Brief Answer: The scholars disagree with you.
Detailed Answer: Once again, the primary question is always whether or not there is a God behind the Bible, and if evidence supports there is, then WHY would you believe God would not be able to get into our hands what he wanted?
Further Answer: Scholarship disagrees with you. Those scholars, who have a PhD in an applicable field and have published in peer-reviewed literature on the topic agree we have the Bible as it was originally written, except for a small percentage, which are always noted in the margins.
So, what evidence can you provide that overwhelms the evidence forcing the consensus of the experts to affirm we do have the Bible as originally written? Anything uncertain is clearly noted in the margins of the Bible, and is inconsequential as the important issues are covered redundantly throughout the Bible.
Why does the scholarship in ancient literature, biblical studies, ancient language experts, etc., which includes a huge percentage who believe there is no God behind the Bible, have a deep-rooted consensus the Bible we read today is the same as was read when originally written? Because they have to accept this, based on the evidence. We will start with the New Testament (NT) and cover several reasons.
Everyday examples can display how we can know
Standard tests of reliability the scholars use
Chains of custody
When I say “scholars,” I mean those people who have a PhD and career in the field of study, and have their research tested by other scholars in peer-reviewed literature. The scholarship says we know exactly what was written, except for a very small percentage, which does not impact any doctrine. Check for yourself, a Bible is open and clear about this, noting any uncertain words or passages in the margins. And none of these uncertain parts impact any important Christian belief or doctrine, especially considering the Bible covers the important points over and over again, redundantly, in other places in the Bible.
Everyday examples can display how we can know what was originally written
It is true we do not have any of the original writings from the biblical authors, what manuscript scholars call “autographs.” Unsurprisingly, those original ancient writings have been lost in history. So how do we know the words of the originals made it all the way to us accurately?
Some argue the Bible cannot be trusted because it is comparable to the “telephone game”, where one person whispers a statement to another, and that person repeats the statement in a whisper to another, but maybe doesn’t get the words exactly right, and the next person whispers what they heard to the next, and so on, until the last person has a different message then what began the exercise. Those who argue this need to think further, as they are giving a false analogy.
When the original books of the Bible were written, the writers were inspired and verified by God, causing the writings to be recognized as sacred and of utmost importance. Therefore, copies upon copies were made wherever possible, and as meticulously as possible, in order to allow different locations to keep a copy, and also for the spreading of God’s message. Aside from some amazing facts about how fantastically strict and obsessive copyists of the Bible were to ensure correct copies, which will be covered briefly later in this article, copy mistakes still occurred here and there.
Notice, even with errors in three of the four copies, we can still know what was originally written. Systematic theologian and philosopher, Norman Geisler, asks readers to consider this message: Y#U HAVE WON TEN MILLION DOLLARS.
Even with an error in it, we can still be sure of the message. Now consider the same message with two copies and two errors.
Y#U HAVE WON TEN MILLION DOLLARS
YO# HAVE WON TEN MILLION DOLLARS
We are even more sure of the original message with two errors in it because every new copy brings a confirmation of every letter except one. In fact, you can even have serious differences in the letters and have the exact same message. Line 2 and line 3 below only have 25% of the letters in common, yet the message is 100% the same.[1]
YOU HAVE WON TEN MILLION DOLLARS
THOU HAST WON 10 MILLION DOLLARS
Y’ALL HAVE WON $10,000,000
Therefore, even knowing copy mistakes exist, can you start to see how we know what was originally written? There is a simple test: compare all the copies. Even with a mistake made in every line in first example, we can know what the original document stated and where mistakes are made in the copies.
Let’s use an example using cell phone texting today. You have a daughter going to college, and you want to meet her to give money for tuition and other expenses, but you are not the most skilled texter.
Even as annoying as this parent is in texting, do you know exactly what the parent was trying to say?
The books of the Bible are even more obvious. If a book in the Bible wasn’t written on a scroll, but in a text message, even if the copyist was as bad as the parent in texting, with numerous copies to compare against each other, do you think you can figure out what the original said?
Unlike the telephone game, the Bible is not oral communication, but written, so unlike the people just passing the message along by word-of-mouth, the copies can be directly tested against each other, as with the cell phone text messages.
