God inspired Paul to write to the minister Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:15:
15 "And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures,
which are able to make thee wise unto salvation
through faith which is in Christ Jesus."
Then in the next verse, 2 Timothy 3:16, Paul writes:
16 "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, ..."
Were the scrolls that Timothy read from, scripture?
Were they inspired? Did he have the original manuscripts?
Are copies of copies of copies inspired of God?
Here is a reasonable answer to those questions.
Hi, I'm David Daniels from Chick Publications.
Everyone knows the original manuscripts are long gone.
God knew it would happen,
and it makes sense that He would have made provision for that.
Think about it. If only the originals were inspired,
Then only those people who saw or heard or read from those originals
would have any benefit from that inspiration.
Everybody else through history would be "out of luck."
"Tough luck, pal. We don't have the originals anymore.
All you get are lousy copies." Really? --Not even close.
This may shock you, but God never intended for men to have only the originals.
He wanted them to have perfect copies and accurate translations of those copies.
Want proof?
Think about Jesus.
In His ministry He read from scrolls and He talked about scrolls
and He called them "scripture" in 13 different verses.
Check it in a concordance.
When He read from those scriptures He never corrected them
and said, This is wrong, it should say this.
And He should know. He spoke them to and through those prophets.
The apostle Paul, in addition to these two verses,
another 13 times he called the scrolls people read from "scripture."
And Peter, in 2 Peter 3:16, called Paul's writings "scripture."
And when a person became king over Israel,
God said in Deuteronomy 17:18-20,
18 "And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom,
that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book
out of that which is before the priests the Levites:
19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life:
that he may learn to fear the LORD his God,
to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them:"
You see, copies, and copies of copies of copies of copies,
are all called "scripture." They are God's words.
So if you take God's words, and you translate them into another language,
they're still God's words, in a new language.
And they're still scripture, in that language.
You can fully trust them.
Don't let anyone fool you
into thinking only the original Hebrew and the original Greek are God's words.
If God's words, without anything added or anything taken away are translated
into another language, they're still God's words,
they're still scripture, and they're still God's inspired words
in that language. If I have 100 different languages,
and I translate God's words, nothing added, nothing taken away,
with the same meanings, in those 100 languages,
they'll all have the same meaning, and they'll all be God's inspired words
in that language.
You don't need to re-inspire scripture.
It's God's inspired scriptures, in that language.
After years of research, I can tell you that I believe with all my heart
that these words in the King James Bible are God's preserved words,
and they are accurately translated. They are scripture.
And I fully trust them. I hope you can, too.
God bless you, and have a wonderful day.