Hello and welcome to the Ask Entirite Anything podcast, the program where we look at Jesus, the Bible and the Life of Faith.

I'm Mike Bird from Ridley College and I am joined once again, as always, with Tom Wright from Oxford in England.

Tom, I'm always excited to see you.

I'm always excited to see your answers to these questions.

Now, sometimes you get to have a bit of a sneak peek at these questions, but sometimes I just throw

them at you randomly and see if you can do it.

Like a great improvisation actor, you always come to the table with the goods.

And we've got some good questions.

We've got questions about whether the canon is closed,

what to do with alleged contradictions in the Gospels,

and the whole debate over Scripture versus tradition.

And first up that, we've got a question about whether the canon is really closed.

One listener to the show says this, Dear Tom, thank you for sharing insights from a lifetime of study.

I have listened with interest to past episodes,

and my question starts where your responses often come to rest on matters of inspiration,

canon, and inerrancy.

When you say that we have the Bible that God intended

us to have, what exactly do you mean? Do you have the original manuscripts in mind? Can a gloss be

inspired? And what should we make of New Testament quotations from the Septuagint, that's the Greek translation

of the Old Testament, that seemed to differ from the Hebrew Masoretic text? Would you consider

our evolving tapestry of biblical translations as the Bible God intended us to have? Clearly the Bible

did not pop into existence as a completed unity,

...