A further difference from the telephone game false analogy, transmission does not occur linearly, from just one person to another to another, it is geometric, meaning one scroll would lead to maybe 10 copies, which themselves would lead to another 100 copies, and so on. Ultimately, you will have a massive number of copies, from different regions, languages, and groups across the Meditteranean world, to all compare against each other. Consider just the apostle Paul’s tireless work to spread the Gospel, and his writings in the NT were copied, and spread, and copied again, and verified by himself, the other apostles, and his committed followers through all their traveling and work.
How does the Bible compare to other ancient writings as far as having enough copies to compare against each other to ensure we have what was originally written? Daniel Wallace, professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary and the founder and director of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, states if you take any book from antiquity, and stack up all the manuscript copies found for that book, the average amount of copies collected stack up to 4 feet high, which is actually very good as you can compare it all together and determine we know what was originally written. If you stack up just the Greek manuscript copies of the New Testament (NT), many of which are catalogued here,[2] you will have a stack one mile high!
That is around 2.5 million sheaves or pages, and the vast majority of these copies have been discovered in the last 120 years, in fact, there are so many still being discovered, scholars cannot even keep up as there are so many discoveries still waiting for the scholars to have time to study and verify and add to the count. And each new copy catalogued has added confirmation to the already mile high stack of evidence.
Stacked on top of that are around 20,000 more manuscript copies in other languages to bring in to compare against the Greek manuscript copies. And stacked on top of that are tens of thousands of quotations of the NT from early church fathers’ (those who were the early Christian leaders, many of whom were mentored by the apostles or in the direct line of sucession to the apostles) sermons and letters, which in turn were passed on to other churches.
A foremost biblical scholar, Bible translator, textual critic and longtime professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, Bruce M. Metzger, observed if we had lost every manuscript copy of the New Testament, then we could still reproduce 95% of the New Testament with just the writings of the early church fathers.[3]
And yet, in all of the copies, there is no variant (copy mistake that varies from the original writing) in those found, which make scholars question the Bible’s message today is as it was when originally written.
Norman Geisler documented in his article:
NT textual authorities Westcott and Hort estimated that only about one-sixtieth (of the copy mistakes) rise above “trivialities” and can be called “substantial variations.” In short, the NT is 98.33 percent pure. Second, Greek expert Ezra Abbott said about 19/20 (95 percent) of the readings are “various” rather than “rival” readings, and about 19/20 (95 percent) of the rest make no appreciable difference in the sense of the passage. Thus the text is 99.75 percent accurate. Third, noted NT Greek scholar A. T. Robertson said the real concern is with about a “thousandth part of the entire text.” So, the reconstructed text of the New Testament is 99.9% free from real concern.[4]
And it is essential to understand – that 0.1% percent does not affect any fundamental Christian doctrine – because all these doctrinal points are covered over and over again in other passages throughout the rest of the Bible. World-renown archeologist and authority on manuscripts, Sir Frederic Kenyon summed up what the evidence leads to:
No fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith rests on a disputed reading. It cannot be too strongly asserted that in substance the text of the Bible is certain.[5]
The interval between the dates of 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 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.[6]
NT scholars have long agreed the massive manuscript evidence, as well as the tens of thousands of quotations of the NT made by the early church fathers, make reconstructing what was originally written well assured. We have what was originally written in the Bible, with the insignificant uncertainties always being honestly presented in the margins (see image below).
What about all the “variants”?
UNC Chapel Hill Professor Bart Ehrman has become one of the most popular scholars in his field, once he began writing about the variants (copy mistakes that vary from the original) in books such as Misquoting Jesus. This book has led many to think we cannot reconstruct what was orignally written. He observed there are approximately 400,000 variants in the NT manuscript copies, and Ehrman even made a “top ten” mistakes list. My first thought when hearing this was, “This is significant, and Ehrman is a bright scholar”, however, first thougths are not where you stop your thinking.
There are around 138,000 words in the entire NT, and with over 25,000 manuscript copies in Greek, Syriac, Latin and other languages, it becomes less surprising how many copy mistakes there are. The more manuscripts you have the more copy mistakes or variants you will have. If you only had 1 copy, then there would be zero variants, but how confident would you be that you have what was originally written? You couldn’t be, because with only one copy it would be easy for the copyist to purposefully or by accident make a mistake, and with nothing to compare against, we could never be sure it was accurate to the original.
