Scripture Alone?: 21 Reasons to Reject Sola Scriptura by Joel Peters

Author:Joel Peters
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: TAN Books
Published: 2015-06-24T06:00:00+00:00

13. None of the Original Biblical Manuscripts Is Extant.

A sobering consideration—and one which is fatal to the doctrine of Sola Scriptura—is that we do not possess a single original manuscript of any book of the Bible. Now it is true that there are thousands of manuscripts extant which are copies of the originals—and more likely than not they are copies of copies—but this fact does not help the Sola Scriptura position for the simple reason that without original manuscripts, one cannot know with certainty if he actually possesses the real Bible, whole and entire.23 The original autographs were inspired, while copies of them are not.

The Protestant may want to assert that not having original Biblical manuscripts is immaterial, as God preserved the Bible by safeguarding its duplication through the centuries.24 However, there are two problems with this line of reasoning. The first is that by maintaining God’s providence with regard to copying, a person claims something which is not written in Scripture, and therefore, by the very definition of Sola Scriptura, cannot serve as a rule of faith. In other words, if one cannot find passages in the Bible which patently state that God will protect the transmission of manuscripts, then the belief is not to be held. The fact of the matter is that the Bible makes no such claim.

The second problem is that if you can maintain that God safeguarded the written transmission of His word, then you can also rightly maintain that He safeguarded its oral transmission as well (recall 2 Thessalonians 2:14(15) and the twofold form of God’s one revelation). After all, the preaching of the Gospel began as an oral tradition (cf. Luke 1:1-4 and Rom. 10:17). It was not until later on that some of the oral tradition was committed to writing—becoming Sacred Scripture—and it was later still that these writings were declared to be inspired and authoritative. Once you can maintain that God safeguarded the oral transmission of His teaching, you have demonstrated the basis for Sacred Tradition and have already begun supporting the Catholic position.

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