WHY TRUST THE BIBLE?

Transcribed by Michael K. Farrar, O.D

Source of material came from:

“WHY TRUST THE BIBLE? Rose Publishing – Please contact their website if you wish to purchase the full version of this pamphlet.

 

 In the early history of the Bible, scribes would copy the Holy Scriptures by hand for thousands of years.

 

Could the scribes have made mistakes? Could they have changed words on purpose to reflect their own thoughts and ideas?

 

As we explore answers to these questions we will discover that:

 

The Bible can be trusted!

We can know what  the Bible says!

We can be confident that our Bible today is faithful to the original manuscripts, despite differences that exist in ancient copies.

 

HOW WERE THE STORIES PASSED DOWN

 

The Skeptics Claim: “The Gospels were written 35 to 65 years after Jesus’ death…not by people who were eyewitnesses,  but by people living later.”

 

What History Actually Tells Us: While it is true that the Gospels were probably written between 35 to 65 years after the death of Jesus, historical evidence strongly suggests that the sources of the New Testament Gospels were eyewitnesses of the events of Jesus’ life. Mark’s Gospel emerged around 65 AD; the Gospels according to Matthew and Luke began to circulate a decade or so later. John’s Gospel seems to have been written down around 90 AD. Even with these dates, it is a least possible that the sources of these books were eyewitnesses of Jesus. The emergence of Mark’s Gospel only 30 years or so after Jesus’ death makes it unreasonable to deny that the Gospels, at the very least, could have been written by eyewitnesses.

 

What matters most, though isn’t “when” the Gospels were written. What matters most is whether the Gospels accurately represent eyewitness accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus. according to ancient recollections from such early Christian leaders as Papia of Hierapolis, Polycarp of Smyrna, and Irenaeus of Lyons, each of the four New Testament Gospels represents eyewitness testimony about Jesus Christ. According to these recollections – recollections that bear every mark of originating in the first century A.D.

 

* The anecdotes recorded in the Gospel According to Mark are the testimony of Peter, preserved in written form by his translator Mark.

 

* Luke’s Gospel integrates written and oral sources gathered from eyewitnesses by Paul’s personal physician, Luke.

 

* The material that are unique to the Gospel according to Matthew came from Matthew, a tax collector who deserted a profitable profession to follow Jesus.

 

* The accounts in the Gospel According to John find their source in the apostle John.

 

What the Skeptics Claim: “Stories based on eyewitness accounts are not necessarily reliable, and the same is true a hundredfold for accounts…have been in oral circulation long after the fact.”

 

What History Actually Tells Us: In a culture that passed on information orally – such as the biblical world – it was possible for oral histories to remain reliable for remarkably long periods of time. People in today’s world – surround by high levels of literacy and easy access to writing materials – are accustomed to recording important information in “written form.” But, especially among the ancient Jews, important teachings were told and retold in rhythmic, repetitive patterns so that students could memorize key truths. These teachings were known as “oral histories”. In these forms, it was possible for teachings and accounts of historical events to remain amazingly consistent from one generation to the next. Much of the Old Testament and some portions of the new Testament – for example, the eyewitness accounts mentioned in Luke 1:2, may have been passed down as reliable oral histories before they were written.

 

What the Skeptics Claim: Stories in the New Testament “were changed with what would strike us today as reckless abandon. They were modified, amplified, and embellished. And sometimes they were made up.”

 

What History Actually Tells Us: The New Testament accounts of Jesus were not made up or changed with “reckless abandon.” Consistent oral histories about the life of Jesus and the early church emerged among eyewitnesses shortly after the events occurred: these oral histories remained consistent as they spread across the Roman Empire.

 

As an example, we can take a look at one of these segments of oral history, recorded in written form in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7. How do we know that these words from the apostle Paul represent part of the oral tradition about Jesus? Paul introduced this summation with two Greek words – “paradidomi” (‘handed over’ or ‘delivered’) and “paralambano” (‘received’) – that  indicated it was oral tradition. Ancient readers understood these two words, when used together, to imply that the writer was citing oral history.

