March 15, 2002, Vol.2, No.6.
Two new articles every two weeks.
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THIS ISSUE: "How
Do We Know We Have the Bible? (part 2)"
and "How Do We Know We
Have the Bible? (part 1)"
How Do We Know
We Have the Bible?
(part 2) - Text
by Keith Sharp
 The
Bible was written a very long time ago. How do we know its text
has not been corrupted through the centuries, so that what we
have is really accurate?
Old Testament
First, consider the Old Testament. The very attitude of Jesus
toward the Old Testament settles the matter, so far as its transmission
to his day.
But what about to our day? Two facts, the almost fanatical
devotion of the Jewish scribes and the abundance of manuscript
evidence, give us unswerving confidence in the textual integrity
of the Old Testament.
Dr. Neil R. Lightfoot, in his book How We Got the Bible, describes
the incredible, meticulous care with which the Jewish scribes
(copyists) made sure that they accurately passed on from generation
to generation the inspired text (69-76). Probably no other copyists
in history have been as devoted to accurately preserving a document.
Furthermore, consider the abundance and value of manuscript
evidence. Manuscripts are handwritten copies of documents. All
ancient writing comes down to us in manuscript form, and the
text of these documents is determined by these manuscripts. Various
rules determine which manuscripts are most valuable in determining
what the text of an ancient document really is, but probably
the most important measure of a manuscript's value is its age.
How close to the original document is it in age? Obviously, the
older the manuscript the better.
Our Old Testaments are translations of the Massoretic Text,
a standard Hebrew text handed down by some very careful scribes
known as Massoretes. The oldest manuscripts of this text date
to about 1000 AD. But there are manuscripts of translations of
this Hebrew text into other languages that date back to about
the fourth or fifth century after Christ. Furthermore, since
the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Hebrew manuscripts
found in caves close to the Dead Sea in 1948, we have Hebrew
manuscripts of portions of the Old Testament that were written
before the time Jesus walked on the earth. For example, there
is a manuscript of the book of Isaiah that dates to about 200
BC. Thus, there is overwhelming proof of the accuracy of the
Old Testament text.
The New Testament has even stronger confirmation. Codex Sinaiticus,
which contains all the New Testament books in Greek, was written
less than two hundred fifty years after the last apostle died.
The Codex Vaticanus, which contains most of both the Old and
New Testaments in Greek, was written only about two hundred to
two hundred fifty years after the deaths of the apostles. The
Codex Alexandrinus dates to about three hundred years after the
first century.
There are now more than 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the
New Testament. Add over 10,000 Latin Vulgate and at least 9,300
other early versions (MSS) and we have more than 24,000 manuscript
copies of portions of the New Testament in existence today."
(McDowell. 39)
There is now even a fragment of the Gospel of John that dates
to the beginning of the Second Century, just a few years after
the Apostle John died and a century earlier than unfriendly critics
of the Bible once claimed the book was written!
How good is our New Testament
text?
For Caesar's Gallic War (composed between 58 and 50 B.C.)
there are several extant MSS (manuscripts - K.S.), but only nine
or ten are good, and the oldest is some 900 years later than
Caesar's day. (Bruce, New Testament Documents. 16).
If scholars accept the text of Caesar's Gallic Wars, and they
do, how reasonable is it to reject the text of the New Testament?
But what about variant (differing)
readings
between the many manuscripts?
The proportion of words virtually accepted on all hands as
raised above doubt is very great, not less, on a rough computation,
than seven-eighths of the whole. The remaining eighth therefore,
formed in great part by changes of order and other comparative
trivialities, constitutes the whole area of criticism. . . .
the amount of what can in any sense be called substantial variation
is but a small fraction of the residuary variation, and can hardly
form more than a thousandth part of the entire text" (Westcott
and Hort. 2-3).
And Westcott and Hort, scholars of the last part of the nineteenth
century, are generally considered to be among the toughest critics
of the biblical text.
How accurate is the text
of our Bibles?
Our century has seen no greater authority in this field of
New Testament criticism than Sir Frederic Kenyon, who died in
August, 1952, and we may take his words to heart with confidence:
'It is reassuring at the end to find that the general result
of all these discoveries and all this study is to strengthen
the proof of the authenticity of the Scriptures, and our conviction
that we have in our hands, in substantial integrity, the verifiable
Word of God.'
And again:
'The interval then between then between the dates of the original
composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small
as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any
doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially
as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity
and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may
be regarded as finally established. '"(Bruce, Books and
Parchments. 189-190).
Conclusion
Is the text of our Bible accurate? Definitely!
Do we really have the inspired Scriptures in our present Bibles?
The answer must be a resounding, "Yes!"
The Lord through His divine providence has kept His promise
and has preserved His Word for us in the Bible. When you read
your Bible from a good, standard, English translation, rest assured
you are reading the Scriptures, the inspired Word of God. You
can and should have confidence in your Bible.
___________________
List of Works Cited
Bruce, F.F.,
The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?
The Books and the Parchments
Lightfoot, Neil, How We Got the Bible.
McDowell, Josh, Evidence That Demands a Verdict.
Westcott, B.F. and F.J.A. Hort, The New Testament in the Original
Greek
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