In fact, how can Ehrman know what the top ten mistakes are unless he knew what was originally written? Do you see the problem? The way Ehrman’s popular books are written, many readers get the impression all those variants make us unable to reconstruct what was in the original writings, and these readers are often surprised to discover Ehrman’s writings and statements given toward other scholars, not the general public, demonstrate even Ehrman believes our Bible today is accurate to the original, despite the variants.
Even in an interview placed in the appendix of Misquoting Jesus on page 252, which has been removed in more recent editions of the book, this point is made clear:
Interviewer: “Bruce Metzger, your mentor in textual criticism to whom this book is dedicated, has said that there is nothing in these variants of Scripture that challenges any essential Christian beliefs (e.g. the bodily resurrection of Jesus or the Trinity). Why do you believe these core tenets of Christian orthodoxy to be in jeopardy based on the scribal errors you discovered in the biblical manuscripts?”
Ehrman: “Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times, and I dedicated the book to him because he was both my inspiration for going into textual criticism and the person who trained me in the field. And even though we may disagree on important religious questions—he is a firmly committed Christian and I am not—we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the NT probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement—maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands.
The position I argue for in Misquoting Jesus does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the NT.[7]
The variant readings almost always involve only issues of grammar, spelling, scribal slips of the pen, etc. And even if Metzger and Ehrman disagree on some places where the variants may impact the reading of a passage, core Christian beliefs are given over and over again throughout the Bible, so no core belief rests solely on an uncertain passage in the Bible.
Another nice example, displaying someone in the general public assuming Ehrman teaches one thing and finding out he believes something entirely different, can be seen in a video found here, in which a Muslim expects Ehrman to claim the Trinity is not reliably found in the Bible because a disputed passage is invloved. I think after reading Ehrman’s full quote on page 252 noted earlier, Ehrman does appear to be claiming this, but entirely refutes this idea in the video interview.[8]
A triple-level conspiracy; you really think so?
If you think we have a different message in the Bible today than the original writings, like maybe some over zealous church leaders or copyists made changes in the Bible to incorporate their ideas, and making the Bible become different from the original writing, then: #1 What evidence do you have to support your belief against all the evidence making the scholars think the Bible hasn’t changed. #2 Have you really thought about what would have to have happened?
I often have to encourage people to be more skeptical of their skepticism, and study or think further. For people to have changed the Bible, there would have to be multiple levels of phenomenally doubtful conspiracy. Pastor Voddie Baucham sarcastically explained this in a talk.
What we know of Julius Caesar’s conquests in the Gallic Wars comes from an original writing we do not have, but have 10 manuscript copies. Herodotus is considered a great historian by what we learn from his writing, which is preserved by less than 10 manuscript copies (although maybe more copies have been found by now). Now if someone wanted to change the accounts from Herodotus or about Caesar, they had a thousand or more years to change those 10 copies, and they would have to change all, or almost all of the copies to trick us into thinking we know what was originally written as the copies all match.
Yet the New Testament has around 6000 copies in just Greek, meaning conspiracists would have to get their hands on all, or almost all the copies, make the same change without leaving obvious writing or paper blemishes showing changes were made, and put all copies back where they found them without the current owners being aware. And without very committed biblical writers, and later a chain of custody of their committed students or disciples, raising objections from their own direct experience and copies. This is just level 1 of this vast conspiracy you would have to believe occurred.
Level 2 would involve a lot of travel and linguistics. When Jesus told the disciples to go and make disciples in all nations, this involved making copies in other languages, like Syriac, Coptic, Latin. So now it is not just the 6000 Greek manuscripts needing to be found and altered, but all those copies in all those other languages and locations, making sure the lies told in Greek match the lies told in those other languages. And all this must be unnoticed because the scholars have detected nothing of this supposed grand conspiracy.
And, of course, the early church fathers would constantly cite the Bible in their sermons and letters, which in turn were passed out to other churches. A foremost biblical scholar, Bible translator, textual critic and longtime professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, Bruce M. Metzger, observed if we had lost every manuscript copy of the New Testament, then we could still reproduce 95% of the New Testament with just the writings of the early church fathers.[9]
Thus, level 3 requires the conspirators to find all the writings of the early church fathers, change to match the lies of the other two levels, without notice. Voddie correctly concluded with lament for those who believe in such a conspiracy by adding, “Help you if you believe that.”