 

A quick examination of these verses demonstrates how quickly oral histories emerged among the eyewitnesses of Jesus and how consistent these traditions remained. Even though Paul wrote in Greek, he called the apostle Peter by his Aramaic name, “Cephas.” Then, there’s the repeated phrase “and that.”

The phrase rendered “and that” is the Greek translation of an Aramaic method for joining clauses. Based on the grammatical patterns in these verses, it’s clear that this oral history originally circulated in Aramaic. And where did the people speak Aramaic? In Galilee and Judea, the places where Jesus walked and talked, died and rose from the dead! And when could Paul have received an oral history of the death and resurrection of Jesus in Aramaic? The point at which Paul seems to have learned this version of the historical account was around AD 35 when he visited Jerusalem and heard the story of Jesus from an eyewitness (Galatians 1:18). For Paul to have received a consistent oral history in Aramaic at this time, scholars estimate that this account – a tradition that clearly affirms the essential facts of Jesus’ resurrection – first surfaced near Jerusalem shortly after Jesus was crucified.

 

From this bit of oral history, it’s clear that the earliest Christians did not recklessly alter their traditions. Otherwise, how could Paul – writing three years after he first visited Corinth – have said to the Corinthians immediately before he quoted this oral history, “I am reminding you, brothers, about the good proclamation that I proclaimed to you, “suggesting that Paul proclaimed similar words in each place that he visited? (1 Corinthians 15:1). Clearly, this example from the oral accounts of Jesus’ life was not “made up” long after the events or “changed with…reckless abandon,” as the skeptics claim. To the contrary, this oral tradition  about Jesus emerged soon after his resurrection and remained relatively unchanged as it spread across the Roman Empire.

 

What the Skeptics Claim: “There is not a sentence concerning Jesus in the entire New Testament composed by anyone who had ever met the unwilling King of the Jews.” “Jesus own followers…were mainly lower-class peasants – fishermen and artisans, for example – and…they spoke Aramaic rather than Greek… In the end, it seems unlikely that the uneducated, lower-class, illiterate disciples of Jesus played the decisive role in the literary compositions that have come down through history under their names.”

 

What History Actually Tells Us: Not all of Jesus’ first followers were illiterate; even if some followers were illiterate, professional scribes – people who wee capable of turning oral histories into polished Greek – were readily available even to working-class persons.

 

In the book that bears the name “Matthew,” the apostle Matthew is presented as a tax collector (Matthew 10:3). It’s unlikely that any early Christian would have fabricated this bit of vocational trivia. Since Roman governors expected tax collectors to stockpile personal wealth by cheating people, tax collectors rarely made it to the top of anyone’s list of most-loved citizens. But there was one skill that tax collectors “DID” possess. THEY COULD READ AND WRITE! Tax collectors carried “pinakes”, hinged wooden tablets with beeswax coating on each panel. Tax collectors etched notes in the wax using styluses; these notes could be translated later and rewritten on papyrus. Papyri  from Egypt prove that tax collectors also wrote receipts for citizens in their villages. So, a tax collector such as Matthew could not have been illiterate. The daily tasks of a Galilean tax collector required him to copy and record information in multiple languages.

 

What about another character whose name is ascribed to a Gospel, the companion of Paul named “Luke”? Compared to other people in the New Testament, Luke is a quite obscure character. He’s mentioned only three times in letters attributed to Paul (Colossians 4:14; Philemon 1:24; 2 Timothy 4:11). Considering how many of Paul’s partners enjoy far greater prominence in the New Testament – Timothy, for example, or Barnabas or Silas – it’s difficult to explain why anyone would ascribe the third Gospel to Luke…unless, of course, Luke actually WAS responsible for the book that bears his name.

 

According to Colossians 4:14, Luke was Paul’s “beloved physician.” Ancient physicians seem to have possessed, at least, the capacity to read the summaries of medical knowledge that flourished in the first century. Papyri from Egypt prove that many physicians also wrote reports for law-enforcement officials regarding suspicious injuries, as well as statements for slave-masters certifying the health of slaves. So, it’s unlikely that Luke was completely “illiterate.” What’s more, many physicians could pull together various eyewitness accounts into coherent reports, just as the preface of Luke’s Gospel suggests that the author has done (Luke 1:1-4).

