“You can’t trust what’s in the Bible because it’s been changed so many times.” REALLY? How do you KNOW that? 

We have good evidence that the Word of God has been preserved 

and today we discover why that’s true.

The further out we get from the original writings, the more confidence we have that what we have contains what was in the original writings. 

• Many of the oldest copies of Scriptures we have were unearthed within the last 200 years in archaeological finds (Codex Sinaiticus between 1844-1859, Dead Sea Scrolls (981 manuscripts between 1947-1956).

Autographs: Hand written originals; no originals of any writing in this time era exist.

Manuscripts: Hand written copies of Scriptures before the invention of the printing press (Gutenberg’s invention put to commercial use in 1454 - printing a 42-line Bible in 1455).

Variants: Differences between manuscripts including spelling, word order, additions, subtractions, ink smears or not legible.

Eye witnesses of events eventually die. Memories fade & myths multiply. Written history has been the long term option for preserving history with precision. Written documents make the message portable, for other people in other places & times.

✴Note: We have NO ORIGINAL autographs of any of the Old nor New Testament documents…nor any other ancient manuscripts written on these materials during this time.

Papyrus was fairly cheap & reliable, but was also fragile and susceptible to both moisture and excessively dry conditions. 

Parchment: specially prepared animal skins - scraped and soaked in lime, lasting much longer than papyrus, but also more expensive & time consuming to produce. (Leather & vellum are 2 other kinds of animal hide usages)

• Dr. Kenneth Barker, a professor of the Old Testament, notes that Jewish scribes “regarded the copying of any error as a sin. No imperfection, no matter how small, was tolerated.” If the mistake could not be fixed, the entire project was trashed & restarted.
• Everything was prescribed - the numbers of words allowed per column (no more than 30 letters), the type of writing material used, the kind of ink, and the spacing of words.
• The scribe was NOT ALLOWED to copy anything from memory—not even the shortest word. Instead, it had to be copied letter by letter while verbalizing the letter.

• Later scribes known as the Masoretes counted the number of times each letter of the Hebrew alphabet occurred in each copy and compare it to the original. Further, they were familiar with the middle letter of the middle word of the writing as a reference point by which to make certain that no letters were missing.
• When the scribe came to the Hebrew name of God (YHWH), he would not stop or allow himself to be distracted. Even if a king was to enter the room, the scribe was obligated to continue without interruption until he finished penning the holy name of the one true God.

• When copies of the Scripture started to wear, they were quickly removed from the collection and placed in a receptacle to separate them from the newer scrolls.
• The new copy was considered to have the equal authority to that text it was copied from - an exact duplicate of the information. If you were to ask, “Is what we have now what they wrote then?” They would have answered, “Absolutely.” 

The original autographs & early copies of the Hebrew Scriptures disappeared over time, due to wear and tear and persecution by oppressors who destroyed the Hebrew writings.

• 586-587 B.C. Destruction of the 1st temple and scattering of the Jewish people
• 167 B.C. Antiochus Epiphanies took over the 2nd Temple and outlawed the Hebrew Scriptures, destroying many of them. 
• A.D. 70: 2nd temple destroyed. The Romans scattered & enslaved many Jews, once again meaning the Hebrew Scriptures were in danger.   
• Until 1947, the oldest Hebrew texts available dated from A.D. 600 to A.D. 1000.

In 1947 a shepherd boy found jars of scrolls in caves while searching for a lost goat, some dating as far back as 250 B.C. The Hebrew scrolls contain all OT writings except for Esther. Some are dated over 800-1000 years older than any previously discovered scroll. 

One leather scroll wrapped in linen cloth was a complete Hebrew text of Isaiah, believed to be from 100-250 B.C. It was compared to the Hebrew text of Isaiah from around A.D. 900.

95% of the Isaiah text proved to be word-for-word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible. The 5% variations were obvious slips of a pen or different spellings, none of which changes the meaning of any of the passages! 

How did Jesus react to this COPY? Jesus treated this COPY as Scripture, the Inspired words of God through Isaiah. He even claimed those preserved words…WERE ABOUT HIM!

The Old Testament was written for Preservation and PRECISION.

New Testament manuscripts are hand written copies of the Scriptures before the invention of the printing press.

 Oldest New Testament fragment: p52 - John Ryland’s Papyrus (A.D. 125). This copy is about 60 years from the original, found in Egypt, about the size of a credit card, with parts of John 18 on both sides.

Chester Beatty Papyri: (A.D. 200-250) These Greek writings were in book form & contain several fragments OT writings: (portions of Genesis, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Esther, Ecclesiastes.) The NT fragments include both small & large portions of: Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), Acts, writings of Paul, & Hebrews.

 Codex Sinaiticus & Codex Vaticanus. Codex means ‘book’. Vaticanus has long been held at the Vatican. Sinaiticus was discovered in a monastery on Mt. Sinai and is the oldest complete copy of the New Testament (Greek). Both were written on parchment near or before A.D. 350 (only 300 years after originals).

The Old Testament is known for the PRECISION of the professional scribes, but the New Testament is known for its PORTABILITY. They wanted to get the copies RIGHT, but they were even more focus on getting the copies OUT to other people in other places and times. The 27 separate writings that compose the New Testament were originally written in Greek yet quickly exploded into other languages & cultures. 

• As of Jan. 2016, there were 5,856 catalogued Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, around 20,000 more exist in other ancient languages including: Latin (over 10,000), Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Old Church Slavonic, & Arabic, & more. The gospel message was quickly being carried across boarders & into different cultures. 
• Compared to other ancient manuscripts, the New Testament is the most well attested document of all time.
• If all the manuscripts had been destroyed. The early church fathers quoted so often from the New Testament we could put much of the New Testament back together from their quotes.  

Of 5,856 New Testament manuscripts, 61 that are complete New Testaments & the average size of these manuscripts is over 450 pages long. That doesn’t prove the manuscripts to be true, but it DOES demonstrate that the New Testament is the most well attested document of all time. 

See the video.

See the website: https://www.csntm.org/

discussionquestions

Take some time to discuss these questions with your family, friends, or group.

1. What challenged or encouraged you most from today’s teaching? You might need to look back in your notes to help explain your answer.
2. Someone you know makes the claim, “You can’t trust the Bible because it has been changed so many times, translated & retranslated.” How would you respond? What are 2 simple questions you could ask? (Hint: ask what has changed & ask for an example)
3. Give an example of a time when you examined the evidence rather than just listened to another person, and it brought you to a conclusion you were more confident to defend.
4. Why were the Scriptures written down & what were they written on? With that in mind, what is the importance of making copies of these writings? 
5. How does the preservation process of the Hebrew scribes & the evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls help you answer the question, “Is what we have now what they wrote then?” Share some of what impacted you about the preservation of the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures).
6. Read Luke 4:16–21. Knowing that what Jesus read from in the 1st century was a copy (possibly a copy of a copy of a copy) of Isaiah’s writing in 700 BC, how does Jesus’ response impact how you respond to whether this text should be trusted?
7. Why are there so many more variants in the New Testament copies than the Old Testament copies? How might comparing the copies help show us where copyists made errors AND allow translators to use the best copies?
8. At this point of our study, how would you answer this question: “Why do you believe what we have now is what they wrote then?” (e.g. manuscript evidence - quantity & quality, types of variants)
9. Remember our FEET2FAITH steps? Read it. Write it. Share it. Live it. What have you been reading? Share your insights or questions. How have you LIVED OUT what you read this past week?
10. Share prayer needs and pray for one another.