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The Case for The New Testament: Preservation of the Word by Dr. Abidan Shah

Abidan Paul Shah

THE CASE FOR THE NEW TESTAMENT: PRESERVATION OF THE WORD by Dr. Shah, Clearview Church, Henderson, NC

Introduction:  In just 5 days, we will have bible scholars from all over joining us for our 2026 Clearview Apologetics conference. Those of you who have been part of our conferences in the past know how wonderful these events are. It’s a rare opportunity to be up close and personal with such wonderful and knowledgeable people, who are also Christ-loving and Bible-believing. I encourage all of you to sign up and be here. There will be a very special announcement made at the conference, and you need to be here for that. To prepare us for this conference, we’ve been going through a 3-part series titled THE CASE FOR THE NEW TESTAMENT. So far, we looked at the “Nature of the Word” and the “Power of the Word.” In this message, we will look at the “Preservation of the Word.” What we are about to discuss is probably one of the most complex and misunderstood issues regarding Scripture. It is often used by our opponents to discredit the Bible, and it is often misused by Christians in defending the Bible. 

Psalm 119:152 (page #958) “Concerning Your testimonies, I have known of old that You have founded them forever.”

Context: This is a key passage for the doctrine of the preservation of Scripture. Before we examine this passage, we need to understand what this doctrine is all about and why we need to have a correct understanding of it. What is this doctrine? According to John Feinberg, “this doctrine addresses whether Scripture teaches that the Bible will be preserved in written language that will be available to humans until the end of human history on the current earth and under the current heavens.” On the surface, this may seem like an odd and even unnecessary question – “What do you mean by ‘will the Bible be preserved?’ Don’t we see it preserved right before our eyes and in our hands? There are Bibles everywhere. True. Yes, this issue is not only raised about the future loss of the Bible but also about the past loss of the Bible. How about the period prior to the coming of the printing press. Have parts of the Bible been lost? Has the Bible been corrupted beyond repair? Just to clarify, the doctrine of preservation does not require that everyone everywhere have all of the Bible all of the time. It just means that at whichever stage of development it was, it existed accurately and completely somewhere.

Believers have responded to these charges through the centuries. Unfortunately, some have used the wrong scriptures to defend the Bible, which the opponents have used to their advantage. Some have used the wrong arguments that have made matters even worse. To start with, we’re going to dispel the 2 false views of Preservation of Scripture. Then, we will see what’s a better way to understand and defend this issue. We need to keep in mind that:

This matters because failure to understand such issues biblically and accurately will not only impact our faith but it will also hinder the lost person from coming to Christ.

1. Scripture has been perfectly preserved and can be identified with certainty in manuscript, a set of manuscripts, or a standard text.

One such claim came by a scholar named Wilbur Pickering who concluded that “God used a certain line of transmission to preserve that [original] wording…That archetypal form has been empirically, objectively identified by a wide comparison of family representatives, and it is indeed error free.” In another place, he wrote, “Given my presuppositions, I consider that I have good reason for declaring the divine preservation of the precise original wording of the New Testament Text, to this day.”

People who have such beliefs claim that a certain manuscript or a group of manuscripts are perfectly preserved, going all the way back to the original hand. Only problem is that all existing manuscripts have variants, and we cannot with certainty claim that there is an errorless perfect one with us. When we do that, we make ourselves look deceitful, and we open ourselves to our critics. Bart Ehrman, no friend of Christianity, rightly questioned this by stating, “Any claim that God preserved the text of the New Testament intact, giving His church actual, not theoretical, possession of it, must mean one of three things—either 1) God preserved it in all the extant manuscripts so that none of them contain any textual corruptions, or 2) He preserved it in a group of manuscripts, none of which contain any corruptions, or 3) He preserved it in a solitary manuscript which alone contains no corruptions” (Quoted from my work Changing the Goalpost of New Testament Textual Criticism). The point is that if God preserved his word like this, he did a very poor job in preserving.

By the way, this is as good a place to address a charge that has been made by Muslims against the Old Testament and the New Testament that it has been hopelessly corrupted. Such is not the case. Again, it is a lot of conspiracy theories. To the contrary, the charge does apply to the Quran. It is claimed to contain material that Mohammed had received as revelation from the angel Gabriel. Some he gave at Mecca and others at Medina. These sayings were collected by his followers on whatever they could find – pieces of parchments, palm leaf, piece of wood, bones, etc. There were differences between what his followers wrote down. Not only that but some of them were killed in a battle a year after Mohammed’s death. Then Mohammed’ s most trusted secretary, Zayd ibn Thabit, was appointed to gather the material. Even then there were several different versions of the Quran floating around. Once again Zayd was called to edit an official version of the Quran, and all other manuscripts were destroyed. There has never been proof of any such editing and destroying of either the Old or the New Testament.

2. Scripture has many passages that promise that God will preserve his Word.

Why should be dispel such views? God doesn’t need us to use poor arguments and bad interpretation to defend his Word. In the long run, such views and approaches do more damage than help.

So, what is a better view?

3. The doctrine of the Preservation of Scripture is supported by a few scriptures along with the probability of preservation (taken from John Feinberg).

A. Few Scriptures:

As you can see, there are not tons of passages that affirm this doctrine. But we don’t need tons of passages to affirm a doctrine. If it is affirmed by one verse, that’s enough.

B. Probability of Preservation: God didn’t have to do anything (from Creation to Consummation) but he did it anyways. Hence, it is probable that he will preserve his Word so that we will come to Christ and spend eternity with him forever.

2 Timothy 3      16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Illustration: William Tyndale was an Oxford and Cambridge trained scholar. He was convinced that the Bible should be made available in the language of the Bible. He was the first translated the Old and New into English. Of course, Wycliff before him also had, but it was from Latin. Tyndale’s was from Hebrew and Greek. For this, he was betrayed and thrown into a dungeon for 500 days. Then on October 6th, 1536, he was taken to a stake and burned. His famous last words were – “Lord, open the king of England’s eyes.” Of course, God answered that prayer in big ways.

Our conference will be a small contribution to the continued preservation of the Scriptures.

Are you saved? Are you in the Word? Do you realize that sacrifices that have been made by countless for you to have the Word? Do you share the Word with the lost?

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