Standard tests of reliability the scholars use
The standard measures of how reliable the current book we hold in our hands is compared to its original, the manuscript evidence, includes information you may be able to remember using an acronym Dr. Turek came up with: NOTES.
Number of manuscripts (partial or complete): Generally, the more manuscript copies of an original work you can find, the better the reliability since the original words can be determined with greater accuracy through cross-checking the various copies. The NT, as noted previously, has over 25,000 extant (existing) manuscript copies, with over 6,000 in Greek. Compare this to most early historical manuscripts, which have somewhere between 4 to 20 copies. No other ancient writing remotely comes close to the NT.
Old: How old are the copies compared to the original? Generally, the closer the manuscript copies are to the original, the more reliable they tend to be. The earliest confirmed manuscript is within 25-35 years from the original; it is called the John Bodmer fragment of the Gospel of John. Currently another earlier potential manuscript, a part of Mark dated in the 60s, is being studied. There are other manuscript copies appearing in the middle of the second century (about 150 AD), and from there increase exponentially in number. This is unheard of in the study of manuscript evidence for other writings of ancient times.
Time Span: The smaller the gap in time between the original writing and the events they describe, the more accurate the accounts are likely to be. The NT was likely written between late 40’s to ate 60’s AD, possibly including John’s Gospel and the Book of Revelation. Some date one or more, if not all, of John’s five books from 85-95 AD. At least 22 NT books, if not all 27, were written within the lifetimes of most of the people who witnessed Jesus’s earthly ministry. Again, this is unprecedented in ancient manuscripts.
The core message of the NT is also given in “creeds”, which are recorded throughout the NT, and are brief and easy to remember core belief statements. Scholars accept these statements originated, at the latest, within three years, and possibly within a year to months of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.
Eyewitnesses: The more eyewitness accounts included, the better—for obvious reasons. The NT was written by many eyewitnesses: Matthew, John, Peter, Paul, and Jesus’s half-brothers, James and Jude. The Gospel of Mark, written by Mark an apprentice of Peter; the Gospel of Luke written by Luke, an apprentice of Paul. These eyewitnesses account for 26 of the 27 NT books. The twenty-seventh book, the book of Hebrews, does not have an author definitely known (it was probably Barnabas, another eyewitness). And do not forget the unprecedented nature of these eyewitnesses: (a) they knew for certain whether their claims about Jesus rising from the dead and giving them many convincing proofs (Acts 1:3) were true or not, (b) made their claims in a time and place where the facts could be checked, (c) and where they would receive consistent persecution, even up to death, (d) were known for integrity and many of the apostles were martyred, others were tortured, for proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus. This use of eyewitnesses is quite rare in ancient documents.
Supporting Information: How well does historical, archeological, and other findings confirm the reliability of what was written. Much support could be offered here. Even if all the copies of NT books had been destroyed, we could reconstruct around 95% of the NT from the quotes of verses from the early church fathers prior to about 250 AD.
Many books have been written attesting to the historical and archeological accuracy of the Bible. What is known as “internal evidence” within the Bible of ancient language, proper nouns and cultural details matching exactly what we later find through discovery, the Bible is corroborated better than any other ancient text. In fact, countless historical and archeological studies have been initiated by trusting the Bible provides accurate information. “Undesigned coincidences” is another area of evidence, which is covered very well by Lydia McGrew in her book: Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts.
On the other hand, aside from the Bible, all other ancient writings or manuscripts (those written before the end of the Roman Empire ~476 AD) have the following typical characteristics:
Number: They number anywhere from 4 to 20 copies, a few are higher. The next closest are Homer with ~2000 copies and Demosthenes with ~340. Even if Homer had 30,000, then good for Homer, but it does nothing to change the fact the NT has vastly superior manuscript evidential support.
Old: The earliest non-biblical manuscript copies are typically dated anywhere from 700-1500 years after the original work.
Time span: Non-biblical ancient manuscripts are often written a very long time after the event (for example, the earliest manuscript about Alexander the Great is about 300 years after his death).
Eyewitnesses: fairly rare.
Supporting information: scarce.
The Bible has a preponderance of more manuscript evidence than any other writing of antiquity. If you think you cannot trust the Bible is reliable to what was originally written, then you would have to throw out everything we know of ancient history (approximately 1,000 AD and earlier for our purposes), as no other ancient documents or their early copies have anywhere near the Bible’s manuscript evidence.
