Get it in Writing; the Manuscript Evidence

An honest skeptic of Christianity would say “Since we have none of the original biblical documents, how do we know that the manuscripts we do have are accurate?"

The versions we have were written much later that the originals; we’re reading copies of copies. It seems probable that the scribes could have multiplied and passed down mistakes during the copying process.

The focal point of this argument is that the Bible is an ancient document and must have been corrupted over time. Experts address this concern by studying the manuscripts themselves. A manuscript is a piece or portion of a whole document or book. The same type of exhaustive study that is applied to all historical documents can be applied to biblical documents as well.

There are two main areas that researchers look at to answer these concerns.

1. The quality of the manuscripts. Are there enough copies to make a whole document?

2. The Date of the Earliest Manuscript. What is the time span between the earliest available and the date of original? Is the timeline close enough to be reliable?

The Quality of Manuscripts

The question seems simple enough. Are there enough manuscript copies to compare to each other in order to trust the validity of the document? Let’s use the example of a signed Babe Ruth baseball. How do you tell if it is authentic? You compare it to other Babe Ruth baseballs signed by the Sultan of Swat. The more baseballs signed by the Babe, the easier it is to compare the authenticity of the one baseball.

Manuscript evidence of the New Testament is truly remarkable. There are more than 5600 manuscripts of the Greek New Testament, 10000 Manuscripts from the Latin Vulgate, and nearly 9300 other early New Testament manuscripts in total. Prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, there was not nearly as much manuscript evidence for the Old Testament. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were unearthed in 1947, nearly 100,000 fragments were found preserved in clay jars. These fragments put together result in nearly eight hundred Old Testament manuscripts.

But the question remains though, is this enough evidence to prove the validity of the Bible. The best way to answer this question is to compare it with other historic documents that are accepted by most historians.

Other than biblical manuscripts, more manuscripts exist of Homer’s Iliad, written in 850 b.c, than any other ancient writer. They total 643 manuscripts. There are just ten manuscripts of Caesar’s Gallic Wars, seven of Plato’s writings, and only five of Aristotle’s. In comparison, the evidence for the biblical record is staggering.

The Date of the Manuscripts

Another important issue to consider in the manuscript evidence is the date of the earliest manuscripts and the amount of time that elapsed between them and originals. The New Testament was written 47-70 a.d. or known as the Common Era. The earliest manuscript evidence is the John Rylands Fragment of the gospel of John dated ce 117-138, the Bodner Papyri dated ce 175-225, and the Beatty Papyri dated ad 250. (papyus is the kind of paper used, like parchment)

The Old Testament has a different history. The Jewish people had such a reverence for Torah and other writings that they would routinely destroy old worn out copies and keep only those in excellent condition. Consequently, there are not many older manuscripts. Prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls, the oldest complete copy of the Old Testament is know as the Masoretic Text, was written around a.d. 900. Since the Old Testament was complete 400 b.c., with some parts earlier that that, there as a gap of the thirteen hundred or more years.

The Dead Sea Scrolls changed all that. The fragments were copied by the Qumran community which existed from around 150 b.c.to 70. This closed the gap by nearly a thousand years. The scrolls also showed the phenomenal accuracy of the Old Testament and the meticulous care with which the scribes copied and counted the texts.

So how does all this evidence stack up against other historical documents. Comparing the same books we looked at previously, the earliest manuscript of Plato is 1300 years after the original. Aristotle’s earliest is 1400 years later than the original, and 950 years elapsed between the original and the earliest manuscripts of Caesar’s Gallic Wars. The Old Testament stacks up rather nicely against the other documents considered accurate by leading historians.

There are many other areas of study related to establishing the authenticity of manuscripts. Further study of the evidence will lead anyone to conclude that the book is exactly what it says it is. Need more info? Try Bible Research.com, Biblical research.com or Google something like that.

There is a mountain of evidence, both written and archeological, that lean toward the belief that the Bible is true and accurate. Like in the NFL, after further review, the call stands.

Read 2 Timothy 3: 10-17