CHAPTER 3 -

Has the Bible's text remained unchanged?

 

 

 

 

One thing that has occasionally been claimed is that the Bible is not in its original form, but that its text was changed at some stage. It has been suggested that perhaps the text we read today is not in any way similar to the original. If we examine this claim we can find evidence against it:

 

Abundance of manuscripts. Although the original texts of the New Testament have not survived, many copies from quite early times have been preserved, and these show that the text is the same. As a general rule, the greater the number of preserved manuscripts of a text, the easier it is to verify its original form.

   Over 24,000 Greek and other early (100 - 400 A.D.) manuscripts of the New Testament or parts of the New Testament exist. When compared with the second-longest antique text, the Iliad of Homer (of which only 643 documents survive) – these early manuscripts represent a huge sample –, almost 40 times greater than the Iliad texts. Another example, texts from the war of Caesar in Gaul, includes just 10 documents, a very small number compared with the number of New Testament documents. Still, nobody doubts the reliability of these works. The following list describes the number of copies still available (information from Christianity: Hoax or History? by Josh McDowell):

 

Work Caesar Livius Plato (tetralogies) Tacitus (annals)   Tacitus (smaller volumes) Plinius the Younger (history) Thukydides (history) Suetonius (De Vita Caesarum) Herodotos (history) Horatio Sofocles Lucretius Catullus Euripides Demosthenes Aristotle Aristophanes Homer (Iliad) New Testament

Number of copies 10                         20 7 20 1 7 8 8 8 193 2 3 9 200 49 10 643 over 24,000

                                                                                                            

Short interval. The time interval between an original text and its earliest copy can provide insight into the quality of its preservation. Generally, the shorter the interval between creation of an original text and its earliest copy, the more probable it is that the text was not changed.

   In this respect, the New Testament stands in good position. The average interval between creation of original works and their earliest copy is approximately 1,000 years. For New Testament books, only decades (depending on the time when the Gospel of John was written) separate the original from its copies -- a considerably shorter period than for the other texts. This short interval and the large number of preserved copies prove that New Testament texts have survived in their original form.

   The following list shows the interval between original and earliest copy of various texts of antiquity (information from Christianity: Hoax or History? by Josh McDowell):

 

Work Caesar                 Livius                    Plato (tetralogies) Tacitus (annals) Tacitus (smaller acts) Plinius younger (history) Thukydides (history) Suetonius (De Vita Caesarum) Herodotos (history) Horatio                  Sofocles               Lucretius              Catullus                Euripides Demosthenes Aristotle                Aristophanes Homer (Iliad) New Testament

Interval between original text and earliest copy 1,000 years 1,200 years          1,000 years 900 years             750 years             1,300 years 800 years 1,300 years          900 years 1,400 years                                100 years 1,600 years                                1,500 years 1,300 years 1,400 years 1,200 years 500 years 25 years

 

The same text. New Testament texts were preserved in many old manuscripts, and there are very few differences – so few that from a practical point of view they are insignificant. When it comes to the uniformity of the texts, F.C. Grant stated:

 

To an attentive reader it is apparent, that (…) checking has not affected even one doctrine of Christian faith because of the simple reason that from the group of thousands of ways of reading the manuscripts there has not appeared even one that would require checking of the Christian doctrine. (13)

 

Also, Sir Frederic Kenyon commented on the same issue:

 

The interval of the original writing and the earliest preserved evidence is so short that it is insignificant, and the last ground for doubting that the Bible has been essentially altered is now removed. The authenticity of the books of the New Testament, that they are genuine and unchanged, can now be deemed completely confirmed. (14)

 

Quotes from the New Testament. Other evidence pointing to the originality of the books in the New Testament is the early church fathers’ quotes from its letters during celebrations of church festivals 300 years after Jesus’ life and death. Even if copies or parts of the New Testament texts had not survived, we could still reconstruct nearly the whole New Testament (except for 11 verses) from these quotes that have been preserved. According to research done by the British Museum, it is possible to find about 89,000 passages of the New Testament from among the writings of the early church. This number is very significant, and indicates how much the New Testament was used already in the early times. As to the number of these references, Sir Frederic Kenyon stated:

 

We cannot stress too much that the Bible’s – in this case especially the New Testament’s – main textual content is infallible. The number of the manuscripts of the New Testament, early translations and quotes that earlier writers of the church have used is so great that it is practically sure that for every passage that has been under suspicion, the right reading has been preserved, at the least in some of these texts. This cannot be said about any other ancient book in the world. (15)

 

THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

 

In the previous paragraphs, we have mainly dealt with the text of the New Testament. However, there is also evidence supporting the preservation of the texts of the Old Testament as well, such as:

 

Quotes in the New Testament. One good piece of evidence is that in the New Testament there are quotes from and references to the Old Testament. There are up to several hundreds of these quotes and they appear, for example, in the words of Jesus and also in the letters by Paul.

   It is essential to realize that these hundreds of quotes prove the accuracy of the text of the Old Testament. They show that texts were identical to the original, in the same way that quotation of passages from New Testament books during celebrations of church festivals points to the accuracy of New Testament books. They show that the texts of the Old Testament – of which the most recent reached their final form about 400 years earlier – were not changed.

 

The Dead Sea Scrolls are another compelling piece of evidence in the case of text accuracy. These scrolls, the oldest of which date back to about 300 B.C., were found very near the Dead Sea. Their text does not deviate from the texts of modern Old Testament books. On the contrary, these scrolls – in which were found all the books of the Old Testament except for the Book of Esther – are quite similar to those currently used. Thus, the allegation that changes have been made to the text of the Old and/or New Testament books is false. There exists no proof for such a claim. Instead, we are supplied many material proofs that exactly the opposite is true: the texts have been faithfully preserved.