Archaeology - Proving the Truth of Scripture - Part 16

Ancient Manuscripts of the Bible

The Bible we read today is not based on a single copy or manuscript that has been passed down through history. The Bible we have today has been translated and compared with thousands of ancient manuscripts that have been discovered across many different regions of the world. How can you be sure that the Bible has been translated accurately, and is truly God’s Word?

A. Internal evidence

What does the Bible reveal about itself?

1.The unity of its teaching

The Bible contains 66 different books written by over 40 different authors over a span of 1600 years. The writers of these books were farmers, fishermen, a doctor, a prime minister, and others from many different walks of life. These 66 different books were written in various places, times and in three different languages. Each author speaks on hundreds of controversial subjects with amazing unity and harmony in their teaching. These topics covered the nature of God, the problem with man’s sin, how men could be redeemed, eternal judgment, and who Jesus was, and what work He came to do. These are just a few controversial subjects. The harmony and unity of their beliefs is a powerful proof of their divine inspiration. Do you think that today even five men, from different walks of life, could all come up with the same opinion on just 10 controversial subjects? I believe that would be highly doubtful!

2. The testimony of Jesus

a. Jesus declared that the Scriptures were the Word of God (Mark 7:13).

b. Jesus emphasized the authority and importance of each and every word (Luke 18:31; Luke 24:44).

c. Jesus declared that every word He spoke would surely come to pass (Matt. 24:35).

d. Jesus quoted Old Testament Scripture, and asserted that these words came from God (Matt. 4:4; Matt. 21:42).

e. Jesus declared that He believed in the historical accounts of creation, Adam and Eve, and the destruction of Sodom (Matt. 19:4-3; Matt. 11: 23-24; Matt. 22:29).

f. Jesus taught that the source of all error came from not knowing the Scriptures and the power of God (Matt. 22:29).

3. The Testimony of Peter and Paul

a. Peter equated his writings with the prophets of the Old Testament, which revealed his understanding of the authority his words (2 Peter 3:2).

b. Peter also equated Paul’s writings with all the “other Scriptures,” which revealed his thinking about the authority of Paul’s words (2 Peter 3:16).

c. Paul believed his teachings were the commandments of the Lord, which showed his agreement with the Apostle Peter (1 Cor. 14:37).

B. External evidence

How can we be sure that the words that you read today in your Bible haven’t been changed by translators over the centuries?

1. Manuscript evidence

a. At the writing of this article we have 5,856 Greek manuscripts, or parts of the New Testament that have been preserved for us. The earliest date of these manuscripts is a fragment of the gospel of Mark thought to date from 85-125 A.D.

b. We also have 18,130 non-Greek manuscripts or versions of the New Testament. A version is translation of the Greek manuscript into another language. There are Syriac, Latin, Egyptian, Armenian and Georgian versions dated as early as 150 A.D. This means that we have a combined total of 23,986 New Testament manuscripts, which provide us with great assurance that what we are reading today in our Bibles has not been changed or altered. The more manuscripts of an original work we possess the more confidence we have that the Scriptures have not been changed.

c. The Dead Sea Scrolls also reveal tremendous evidence that what we read in the Old Testament has likewise not been changed. These scrolls were found in 1947 by a shepherd boy in the Qumran Caves west of the Dead Sea. These scrolls are dated from 150 B.C. to 70 A.D. These manuscripts reveal the entire book of Isaiah, the books of Samuel, and fragments of every other book in the Old Testament. Before the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, the earliest Old Testament manuscripts were dated from 900 A.D. Over this 1000-year period, there were only spelling and grammatical differences in the text. Therefore, the Dead Sea Scrolls again reveal the accuracy of the copyists work in preserving the Word of God. 

Scholars who have studied these manuscripts have found an extraordinary level of consistency. Textual scholar Ezra Abbot calculated the accuracy of the New Testament manuscripts at approximately 99.75%, while Greek scholar A.T. Robertson estimated it at around 99.9% accurate. These figures demonstrate that the New Testament has been preserved with remarkable accuracy throughout history. The small number of variations that exist are overwhelmingly minor and do not change the message, teachings, or essential doctrines of Christianity. Because there are thousands of manuscripts from different times and locations, scholars can compare them against one another and identify the original wording with a level of confidence unmatched by any other ancient document.