 

That leaves Mark and John. Though it is no means certain, these men may have been illiterate. Still, in the first century A.D., professional scribes were readily available to render messages from other languages, including Aramaic, into polished Greek. Complex legal titles, epistles to family members, and simple commercial receipts all required secretarial skills – and provided livelihoods for a multitude of scribes. Even though Paul was completely capable of writing in Greek (Galatians 6:11; Philemon 1:19-21), scribes penned Paul’s letters for him (Romans 16:22; see also 1 Peter 5:12). It’s entirely possible that mark and John employed professional scribes to render their oral accounts of Jesus’ life into Greek documents. If so, they would still have been the “sources” of these Gospels.

 

HOW CAN WE KNOW THAT THE BIBLE WAS COPIED ACCURATELY?

 

The Skeptics Claim: “The Old Testament is filled with lots of textual problems – as we have come to realize, for example, with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

 

What History Actually Tells Us: In truth, the Dead Sea Scrolls proved the precise opposite. The Dead Sea Scrolls demonstrated how carefully the Old Testament had been copied through the centuries. Around 900 AD – nearly a millennium after the time of Jesus – groups of Jewish scribes known as Masoretes began to copy the Old Testament texts according to strict guidelines. The Masoretes maintained nearly perfect accuracy in their copies. until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, these Masoretic texts were the oldest available manuscripts of the Old Testament. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were unearthed in the mid-twentieth century, scholars compared the text of Isaiah from the Dead Sea Scrolls with the text of Isaiah preserved  by the Masoretes. What these scholars discovered was that – even though more than 1,000 years separated the Dead Sea Scrolls from the Masoretic texts – the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic texts agreed word-for-word more than 95% of the time! The remaining differences stemmed primarily  from minor spelling variations. Even the scrolls that differ a bit more than the Isaiah scrolls – for example, the copies of 1 and 2 Samuel and Deuteronomy – do not differ in any way that affects any crucial Jewish or Christian belief.

 

What the Skeptics Claim: “There are more differences among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament…We have only error-ridden copies, and the vast majority of these are centuries removed from the originals and different from them…in thousands of ways.”

 

What History Actually Tells Us: More than ninety-nine percent of the variants in the New Testament are not even noticeable when the text is translated; of the remaining differences, NONE affects any vital aspect of Christian faith.

 

Scholars have 5,700 or so ancient biblical manuscripts available to them. Although many of these manuscripts include the entire New Testament, most are partial copies, found in fragmented form in the sands of Egypt or in the monasteries of Europe and western Asia. All totaled, these manuscripts include more than two-million pages of text. In these two-million-plus pages of biblical text, there are between 200,000 and 400,000 variations in wording or spelling. In a complete Greek new Testament 138,000 words. So, yes, there are more differences among the total manuscripts than there are words in the complete Greek New Testament. What the skeptics don’t clearly communicate to their readers, though, is the SHEER INSIGNIFICANCE OF THESE VARIANTS.

 

Most of these 400,000 variations stem from differences in spelling, word order, or the relationships between nouns and definite articles – slight variants that are easily recognizable. After minor spelling errors and slight variations in word order are factored out, there is more than 99% agreement between all of the known manuscripts of the Bible! Of the remaining variants, none affects any crucial element of the Christian faith.

 

What the Skeptics Claim: “Scribes who were not altogether satisfied with what the New Testament books said modified their words to make them…more vigorously oppose heretics, women, Jews, and pagans.”

 

What History Actually Tells Us: With more than 5,700 manuscripts and fragments of the New Testament available to us, it would be impossible for anyone to have modified major portions of the New Testament without their changes being quite easily noticed. In the few cases when changes were attempted, the original text can – IN ALL but the tiniest handful of instances – be easily restored by examining the most ancient New Testament manuscripts.

