paul. (an argument from 

silence followed by a statement not found in the NT).

SUBTRACTION There are similarly many ways to subtract from the Bible knowingly or unknowingly. Since I just mentioned the church of Christ I attended, they practiced an unusual form of subtraction from the Bible. Before I joined, I talked to their minister of education and told him that I happened to note that none of the Sunday school classes seemed to be teaching out of the OT. He looked a little embarrassed and explained that they recognized that their churches have been rightly accused of being legalistic and that they felt this would be one way to counter that tendency in their own congregation. I applauded their motive but couldn't really agree with their solution.

The next example of subtraction comes from those who are called the hyper-dispensationalists. They have a quite detailed scheme dividing up the teachings in the Bible according to the time periods or dispensations in which the teachings apply. We had a young teacher in our Sunday school class at one church I attended who made the statement that since Christians are already forgiven of their sins, there is no need to ask God for forgiveness for sins we commit now. I brought up the Lord's Prayer, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” His reply was that Christians are not supposed to recite the Lord's Prayer since that teaching only applied to the 3-year period when Jesus was alive on earth. The notes to the Scofield Bible, and to a lesser extent the Ryrie Bible, assign each of Jesus' parables, for example, to the particular dispensation in which they apply, past and future, and say that it is a mistake to apply them to any other time period. This is an effective way to rob most of Jesus' teachings of their power to affect us today.

I will pick on the dispensationalists one more time to illustrate another way that we all have of subtracting from the word, and that is approaching the Bible from our own area of interest and viewpoint only. The justification used by dispensationalists for their approach to biblical interpretation was historically based on II Timothy 2:15 which appears prominently as the title of some of their prophecy charts. That was the idea that we need to accurately divide the Word of God. Unfortunately, this KJV translation is in error. The Greek word translated “divide” really means to be straightforward in your presentation (NEB), rightly or accurately handle the word (RSV, NIV, NASV), etc.

Here is the whole verse: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a workman who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” Now, to the blue collar church I grew up in, this passage meant to them that the members of their congregation didn't need to feel inferior to those who had more education than they did. Unfortunately that is not the meaning of “ashamed” in this verse. The immediate context shows that it is a warning not to engage in futile arguments and chatter or you will be ashamed before God. Now I am not denying that a verse may speak to each of us differently. The main thing to watch out for is limiting the meaning of the passage to only our own understanding and closing off our mind to other valid applications. This sort of subtracting from God's word is often a subtle process.

I ran into another example in talking to a lawyer friend from work who also attended the same church. He was having trouble relating to my passion for deeper and deeper Bible study because I loved the way the Bible was so open-ended and there was always the possibility of new insights. He said that when he studied the Bible it was to determine the exact meaning of a passage so that he could leave that verse and go on to pin down another passage. I told him that he was treating it like a study in case law, identifying precedents one by one. Then I realized that I was probably just as bad in treating Bible study as a never-ending research project because of my own career in research. We each have our own filters we put on to view the world and the Word.

How about the subject of preaching from the Bible? Some people rightly point out potential dangers associated with topical sermons. For example, I grew up in a church that practiced topical preaching only. By the time I was 21, I was convinced that I knew the whole Bible since I had been attending church almost every week of my life. I didn't realize until later just how selective our preachers had been in avoiding scriptures that were a little difficult or embarrassing to their point of view. Much later in life I started attending a church that practiced only expository preaching – going through a whole book of the Bible verse by verse. This church made a great virtue of that fact because it forced us to be exposed to every single verse in the Bible, even the hard ones. But expository preaching is not free from criticism either since a congregation may spend over a year hearing sermons from only one book in the Bible and completely miss out on lessons from any other portion. It boils down to this: no Christian should rely wholly on Sunday morning preaching and teaching to get a complete exposure to Bible.

A classic example of someone subtracting from Scripture is the Jefferson Bible. At least he was honest 

about his beliefs. Modern liberal Christians aren't quite as obvious but still tend to explain away 

anything in the Bible that is too miraculous for them to believe in. One approach to the Bible that is 

taught in mainstream denominational seminaries is called Form Criticism. The idea is to take each 

form of literature in the Bible such as a Miracle Story or a Hymn of Praise, for example, and collect all 

the examples of that genre found in the Bible. Then the various components of that type of literature 

are listed to come up with a stereotypical model. So far, so good. However, the next step, unfortunately, 

is usually to compare each individual passage of that type against the model you have constructed and 

reject anything that is out of the ordinary as being a later addition to the text.

As one example from the Book of Exodus, consider Moses' song of triumph after the Israelites passed 

through the Red Sea and the Egyptians were drowned. Conservative scholars would simply call this a 

victory psalm, but others detect bits and pieces of verses that they feel belong better in other types of 

poetry and settings, so they label these verses as probable later additions to Exodus 15 that don't fit the 

mold they have constructed – another effective way of subtracting from Scripture.

APPENDIX 1: Whole verses found in KJV but not found in most modern translations

Matt. 17:21, 18:11, 23:14; Mark 7:16, 9:44, 9:46, 11:26, 15:28; Luke 17:36, 23:17; John 5:4; Acts 8:37, 15:34, 24:7, 28:29; Romans 16:24

APPENDIX 2: Books in the Apocrypha

1 & 2 Esdras: supplementing Ezra and Nehemiah

Tobit: a short story

Judith: a short story

Additions to Esther: mainly prayers and proclamations

The Wisdom of Solomon (also called Ecclesiasticus or Sirach): wisdom literature

Baruch: supposedly written by Jeremiah's brother

The Letter of Jeremiah: addition to the book of Jeremiah

The Prayer of Azariah

The Song of the Three young Men (while in the Lions' Den)

Susanna: a short story involving Daniel

Bel and the Dragon: two short stories involving Daniel

The Prayer of Manasseh

1 Maccabees: a fairly accurate historical account of the period between the OT and NT

2 Maccabees: more fanciful account of the same time period