The graph below shows in white numbers how many manuscript copies we have to compare against each other for each source, while the orange numbers show the gap in years between the original writing and the events they describe. Notice the comparison between the other ancient writings we learn about in school and accept as accurate.[10]
William F. Albright was an American archaeologist, biblical scholar, a leading theorist and practitioner of biblical archaeology, served as the W. W. Spence Professor of Semitic Languages at Johns Hopkins University and as the Director of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, and is considered “one of the twentieth century’s most influential American biblical scholars”.[11]
Albright affirms: “We can already say emphatically that there is no longer any solid basis for dating any book of the New Testament after about A.D. 80, two full generations before the date[s] between 130 and 150 given by the more radical New Testament critics of today.”[12] The time gap between the oldest surviving copies and the first manuscript is much smaller for the New Testament than any historical works cited earlier. For Homer, the gap is 500 years (900 BC for the original writing, 400 BC for the oldest copy), Caesar, it’s 900-1000 years (circa 100-44 BC to 900 AD), Herodotus, 1300 years (circa 480-425 BC to 900 AD) and Thucydides, 1300 years (circa 400 BC to 900 AD).
Chains of custody
Former cold-case-detective, James Warner Wallace, was a committed atheist until researching to disprove the Bible, using his applicable detective expertise, and was shocked to find the biblical claims had the evidence all competing claims lacked. Wallace considered all aspects of the biblical claims about Jesus and transmission of these writings, and observed:
I typically evaluate the potential alteration of evidence over time by tracing the “chain of custody”. From the first officer who reported a particular piece of evidence, to the detectives who next handled it, to the criminalists who then examined it in the lab, to the detectives who eventually delivered it into the courtroom, I want to know what each and every one of them had to say about the evidence under question. Did they write about it? Did they take a picture of it? The “chain of custody” will help me determine if the evidence was altered over time.
In a similar way, there is a NT “chain of custody” related to the transmission of the Gospels and letters of Paul. The Gospel of John, for example, can be traced from John to his three personal students (Ignatius, Polycarp and Papias) to their personal student (Irenaeus) to his personal student (Hippolytus). These men in the chain of custody wrote their own letters and documents describing what they had been taught by their predecessors. These letters survive to this day and allow us to evaluate whether or not the NT narratives have been changed over the years. The evidence is clear, the foundational claims related to Jesus have not changed at all from the first record to the last.[13]
And it is not just the apostle John, but the apostles Paul and Peter bring similar documented transmission. We have multiple, known chains of custody from the eyewitness disciples, who knew for fact what they claimed about Jesus was true or not, to their students or those they mentored, and so on, all the way to us today.
Old Testament (OT) Reliability
Now this article was focused on the NT and is already too long. The manuscript scenario for the Old Testament (OT) is a bit different from that of the NT, but has also been handed down to us with incredible accuracy. You can find a study of OT accuracy in another article and in the frequently asked question section of the website.
OT Reliable: Dead Sea Scrolls
1947 found date first 2 centuries BC and first AD, Edwin Yamauchi called “copied with remarkable accuracy.”
The Old Testament (OT) has been handed down with incredible accuracy. However, the manuscript scenario is a bit different from that of the NT.
The OT was written over a period extending from about 1446-1406 BC to the fifth century BC, and was predominantly written in Hebrew, with some Aramaic. However, some scholars claim the book of Job is the oldest book of the OT, perhaps originating during the patriarchal period. The Greek translation of the OT (called “The Septuagint”) was completed in the third to second centuries BC.
Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS), the earliest Hebrew manuscript evidence dated to the tenth century (900s AD). When the DSS were discovered, over 300 Hebrew copies of OT books were included, dating from the third to the first centuries BC. All copies (parts, whole) of the OT books were included in the DSS, except for the book of Esther.
History shows that the Jewish transmission of the OT books was done by highly-qualified, specially-trained scribes to ensure accuracy.
When the DSS were discovered, the world then could compare the Hebrew documents from the third to first century BC to the later Hebrew manuscripts of the tenth century AD, a period of transmission of about 1100 years. The comparison showed that after 1100 years of transmission, the two sets of manuscripts were, for all intents and purposes, the same. For example, in the manuscript of Isaiah (second century BC, not the original writing of the eighth century BC), chapter 53, there are 153 words: of the 153 words, 152 are identical when compared to the tenth century AD manuscript of Isaiah. The one different word is a three-letter word for “light,” and its presence or deletion does not significantly affect the meaning of the passage. In total, the two DSS Isaiah manuscripts were more than 95% the same as current Hebrew texts. The five percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling.