 

Some scribes after the New Testament era may have altered texts that placed women in prominent positions. For example, in Romans 16:7, someone name “Junia” – a name that appears to be feminine – is said to be “significant among the apostles,” but a later scribe seems to have turned “Junia” into “Junias,” a man’s name. In the most ancient manuscripts of Acts 18:26, a woman named Priscilla is the primary teacher of Apollos. Centuries later, a copyist switched the order of names, placing the name of Priscilla’s husband first. These kinds of changes are, however, obvious and easy to identify.

 

Even in the very few cases that remain uncertain, the problem is not with the texts themselves. The difficulty is with the choices of individuals to twist biblical texts to sanction negative attitudes towards women, Jews, or non-believers. In any case, the claim that the Bible as we have it today has been modified for the purpose of opposing women, Jews, and pagans has no substantive foundation in the actual texts.

 

What the Skeptics Claim: “Many of our cherished biblical stories and widely held beliefs concerning the divinity of Jesus, the Trinity, and the divine origins of the Bible itself stem from both intentional and accidental alterations by scribes.”

 

What History Actually Tells Us: This claim is simply not true. Firm belief in the divinity of Jesus, the threefold nature of God, and the divine origins of the Bible emerged among Christians before the New Testament was even completed. None of these beliefs depends on disputed or altered passages in the Bible. It is true that one verse that mentions the Trinity was not originally present in the biblical text: The last half of 1 john 5:7 – a text that, in some later manuscripts reads, “There are three that testify in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one” – does not appear in the most ancient New Testament manuscripts. But the doctrine of the Trinity does not depend on this verse. God’s nature as three-yet-one is affirmed just as clearly in Matthew 28:19, where Jesus commanded his followers to baptize in the “name” (singular) of the Father; son, and Spirit. Similarly, the most ancient copies of 1 Timothy 3:16 declare, “Great is the mystery of godliness; He was manifested in the flesh,” while a few later texts read, “God was manifested in the flesh.” But, again, the doctrine of the deity of Jesus DOES NOT depend on this text; the deity of Jesus is clearly affirmed in several undisputed texts, including John 20:28, where Thomas recognized Jesus as Lord and God. No essential Christian belief is affected by any variant in the biblical manuscripts.

 

WHO CHOSE THE BOOKS IN MY BIBLE?

 

What the Skeptics Claim: “Many Christians today may think that the canon of the New Testament simply appeared on the scene on day, soon after the death of Jesus, but nothing could be farther from the truth. as it turns out, we are able to pinpoint the first time that any Christian of record listed the twenty-seven books of our New Testament as the books of the New Testament – neither more nor fewer…In the year 367, Atyhanasius wrote his annual pastoral letter to the Egyptian churches under his jurisdiction, and in it he…lists our twenty-seven books, excluding all others.”

 

What history actually tells us: This statement leaves out several key facts about the selection of the New Testament books. It is true that Athanasius was the first author to list the exact same twenty-seven books that we find in the New Testament today. Yet, from the beginning, Christians unanimously accepted the four Gospels, acts, Paul’s letters, and the first epistle of John. Although disputes about a few New Testament books lasted into the fourth century, widespread agreement about which writings were authoritative existed among Christians from the first century onward. The primary standard for deciding which books were authoritative emerged long before the fourth century – and the standard wasn’t the word of a powerful bishop. hints of this standard can, in fact, be found in Christian writings of the first century A.D. The basic idea was this: Testimony that could be connected to eyewitnesses of the risen Lord was uniquely authoritative among early Christians. From the beginning, authoritative testimony about Jesus Christ had to have its source in eyewitnesses of the risen Lord. Even while the New Testament books were being written, the words of people who saw and followed the risen Lord carried special weight in the churches (Acts 1:21-26; 15:6-16:5; 1 Corinthians 4-4; 9:1-12; Galatians 1:1-12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26-27). The logic of this standard was simple: The people most likely to know the truth about Jesus were eye witnesses who had encountered Jesus personally or their close associates.

