Some people say the
Bible may have been true and accurate when first written, but has been altered
over the years and the version we have today is not trustworthy. This is one of the most serious attacks on the
credibility of the Bible. So, has the
Bible been copied accurately or has it been corrupted? Can we trust the Bible we have today?
Where is the evidence
of corruption?
A favorite tactic of
critics is to throw out baseless accusations and demand that a Christian offer
a defense. If someone claims the Bible
has been corrupted over the years, it is reasonable to ask what evidence exists
to support that allegation. It requires
no proof to criticize, but on what basis?
Other ancient books are accepted as authentic unless proven
otherwise. Why is the Bible treated differently? Some assert that Emperor Constantine (lived
in the early 4th century) was involved in corrupting the original
message of Christianity. Again, where is
the evidence? Someone can claim Lyndon
Johnson was involved in Kennedy’s assassination, but what are the facts to
support that? Nonetheless, for those who
honestly want to know whether the Bible can be trusted, some solid evidence is
presented here.
When could the Bible
have been corrupted?
If there was
corruption of the original documents, when would that have occurred? The New Testament documents were written and
circulated among the early churches scattered throughout Asia Minor, Northern
Africa, and Southern Europe from approximately 40 to 100 A.D. None of the original Biblical documents still
exist; however, no original documents of any kind exist from that time
period for any other books. The key question is the reliability
of the copies and those made chronologically closer to the originals leave less
time for possible corruption.
Manuscripts of
Biblical passages have been dated from as early as 200 A.D., such as the
Chester Beatty papyrus (P46), which contains ten of Paul’s letters and the book
of Hebrews. The Bodmer papyrus (P66)
also dates to about 200 A.D. and contains the Gospel of John. The Sinaiticus uncial manuscript dates to the
fourth century and contains the entire New Testament.
Earliest manuscripts
The earliest original
portion of the New Testament found to date is the John Rylands fragment, dated
to around A.D. 130, which contains portions of John 18, verses 31-33 and 37-38. The Greek text matches that of later
manuscripts, even further diminishing the possibility of corruption. Additionally, because the fragment was found
in Egypt and the traditional place of composition is Asia Minor, some time
would have been required for John’s gospel to travel that distance. (The early second century was not exactly the
internet age and information traveled much slower.)
Textual corruption of
the Bible is one of the most common criticisms of Christianity from some in the
Islamic community. However, the Qur’an,
which dates from the seventh century, commended the Bible for containing “the
Truth”:
“If thou wert in doubt As to what We have
revealed Unto thee, then ask those Who have been reading The Book from before
thee: The Truth hath indeed come To thee
from thy Lord: So be in no wise Of those
in doubt” (Sura 10:94).
By the time of
Muhammad, thousands of complete or partial manuscripts of the Bible were in
circulation on several continents and in several languages (Greek, Latin,
Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Gothic, Georgian, Ethiopic, and Nubian). To remove the Bible from circulation and
replace it with a corrupted version would have been an impossible task. These manuscripts can be compared today (and
have been) with the Bibles we have now.
So, there was no time for corruption or alteration of the Biblical
texts.
Quotations of the New
Testament
Early church fathers writing
from early in the second century onward quoted the Bible extensively. In fact, if we had no manuscripts of the New
Testament, all but 11 verses could be reconstructed by referencing the writings
of early church fathers made within the first couple of centuries after the
time of Christ. There are about 86,000
quotations of the New Testament in these writings as well as lectionaries
(church service books) in the early centuries.
For example, Polycarp, who was a disciple of the Apostle John, writing
around A.D. 150, quoted sections of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp, writing
around 180 AD, made 1,819 N.T. quotations from 23 of the 27 New Testament
books, omitting only Philemon, James, 2 Peter, and 3 John.[1]
Justin Martyr (c. 100-164) quoted 330
verses of the N.T.
Other examples
include Origen (185-254), who quoted 17,992 verses and Tertullian (160-220),
who made 7,258 quotations.[2] Clement of Rome (A.D. 95) quoted from the
books of:
Matthew, Mark, Luke,
Acts, 1 Corinthians, 1 Peter, Hebrews and Titus.
Ignatius (A.D.
70-110) knew the apostles and wrote seven letters containing quotations from:
Matthew, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians,
Ephesians, Philippians, Galatians, Colossians, James, 1 & 2 Thessalonians,
1 & 2 Timothy, and 1 Peter.[3]
It is true that not
all quotations by early church fathers were word for word exact replicas of the
words found in the Bible. However, given
the vast number of references, and by comparing the numerous exact quotations
with various paraphrases, the accurate transmission of the Bible is
overwhelmingly confirmed.
What about the Old
Testament?
The same criticism of
the New Testament has been made by some of the Old Testament: Since the original books were written
hundreds of years before the oldest extant copies, how can we be sure they were
copied accurately? If it was necessary
for scribes to copy the scrolls periodically as older ones deteriorated, there
may be significant differences between the originals and the copies.
Prior to 1947, the
oldest manuscripts of the O.T. available dated to about A.D. 980. Since the last books of the O.T. were written
around 400 B.C., there is a time gap of about 1,400 years. However, in 1947, the Dead Sea scrolls were
discovered, which contain manuscripts dating to 150 B.C. So, upon comparison, did the later copies
contain major discrepancies from the earlier copies? No, in comparing the manuscripts, it is clear
the scriptures were copied with remarkable accuracy (realizing this process was
done by hand with ink on papyrus). To
illustrate, Dr. Gleason Archer, who personally examined both the A.D. 980 and
the 150 B.C. copies of the book of Isaiah, wrote:
Even though the two copies of Isaiah
discovered in Qumran Cave 1, near the Dead Sea, were a thousand years earlier
than the oldest dated manuscript previously known (A.D. 980), they proved to be
word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible 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.[4]
Conclusion
There is
no evidence that the Bible has been corrupted over time. In fact, the evidence shows that both the New
and Old Testaments have been very carefully preserved throughout the years. We can trust that the Bible we have today
accurately represents the Bible as originally written.
For
additional in depth study, see The Canon
of Scripture by F. F. Bruce and The
Canon of the New Testament by Bruce Metzger.
[Scripture quotations
are from the New American Standard Bible.]
[1]Ron
Rhodes, Reasoning from
the Scriptures with Muslims (Eugene, OR:
Harvest House Publishers, 2002), pp. 210-211.
[2]
Norman Geisler and William Nix, A General
Introduction to the Bible (Chicago:
Moody Press, 1978), p. 357.
[3] Josh
McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict
(San Bernadino, CA: Here’s Life
Publishing, 1972), p. 51.
[4]
Gleason Archer, A Survey of Old Testament
Introduction (Chicago: Moody Press,
1964), p. 19, quoted in Ron Rhodes, pp. 208-20.9
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