Replies

So what you are saying is ...”Every word in scripture is unreliable?”

The Jewish people had scribes who were in charge of the manuscripts. They were so meticulous about doing it perfect that they counted all the paragraphs, words and even letters so they would know if they had copied correctly. They even knew the middle letter of each book so they could count back and see if they had missed anything.

The oldest complete copy of a Hebrew Old Testament in museums today are dated about A.D.1000. That’s a long time after the originals were written (1450-400 B.C.), so one could question if after many centuries of copying we really have the original words. That’s where the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 is so helpful. These well-preserved texts date back to 100 B.C. Amazingly, there is virtual agreement between the Dead Sea Scrolls and those dated 1,100 years later! This proves we can trust the Hebrew copies of the Old Testament that are existing today.

The reliability of the New Testament Greek texts is even more certain than the Old Testament texts. The New Testament was written A.D.45 – A.D.90. Some fragments of Greek texts exist that date back to A.D.120 and A.D.150. That’s only 35-100 years after the originals that Paul, John, Luke and others wrote! Another big help is that there are 4000-5000 New Testament Greek manuscripts existing today. By comparing these many copies, scholars can weed out possible copying mistakes. Compare these two factors of Date and Number of existing manuscripts and copies with other literature that historians consider accurate.