CIM Briefing Papers

C.I.M Outline #11

                 IS THE TEXT OF BIBLE RELIABLE?

I.   Introduction

     A.   How do we know God exists?

          1.   The only way we can know a personal God exists is
               through His revelation of Himself in the Bible.

          2.   The design of nature makes the existence of a
               Designer highly probable but this cannot result in
               absolute proof.

          3.   Man can reason that a God must exist, but the man
               doing the reasoning is finite and has been
               affected by the fall.  All philosophical arguments
               fall short of proving God's existence.  (though
               some of the arguments are quite good!).

     B.   But how do we know the Bible is true?  How do we know
          it is a true revelation of God?

          1.   Again we cannot prove the Bible is true.  The
               scientific method is not infallible and the man
               trying to prove the Bible is not infallible.  Bear
               in mind we are talking about absolute proof.

          2.   Instead, what we do is assume the Bible is true,
               and that God exists as a beginning assumption.  In
               other words, we begin with faith.  All world views
               begin this way, i.e. with assumptions that cannot
               be proved.

          3.   However, once that assumption has been made, the
               hypothesis can be tested.  If the Bible is God's
               Word we should expect it to mirror reality, i.e.
               state things as they really are.  We would expect
               the Bible to tell us things that we can know
               experientially.  We would expect that accuracy has
               been maintained as it has been copied down through
               the centuries.   The Bible is a supernatural book. 
               It was written by 40 human authors over a period
               of 1600 years and copied by hand thousands of
               times.  Yet there is one unified theme in the
               Bible as a whole, and the text that we have today
               is essentially the same as the original
               manuscript.  Let's look a the Old and New
               Testaments:

II.  The Old Testament

     A.   Scribes were professional transcribers of the Bible
          from antiquity, trained to copy documents.

     B.   There are three main families of manuscripts of the Old
          Testament:  The Massoretic Text,  The Dead Sea Scrolls,
          and the Septuagint.

          1.   The Massoretic Text.  It dates to about A.D. 1000. 
               A group of Jews known as Massoretes were
               professional copyists who developed meticulous
               techniques to assure accuracy.

                a.   The texts they had were all in capital
                     letters.

                b.   There was no punctuation nor paragraphs.

                c.   They numbered all of the verses, words and
                     letters of each book.  They counted the
                     number of times each letter was used in
                     each book.  They calculated the middle
                     verse, middle word, and middle letter of
                     each book. 

                d.   Comparisons of Massoretic texts of the 10th
                     century with Greek and Latin versions of
                     first century show remarkable agreement.

          2.   The Dead Sea Scrolls

               a.   They were discovered in 1947.  They include a
                    complete copy of Isaiah and fragments of
                    almost every book in the O.T.  They are dated
                    around 100-200 B.C.

               b.   This antedates by more than 1000 years the
                    oldest Hebrew texts in the Massoretic
                    tradition.

               c.   The error in copying in this great period is
                    very minimal.

                    (1) For example, of the 166 words in Isaiah
                        53, only one word is in question, and it
                        does not change any sense of the
                        passage.

                    (2) This is typical of the whole manuscript.

          3.   The Septuagint

               It is a greek translation of the O.T. from around
               200 B.C. by 70 Jewish scholars in Alexandria.  It
               also confirms the accuracy of the Massoretic text.

III.  The New Testament

      A.   Manuscript evidence:  There are more than 4000
           ancient Greek manuscripts containing all or portions
           of the N.T. that have survived to our time.  The
           writing materials most often used were papyrus and
           parchment.  There are 2 excellent parchment copies of
           the entire N.T. which date from 325-450 called codex
           Vaticanus and codex Siniaticus.  The earliest piece
           we have is a portion of John dated from 130 A.D., the
           Rylands fragment, containing John 19;31-33, 37.  From
           five of these fragments alone, we can construct all
           of Luke, John, Romans, I & II Corinthians, Galatians,
           Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, I & II
           Thessalonians, Hebrews, and portions of Matthew,
           Mark, Acts and Revelation.

      B.   Versions:  In addition to the actual Greek
           manuscripts, there are 1000 copies and fragments of
           the N.T. in various languages, and 8000 copies of the
           Latin Vulgate, translated by Jerome about 400 A.D.