Throughout history, the Bible has faced opposition, attempts to suppress its message, and countless efforts to discredit its reliability. Yet, despite these challenges, the Scriptures have been faithfully preserved and continue to be read around the world today. For Christians, this remarkable preservation reflects the promise God made about the enduring nature of His Word. In Matthew 24:35 Jesus declared, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” In Isaiah 40:8, the prophet wrote, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”

C. Early church lectionaries

Early church lectionaries were used in Sunday worship services and date from 300 AD. These readings were an arrangement of Scriptures to teach people the Word of God, and were often arranged to follow the church calendar. These readings helped congregations to engage with the Bible in a structured way since there were so few copies of the Scriptures. These lectionaries contain the majority of the New Testament, and also prove the accuracy of what we are reading today in our Bibles. 13.5 % of the Old Testament is quoted in these lectionaries (not counting the Psalms), 54.9 % of the non-Gospel New Testament, 89.8 % of the Gospels. We can recreate almost the entire New Testament from these lectionaries.

D. Early church father’s writings

The early church fathers were men who were appointed by apostles or followed soon after their death. Men like Ignatius (70-110 A.D.), Polycarp (70-156 A.D.), Clement of Rome (90 A.D,) and many others. John Burgon has cataloged over 86,000 quotations from the New Testament. Again, their quotations of the New Testament are identical to the Bible we read today. According to Bible scholar J. Warner Wallace, from the writings of Ignatius and Polycarp, who were students of the Apostle John, and Clement, who was a student of the Apostle Paul, we can determine the following about the beliefs of the early church fathers:

• Jesus was predicted by the Old Testament as the coming Messiah.
• Jesus is divine and was taught as such in the New Testament.
• Jesus worked miracles that were revealed in the New Testament.
• Jesus was born of a virgin as revealed in the New Testament.
• Jesus lived, ministered, was crucified and died as revealed in the New Testament.
• Jesus rose from the dead and proved His deity as described in the New Testament.

These facts again prove that what we believe today is exactly what the early church fathers believed and taught.

E. Personal evidence.

You can have the personal proof that the Bible is the Word of God by simply obeying what He commands. If you will first receive Jesus by faith, and then begin obeying His Word, He will dramatically change your life. This will give you some very powerful evidence that the Bible is God holy Word. Jesus said, “If anyone wants to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority” (John 7:17). This was the challenge of Jesus to those who followed Him, and should also be a challenge to all who will believe in Him today! If you want to know for sure if what Jesus taught was from God, obey what He commands you to do, and you will have the conclusive proof that you seek.

How will this assurance be given? When you receive Christ by faith and turn from your sins, you will experience the power of the Holy Spirit coming to live inside you. His Spirit living within you will be the proof that you abide in Him, and He abides in you. The Apostle John confirmed this truth when he wrote, “Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us” (1 John 3:24).

F. Fulfilled prophecy

Prophecy is another powerful proof that God has authored the words that we read in our Bibles today. Only God knows the future, because He exists outside our time domain! Predictive prophecy is a proof that God Himself used to declare that He alone is God. The Lord challenged the idols and false gods during the days of Isaiah, and told them to prove that they were gods by revealing what would happen in the future. The Lord challenged them, “‘Present your case,’ says the LORD. ‘Bring forth your strong reasons,’ says the King of Jacob. ‘Let them bring forth and show us what will happen; let them show the former things, what they were, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare to us things to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods; yes, do good or do evil, that we may be dismayed and see it together’” (Is. 41:21-23). Only God knows the future, and has revealed that He is God by giving us thousands of prophecies recorded in the Bible so anyone can examine them. Jesus fulfilled over 300 prophecies just in His first coming to this earth. Consider some of these other prophecies.

1. Prophecies relating to the total destruction of cities and ethnic peoples

a. The destruction of the city of Babylon (Isaiah 13:19-22; Jer. 51:26). Babylon is still in ruins today.

b. The destruction of Edom and its capital Petra (Isaiah 34: 6-18; Ezek. 35:5-7). The ruins of Petra are visited by thousands of tourists every year.

2. Prophecies relating to the permanent decline of a nation

Egypt was once a world ruling empire, but today it is a third world nation. God declared that Egypt, “Shall be the lowliest of kingdoms; it shall never again exalt itself above the nations, for I will diminish them so that they will not rule over the nations anymore” (Ezek. 29:15). How did God know these things? Because He knows the future!

3. Prophecies concerning Israel’s future

Please note the prophecies concerning the Israelites entry into the Promised Land, their disobedience to God and decline, being taken into captivity, their dispersion among the nations, and then to be regathered back to their land were all predicted in Scripture (Deut. 28-30; Ezek. 37; Hosea 3:4-5; Joel 3:1-2). Jesus also predicted this dispersion into the world, until the fulness of God’s plan with the Gentiles occurred (Luke 21:24).

4. Prophecies concerning the entire history of the world

Daniel chapters 2 and 7 describe the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Grecian, and Roman Empires hundreds of years before they ever existed. How could the Scriptures predict these things? Because there is a God who has spoken, who knows the future. If you would like to study this topic more fully, please go to www.covenantkeeper.org and click on media/ audio studies/ and scroll to series “Greatest Prophecies in the Bible.”