Article X of the Chicago Statement On Biblical Inerrancy reads as follows:

“We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original.”¹

In other words, God only inspired the original writings of Scripture, not the copies or translations that came later. Even though we don’t have any original copies of Scripture, we can still figure out what the original said with “great accuracy” using the manuscript evidence that we have.

This seems all well and good. However, what if the original wording of a text had been lost somewhere along the way in transmission? In other words, what do we do in those places where we cannot be sure of what the original text actually said? How would this affect the doctrines of Inspiration and Inerrancy?

Let’s look at one possible example of this. 

The Problem of Saul’s Kingship- 1 Samuel 13:1

If you were reading 1 Samuel 13:1 in your version of the Bible such as the NIV, you probably wouldn’t think anything of it:  

“Saul was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned over Israel forty-two years.”²

According to the NIV, how old was Saul when he became king? Thirty. And how long did he reign over Israel? Forty-two years. Pretty straightforward.

However, let’s compare that with 3 other English Translations. 

• NET Bible: “Saul was [thirty] years old when he began to reign; he ruled over Israel for [forty] years.”3
  • Comment: Both numbers are bracketed (meaning they are not part of the original) and the second number is “forty” instead of “forty two.”

• ESV: “Saul lived for one year and then became king, and when he had reigned for two years over Israel.”4
  • Comment: Huh? Saul started reigning when he was a ripe old age of one?

• RSV: “Saul was . . . years old when he began to reign; and he reigned . . . and two years over Israel.”5
  • Comment: Then the RSV comes along and is like: “Just leave it blank!” 

So what in the world is going on here? Why are there all these differences?

Thankfully, many of our English Bibles have footnotes that will explain the textual issues concerning certain verses. I have found the NET Bible’s footnotes to be extremely helpful in this regard. 

Here is my summary from the footnotes of the NET Bible discussing this 1 Samuel 13:1:

The First Number- How old was Saul when he became king?

• The Masoretic Text (MT), which is what our Old Testament is based on, doesn’t have “thirty” in it.
• Instead, the MT literally reads “a son of a year.” (So the ESV has it right?!)
• Most manuscripts of the Septuagint (LXX) are missing all of verse 1. 
• Some Greek manuscripts have “thirty years” and some have “one year.” 
• 1 Sam. 13:2 indicates that Saul’s son Jonthan was a military leader in charge of 1,000 men. Therefore, Saul had to be older than thirty when he became king since his grown son Jonathan was already a military leader at that time. 

The Second Number: How long did Saul reign?

• The MT has “two years” listed here.
• Acts 13:21 says that Saul reigned for forty years. 
• Based on Acts 13:21 and a few other factors, English versions like the CSB add “forty” from Acts 13:21 to the “two years” in the MT to get “forty-two” total years. 

Still with me?

As you can see, there are some serious problems with both of these numbers. I can get behind the idea that “forty” or “forty-two” are contenders for the second number in the original text. 

But in regards to the first number, I agree with the late Old Testament Scholar, Michael Heiser:

“The textual reality, as it stands today, is that the number is lost. We just don’t have any manuscript evidence for a coherent reading.”³

So What Do We Do with This?

When I first encountered this problem, it was like someone threw a grenade into the room and on the way out said, “Have fun with that!” 

But I would never do my readers that way! 

Here are 5 thoughts as I continue to wrestle with this issue and how it relates to inspiration and inerrancy. 

1. This doesn’t affect the truthfulness of Christianity or any major tenet of the Christian faith. 

How old Saul was when he became king doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. First, you can still glean everything from the story in 1 Samuel without knowing how old Saul was at the time. Second, this does nothing to take away from the fact that Jesus rose from the dead. 

2. God inspired the original autographs, but that doesn’t mean that inspiration extends to the copies that came afterwards. 

For example, God inspired Paul to write Romans (and possibly the scribe Tertius mentioned in Romans 16:22) but didn’t necessarily inspire the copies made by scribes hundreds of years later.  

3. You can still be an inerrantist. 

Like inspiration, many Christians believe that inerrancy only applies to the original autographs, not the copies that came later. In other words, you can believe that the manuscript copies that we have today (and thus our English translations) contain some errors in them while still maintaining that the original autographs were inerrant.

4. If any original words have been lost, then God has obviously allowed this to happen.

We should accept the Bible as it has been passed down to us. It’s so tempting to try and make Scripture fit into our preconceived notions of what we think it should be. If God allowed errors to creep into the copies of Scripture over time, then we must accept this is how God did it. 

5. It’s still possible that the original wording could be found or confirmed in the future. 

Just because we haven’t found the original yet, doesn’t mean we never will. Perhaps even the original autograph is out there waiting to be found!

This is definitely a difficult topic. I would love to know your thoughts on this!

Sources:

1. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/the-chicago-statement-on-biblical-inerrancy/ ↩︎
2. Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide ↩︎
3. https://drmsh.com/1-samuel-131-the-matter-of-missing-words-in-the-bible/ ↩︎