      C.   Church Fathers:  A further witness to the text is
           found in the thousands of quotations of Church
           fathers (the early Christian writers).  If all of the
           N.T. manuscripts were to disappear overnight we could
           produce the entire N.T. with the quotes of the church
           fathers with the exception of 15-20 verses.

      D.   By Comparison: The wealth of materials for the N.T.
           becomes even more evident when we compare it with
           other ancient documents which have been accepted
           without question.  Consider the following chart:

AUTHOR       WORK            WRITTEN       EARLIEST COPY        
                           #OF COPIES

Caesar       Gallic War      58-50 B.C.    900 A.D.              
                               9-10
Tacitus      Histories       100 A.D.      900-1000 A.D.         
                             2
Tacitus      Annals          100 A.D.      900-100- A.D.         
                             2
Herodotus    History         480-425 B.C.  900 A.D.              
                             8
Thucydides   History         460-400 B.C.  900 A.D               
                             8
Christians   NEW TESTAMENT   50-70 A.D.    fragments, 90-125
                             A.D. 100   before 500 A.D.       
                             3500+

The same could be said of Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Sophocles,
Euripedes, Plato, and Demosthenes.  The time between their
writing and the earliest manuscript we have of their writing
ranges between 1200 and 1600 years!  But no classical scholar
would ever listen to an argument that the authenticity of
Herodotus or Thucydides is in doubt because the earliest
manuscripts of their works which are any use to us are more than
1300 years later than the originals.  Compare that with the New
Testament writings.

      E.   Conclusion:  Sir Frederic Kenyon, former director and
           principal librarian of the British Museum, in "The
           Bible and Archaeology" wrote, "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 to us
           substantially as they were written has now been
           removed.  Both the authenticity and the general
           integrity of the books of the N.T. may be regarded as
           finally established.  To be skeptical of the 27
           documents in the N.T. and to say they are unreliable
           is to allow all of classical antiquity to slip into
           obscurity, for no documents of the ancient period are
           as well attested bibliographically as these in the
           N.T."

IV.  What Other Scholars have Said:

     A.   William F. Albright:  "The excessive skepticism shown
          toward the Bible by important historical schools of the
          eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, certain phases of
          which still appear periodically, has been progressively
          discredited.  Discovery after discovery has established
          the accuracy of innumerable details, and has brought
          increased recognition to the value of the Bible as a
          source of history." From THE  ARCHAEOLOGY OF PALESTINE,
          p.127-128.

     B.   Nelson Glueck:  "It may be stated categorically that no
          archaeological discovery has ever controverted a
          Biblical reference."  From RIVERS IN THE DESERT, p.31.

     C.   Millar Burrows:  "On the whole, however, archaeological
          work has unquestionably strengthened confidence in the
          reliability of the Scriptural record.  More than one
          archaeologist has found his respect for the Bible
          increased by the experience of excavation in
          Palestine."  From WHAT MEAN THESE STONES?, p. 1

     D.   Two Examples:

          1.   From the Old Testament:  a certain Belshazzar is
               mentioned in Dan. 5.  The Bible refers to him as
               the king over Babylon and because Daniel
               interpreted the writing on the wall for him, he
               was elevated to the 3rd highest position in the
               kingdom.  The critics believed Belshazzar was a
               myth since his name was never mentioned in the
               historical records.  Archaeologists now know from
               ancient discoveries that Belshazzar was a co-
               regent with his father, Nabonidus, who had taken
               up residence in Arabia.  Perhaps this explains why
               Daniel could only be elevated to the 3rd highest
               in the kingdom!

          2.   From the New Testament:  Luke tells us (Chapter 2)
               that a decree was issued whereby all citizens were
               to return to the land of their inheritance in
               order to be taxed.  The passage also says that
               Quirinius was Governor of Syria at the time.  The
               critics said Luke was inaccurate on both counts. 
               The people were not taxed in this way and
               Saturninus was Governor, not Quirinius.  Separate
               archaeological discoveries have vindicated the
               Bible at both points.

For further study we recommend two books:

Bruce, F.F.  THE NEW TESTAMENT DOCUMENTS: ARE THEY RELIABLE?  
     Inter Varsity Press, 1963.

McDowell, Josh.  EVIDENCE THAT DEMANDS A VERDICT.  Campus
     Crusade, 1972.
 
 
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