How We Got Our English Bibles

Mark 16:9-20 · 2025-04-27 · Jason Wolin · Gospel of Mark | Cross and Crown

Mark 16:9-20 · Scripture. How We Got Our English Bibles — sermon from Cypress Bible Church on BibleSlides.

How We Got Our English Bibles Slideshow for this message PDF Message Download We are in Mark chapter 16 this morning. And today is not your normal sermon and you’ll see why in just a second. The first way it’s not normal is we are going to begin our study of Mark in Samuel. When you read through the book of Samuel and Kings you very quickly pick up on a pattern. Here’s the pattern: when the author introduces us to a new king, he uses this formulaic introduction that looks like this: 2 Samuel 2:10 Ish-bosheth, Saul’s son, was forty years old when he began to reign over Israel, and he reigned two years. But the house of Judah followed David.” 2 Kings 16:2 Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD his God, as his father David had done,” 1 Kings 14:21 Now Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city that the LORD had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. His mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonite.” So hopefully you are seeing the pattern. The basic formula is so and so was X years old when he began to reign and he reigned Y years. This formula is used at least 16 times that I could find. Now, there’s an interesting problem when you get to 1 Samuel 13:1. 1 Samuel 13:1 is another one of these formulas and it’s applied to Saul. But when you read it, you’ll see a problem. I’ll illustrate the problem by showing you four different translations each hidden behind a door: door 1, door 2, door 3, door 4. Now you have to pick your favorite version. Now what’s going on here? The answer is the text has somehow been lost. Somewhere along the way, in the process of transmission, these numbers were either: intentionally left out, forgetfully left out or got destroyed so they could not be copied. Interestingly even the Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint which was translated in 250BC leaves this out indicating that even back then there was some sort of problem. Here’s the question. How does that make you feel to know there is a fallible human process that is associated with the English Bible you hold in your lap this morning? Does that destroy your confidence? Does that mean that the Bible contains errors? Don’t we teach biblical inerrancy (that the Bible is a book WITHOUT errors)? Yes we do, but it’s important to note that this doctrine applies to the original handwritten document that came from the biblical author. Those actual scrolls that the inspired writers wrote on, we no longer have. We must acknowledge that errors have been introduced through the copying and transmission process. The technical ter…

Cypress Bible Church · Full sermon loading below.