Although the number of OT manuscripts are not as numerous as the NT’s, the transmission methodologies utilized ensured accuracy, which in some ways explains the fewer number of manuscripts.
For example, in commenting on the Masoretic method (c. 500 – 950 AD) of copying manuscripts (the Masoretes were Jewish scholars responsible for the standard Hebrew text today), Bible scholar Sir Frederic Kenyon states:
The Masoretes undertook a number of calculations which do not enter into the ordinary sphere of textual criticism. They numbered the verses, words, and letters of every book. They calculated the middle word and the middle letter of each. They enumerated verses which contained all the letters of the alphabet, or a certain number of them. These trivialities, as we may rightly consider them, had yet the effect of securing minute attention to the precise transmission of the text, and they are but an excessive manifestation of a respect for the sacred Scriptures which in itself deserves nothing but praise. The Masoretes were indeed anxious not one jot nor tittle, not one smallest letter nor one tiny part of a letter, of the Law should pass away or be lost (Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, London, p. 38).
Scholar F.F. Bruce further states:
They counted, for example, the number of times each letter of the alphabet occurs in each book (The Books and Parchments: How We Got Our English Bible, p. 117).
Using the English language for comparison, the number of times the letter “a” appeared in the book of Isaiah would have been counted, the same for “b” and so on through “z.” The middle word and the middle letter of each manuscript would have been identified; also the verses, words, and letters of every book would have been counted. If the resulting new copy differed from the prior copy (from which it was copied) by more than 3 differences (based on the above methodology), the new copy was destroyed. When a successful new copy was accomplished, the old copy was either thrown out or delegated for use in schooling, etc.
Prior to the Masoretic scribes, the Jewish Talmudists (c. 100 AD to 500 AD) had a very rigid process for copying OT books. Samuel Davidson describes the process (numbers added by Bible Scholar Norman Geisler; below quote from Josh McDowell, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict, 1999, p. 74):
[1] A synagogue roll must be written on the skins of clean animals, [2] prepared for the particular use of the synagogue by a Jew. [3] These must be fastened together with strings taken from clean animals. [4] Every skin must contain a certain number of columns, equal throughout the entire codex. [5] The length of each column must not extend over less than 48 or more than 60 lines, and the breadth must consist of thirty letters. [6] The whole copy must be first-lined; and if three words be written without a line, it is worthless. [7] The ink should be black, neither red, green, nor any other colour, and be prepared according to a definite recipe. [8] An authentic copy must be the exemplar, from which the transcriber ought not in the least deviate. [9] No word or letter, not even a yod, must be written from memory, the scribe not having looked at the codex before him. [10] Between every consonant the space of a hair or thread must intervene. [11] between every new parashah or section, the breadth of nine consonants; [12] between every book, three lines. [13] The fifth book of Moses must terminate exactly with a line but the rest need not do so. [14] Besides this, the copyist must sit in full Jewish dress, [15] wash his whole body, [16] not begin to write the name of God with a pen newly dipped in ink, [17] and should a king address him while writing that name, he must take no notice of him (Samuel Davidson, The Hebrew Text of the Old Testament. London: 1856. Quoted in Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix, General Introduction to the Bible. Chicago: Moody Press, p. 89).Copies not adhering to the above principles were buried or burned or banished to the schools to be used as reading books. Once certified, the new manuscript was considered just as valid as the prior copy, which was destroyed when any age-related issues occurred to the manuscript itself.
The Zugoth were assigned to the OT transmission from the second to first centuries BC. The Tannaim (“repeaters” or “teachers”) were active until 200 AD. The Sopherim were Jewish scholars and custodians of the OT text between the fifth and third centuries BC.
The above does not present all the relevant information on the transmission of the OT, but presents enough information to prove the incredibly accurate transmission of the OT through the centuries.