 

Although debates continued into the fourth century about a few writings – including the letters of Peter, John’s second and third letters, and the letters of James and Jude – Christians universally agreed at least as early as the second century on the authority of no fewer than nineteen of the books in essential truths about Jesus. Even if this score of so many books had been the only documents that represented eyewitness testimony about Jesus, every vital truth of Christian faith would remain completely intact. What directed this process was the conviction that these writings must be rooted in reliable, eyewitness testimony about Jesus Christ.

 

When deciding which Old Testament writings to accept, Christians embraced the same listing of books as the Jewish people. When the Septuagint – a popular Greek-language version of the Jewish holy writings – was translated around 200 B.C., the translators had included some Jewish writings which never appeared in the Hebrew Scriptures and which Jewish rabbis rejected around AD 90 at the Council of Jamnia (Yavneh). The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Bibles as “deuterocanonical” or “apocryphal” books.

 

What the Skeptics Claim: Among the earliest Christians, “there was no agreed-upon canon – and no agreed-upon theology. Instead, there was a wide range of diversity: diverse groups asserting diverse theologies based on diverse written texts, all claiming to be written by apostles of Jesus.”

 

What history actually tells us: Among the people who walked and talked with Jesus, a consensus emerged very early regarding both the identity of Jesus and all but a few biblical books. It’s true that there were several divergent sets of beliefs that circulated within the earliest churches. It’s also true that debates about a few biblical books lasted beyond the first and second centuries. yet the persons who actually walked and talked with Jesus agreed about the nature of Jesus even before the New Testament was completed. Consensus about all but a few New Testament books was reached by the mid-second century, probably earlier. According to the records found in the New Testament – the only writings about Jesus that were written early enough to be connected to  eyewitnesses of Jesus – Jesus was a human and divine, he was the messianic king predicted in the Hebrew Scriptures, he was physically raised from the dead, and it is only by trusting in Him that anyone can enjoy the life that God created humanity to live, both now and in eternity (see John 20:28-312; 1 Corinthians 15:1-7; 1 John 2:22; 4:1-3). According to the eyewitnesses of Jesus, to deny such truths as these was to exclude oneself from fellowship with Jesus Christ and with his followers (see John 4:1-6).

 

HOW RELIABLE IS MY BIBLE?

 

What the Skeptics Claim: “Not only do we not have the originals (of the biblical manuscripts), we don’t have the first copies of the originals…What we have are copies made later – much later.”

 

What history actually tells us: Although the original manuscripts from the biblical authors have been lost – probably forever – the copies that we possess today reliably reflect the inspired message of the original authors. ancient people saw no reason to never original manuscripts from important people, and — once documents became too worn to read easily — they did not retain the original manuscripts. Instead, they made RELIABLE copies and burned or buried the originals. Occasionally, the ink was scraped from the original, and the parchment was reused.

 

Despite the critic’s claims, it IS possible that we possess  first-generation copies of the original new Testament manuscripts. In AD 200, churches in Corinth, Philippi, Thessalonica, Ephesus, and Rome still possessed original manuscripts from the apostolic authors.  many portions of the New Testament that were copied between AD 100 and 200 have been found in Egypt; it is entirely possible that scribes copied at least a few of these documents from the original manuscripts.

 

What matters most, however, is not the age of the existing manuscripts but their RELIABILITY. When the manuscripts are compared, they completely agree with one another more than 99% of the time. Of the differences that remain, NOT EVEN ONE DIFFERENCE decisively affects any aspect of the Christian faith.

 

A FINAL WORD

 

So will there be more sensational new findings about the Gospels – findings that supposedly demonstrate that these writings don’t contain the gospel truth after all? Of course! The Holy Bible has withstood thousands of attempts to destroy its truth and to discredit its authority, and yet non one has succeeded.  The truth and the authority of the Scriptures stand strong, regardless of every attempt to render them ineffective. So can the Bible be trusted? in a word, YES!

 

(Source of above information came from: Why Trust the Bible, Rose Publishing – For a complete version of this information Please Contact Rose Publishing at the following website:       https://www.hendricksonrose.com/