The sudden growth in the number of copies of the Bible in existence was quite phenomenal in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. And when the translation commissioned by King James I (the so-called Authorised Version) was published in 1611, the Early Printing Press printer's craft and the translator's skill were brought together in such a providential way as to give the English-speaking world a Bible version which has never yet been surpassed for style and quality. In presenting the A.V. to their readers, too, the translators provided a fitting summary of that combination of human diligence and providential care by which the Word of God has been broadcast to the masses. For, they explained, "having and using as great helps as were needful ... we have at length, through the good hand of the Lord upon us, brought the work to that pass that you see".

The Revised Version of 1885 may reflect a fuller knowledge of ancient Hebrew vocabulary and of earlier Greek manuscripts; the Revised Standard Version of 1952, the New English Bible of 1970 and the New International Version, of 1979 may put the Word of God into language more comprehensible to the man in the street. But the fact remains that the Authorised Version, along with all genuine translations,* is a monument to Divine providence; through all such versions, even with all the problems inherent in the transfer of meaning from one language and idiom to another, the Word of God still sounds clear and true. Through the translator's expertise, the inspired word of apostles and prophets "has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the earth". "There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard" (Psalm 19:4, quoted in Romans 10:18).

*Paraphrase versions, such as the Living Bible and, in part, the Good News Bible and the versions by J. B. Phillips, cannot be classed as genuine translations, since their concern is not so much to transfer the sense of the actual words used in the Hebrew and Greek texts as to expound the meaning in an 'easy-to-read' style, with a consequent loss of accuracy.

A Challenging Claim
The Bible comes before us, then, demanding to be heard as the Word of God. "Thus saith the Lord", and phrases like it, are an integral part of the fabric of the Old Testament. To remove all those parts of Scripture claiming Divine inspiration for themselves, or recognising it in others, would leave but little remaining. The apostle Peter's claim that the Jewish Scriptures were produced when "holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21) is either true or it is a pious fraud. But when we realise the extent to which the Lord Jesus Christ himself -- not to mention his apostles -- recognised that same Old Testament as the authoritative Word of God, there ought to be no doubt that the attitude of a true follower of Christ should be the same. "Have ye not read?"; "It is written"; "What saith the Scripture?" -- these were favourite phrases of the Master when referring to the largest part of what we now know as the Bible.

Significantly too, the Lord Jesus claimed no less of an inspired authority for his own words (see John 17:8); he promised his apostles that they too would be supernaturally guided by the Holy Spirit (John 14:26;15:26-27; 16:1 3-15); and the early Bible Christians took it as a foundation doctrine that "all Scripture (both Old and New Testaments by then) is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable ... " (2 Timothy 3:16).

Such a challenging claim by the Bible about itself leaves no middle way for our personal reaction to its message. We must either accept or reject it. For if the claim is false, then the Bible's message is of no real value, and the Gospel of salvation it contains is but a figment of man's imagination. But if the claim is true, then the Bible's message commands obedience and its Gospel offers the true hope of life beyond the grave. The Bible's claim is no academic exercise: it is a matter of life and death.

The Critics Confounded
There have, of course, always been those who have preferred to reject rather than to accept the Bible as God's Word. The serpent in Eden successfully undermined our first parents' faith in the spoken Word of God with a question which has been heard on the lips of many a hostile Bible critic since: "Yea, hath God said ... ?" (Genesis 3: 1). The wick&d king Jehoiakim, who cut up the written Word of God and sought -- unsuccessfully -- to destroy it (Jeremiah 36), has had his counterparts among the unbelieving in almost every age. Yet the Bible has survived, while its critics have passed away.

And the Bible has survived not just in the sense of having been preserved as a physical object: it has also retained its remarkable integrity as the text-book of a saving faith. Each new generation of critics has raised or, more often, re-used, alleged Bible difficulties or discrepancies. Yet all such 'problems' are capable of perfectly reasonable solutions which commend themselves to men and women of good will. More frequently too, in recent times, the discoveries of archaeology have shown many criticisms of the Bible to be wrong. "Moses", we were once confidently told, "could not have written the Pentateuch because he lived before the art of writing was developed"; Belshazzar, Sargon and the Hittites were all said to have been fictitious Bible figures; and the census of Caesar Augustus at the time of the birth of Jesus, mentioned by Luke, was dismissed as inaccurate. Yet in all these examples, as in countless others, the Bible has been corroborated by further scholarly research.

The sad fact is that most criticism of the Bible goes hand in hand with an unwillingness to respond to the demands of its -message, and is often based on preconceived theories which are themselves unproven or unprovable. Such 'willing ignorance' is a personal tragedy for those involved as well as for those who are taken in by it. The Bible can certainly stand the most searching examination but, as has been so rightly said before, "it does not yield its treasures to its critics".