While brief, the above information confirms that the Bible’s NT has astounding manuscript evidence authenticating what was originally written. Renowned biblical scholar Norman Geisler states the following concerning NT variant readings:
For the Old Testament, the Dead Sea Scroll discoveries have shrunk the gap for the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) at a stroke by a thousand years, though a gap of 1300 years or more remains. These discoveries still demonstrate faith in its accurate transmission is rational, since few mistakes crept in between about 100 b.c. and c. 900 A.D. for the book of Isaiah. For example, as Geisler and Nix explain, for the 166 words found in Isaiah 53, only 17 letters are in question when comparing the Masoretic (standard Hebrew) text of 916 A.D. and the Dead Sea Scrolls’ main copy of Isaiah, copied about 125 b.c. Ten of these letters concern different spellings, so they don’t affect meaning. Four more concern small stylistic changes like conjunctions. The last three letters add the word “light” to verse 11, which doesn’t affect the verse’s meaning much. The Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament) also has this word. Thus, only one word in a chapter of 166 words can be questioned after a thousand years of transmission, of generations of scribes copying the work of previous scribes. Gleason Archer said the Dead Sea Scrolls’ copies of Isaiah agree with the standard printed Masoretic Hebrew text “in more than 95 percent of the text. The 5 percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling.” Their discovery further justifies William Green’s conclusion written nearly 50 years earlier: “It may safely be said that no other work of antiquity has been so accurately transmitted.: If it was so well preserved for this period of time (c. 100 b.c. to 900 A.D.) that previously wasn’t checkable, it’s hardly foolhardy to have faith that it was for an earlier period that still can’t be checked.
he Old Testament (OT) was originally written in Hebrew (with a few chapters in Aramaic), and it contains thirty nine books written from about 1400 – 400 B.C. Here are some good reasons to believe we possess an accurate OT text.
First the scribes who copied and preserved the text were careful[i] and meticulous. They developed numerical systems to ensure an accurate copy. They counted the number of lines, letters, and words per page of the new copy and then checked them with count of the original. If they didn’t match up, then the copy was destroyed and they started over.[ii]
Next, archeological discoveries shed light on many of the people, places, and events recorded in the Bible. While archeology doesn’t prove that the Bible is true, it certainly does confirm the historical reliability of the text.[iii]
Perhaps the strongest evidence for the reliability of the OT is the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls in 1947 at Qumran. In the summer of 2006 I had the privilege of visiting the site where they were discovered and saw a copy of the famous Isaiah scroll at the Shrine of the Book in Israel. The significance of this discovery cannot be overstated. Up until that time we had known how carefully scribes had passed down the text. But critics of the Bible always claimed that if we ever found earlier documents, then they would show how much the text had been changed and corrupted. So when a shepherd boy stumbled upon pottery containing ancient texts in a cave while tending his goats; it sent shockwaves through the biblical world. 800 scrolls, containing fragments from every book of the OT except Esther, were discovered dating from 250 B.C. – A.D. 50. But most significant was that an entire manuscript of Isaiah was found dating to circa 75 B.C. Old Testament scholars were then able to compare this text of Isaiah with the earliest existing copy of Isaiah in the Masoretic text dating to 1008-9 A.D. Their conclusion? 95% word for word copying accuracy over almost 1100 years! And the 5 % of variations consisted of nothing more significant than omitted letters or misspelled words—slips of the pen[iv]. In light of the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls at Qumran, it is fair to say that the burden of proof is on the critic who claims that the OT has not been reliably preserved.
The oldest OT manuscript discovered so far is a fragment of the priestly blessing from Numbers 6:24-27 found in a silver amulet near Jerusalem dating to the 7th century B.C. (2600 years old!). Now you might be wondering why we don’t have more OT documents. Here are several reasons: 1) Old manuscripts written on papyrus or leather would age and deteriorate over time. 2) Much of Israel’s history is marked by war; Jerusalem was destroyed and burned at least twice during the time the OT was written. 3) “When manuscripts began to show signs of wear, the Jewish scribes reverently disposed of them because they bore the sacred name of God. Disposing of the manuscripts avoided defilement from pagans. Since scribes were meticulous in copying biblical manuscripts, there was little reason to keep old manuscripts. When scrolls became worn, they were placed in a storage room called a genizah…until there were enough to perform a ritual burial ceremony.”[v] Once all of these factors are considered, we shouldn’t be surprised that we have not found more.
After a lifetime of studying the text of the Old Testament, Bruce Waltke concludes that “95 percent of the OT is…textually sound.”[vii] The remaining 5 % does not affect any key Christian doctrine and as more texts are discovered and existing ones translated, that percentage should continue to decrease. As strong as the case is for the reliability of the OT, the NT is even stronger! And as Darrell Bock notes “the case is strongest where it matters most—in its portrayal of Jesus.”[viii]
[i] Every now and again a well meaning scribe would add words of clarification to the text, but these difficulties are resolved due to the large number of texts we have to compare with one another through a process called textual criticism.
[ii] Paul D. Wegner, The Journey from Texts to Translations: The Origin and Development of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1999), 171-75.
[iii] “Thus we have a consistent level of good, fact-based correlations right through from circa. 2000 B.C. (with earlier roots) down to 400 B.C. In terms of general reliability…the Old Testament comes out remarkably well, so long as its writings and writers are treated fairly and even handedly, in line with independent data, open to all.” From K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2003), 500. This book contains a lot of great information and analysis, but it is challenging to read.
[iv] Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, 29.
[v] Wegner, The Journey from Texts to Translations: The Origin and Development of the Bible, 165.
[vi] Ibid., 101.
[vii] Waltke, “Old Testament Textual Criticism,” 157-58.
[viii] Bock, Can I Trust the Bible: Defending the Bible’s Reliability, 52.
If you read and look into the Bible a little bit, then I can understand how you could reject that the Bible is the Word of God and is trustworthy and reliable. However, such insignificant study provides you with only understanding. If you read and look into the Bible on an appropriate level – considering its credentials and potential impact on you – you will be amazed how clear it becomes God is behind the Bible and there is no other source in all human history able to compare with the credentials or the ability to add wonders to your life.
Love letters never opened
Elizabeth Barret Browning’s parents disapproved of her marriage and disowned her. Almost every week Elizabeth wrote love letters to her parents, hoping for forgiveness and a renewal of their relationship. After ten years her parents died, and to her horror, Elizabeth received a box full of all her letters – unopened. Today those love letters are some of the most beautiful and engaging classical English literature. When I heard of this story, the thought naturally arises: if only her parents had opened the letters, and been open to the letters, then there may have been a reconciliation.
The Bible claims to be God’s love letters to you. If that claim is true, then it could not be expressed how harmful it would be to return it to God unopened.
Further, God sends love letters more beautiful, personal and important than Browning’s, through many means other than the Bible, and these waiting for you as poignantly displayed by Jesus in the parable of the lost son (Luke 15:11-32).
[1] Norman L. Geisler, A Note on the Percent of Accuracy of the New Testament Text; https://normangeisler.com/a-note-on-the-percent-of-accuracy-of-the-new-testament-text/
[3] Metzger and Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: its transmission, corruption, and restoration, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005, p. 126.
[4] Norman L. Geisler, A Note on the Percent of Accuracy of the New Testament Text; https://normangeisler.com/a-note-on-the-percent-of-accuracy-of-the-new-testament-text/
[5] Kenyon. Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1941, p. 23, as cited in Josh McDowell. A Ready Defense. Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville, 1993, p. 46.
[6] Kenyon, The Bible and Archaeology, George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd. London, 1939, p. 288; https://biblicalarchaeology.org.uk/pdf/e-books/kenyon_f-g/bible-and-archaeology_kenyon.pdf
[7] Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus (New York: Harper, San Francisco, 2005), p. 252, emphasis added.
[8] Bart Ehrman shocks Muslims about the Trinity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0z0hCvQWak
[9] Metzger and Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: its transmission, corruption, and restoration, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005, p. 126.
[10] Jones, Clay. “The Bibliographical Test Updated,” Christian Research Institute, article ID JAF4353, originally posted October 13, 2013, updated April 12, 2023. https://www.equip.org/articles/the-bibliographical-test-updated/
[11] Weitzman, Steven (2022). “Chapter 9: American Biblical Scholarship and the Post-War Battle against Antisemitism”. Protestant Bible Scholarship: Antisemitism, Philosemitism, and Anti-Judaism. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism. Vol. 200. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. pp. 182–199. As cited in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_F._Albright#cite_note-Weitzman_2022-17
[12] William Albright, Recent Discoveries in Bible Lands, 136; William Albright, ‘Towards a More Conservative View,’ Christianity Today, January 18, 1963, p. 3
[13] J. Warner Wallace, “Four Reasons the New Testament Gospels Are Reliable”, copied from website Cold Case Christianity, published February 23, 2024. https://coldcasechristianity.com/writings/four-reasons-the-new-testament-gospels-are-reliable/