KBM How We Got The Bible Part 3

Today we are going to be finishing up our “three part” series on How We Got The Bible. We have, thus far, looked at the mechanics of how the bible was written, and last week we looked at the formation of the bible. That means today we are going to ask ourselves if we can “trust” God’s word, the bible. The short answer is yes, but I want today to show you how reliable the N.T. is compared to other ancient writings that are considered accurate. For this we are going to look at what is commonly called the Bibliographical Test. This test is applied to all ancient manuscripts to determine their authenticity or how well we can determine if they are the same as the original author intended them to be. There are four steps taken in the Bibliographical Test. First, How many copies of the document are there. This allows for comparison between copies for accuracy. When it comes to the N.T. there are roughly 4000 Greek MSS, 13,000 fragments in Greek, and this doesn’t count the thousands of MSS we have by way of translations such as Latin. Compare that to Caesar’s “Gallic Wars” wherein there are only 10 MSS, Tacitus’ “Annals” with 2 MSS, or Livy’s “History of Rome” with 20 MSS. The second test is “where are the copies found,” because if they all come from the same place there could be some sort of conspiracy to all write the same thing. We how found N.T. MSS all over the world, from Egypt, to Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Greece, Italy, etc…with copies being found all over the world it would be impossible to collude with such a project. The third test asks, “what length of time passed between the original MSS and the copies.” If hundreds of years pass without any copies or fragments then we would not know if the originals were doctored in any way. There are several N.T. fragments that we can date within 50 to 100 years of the original MSS. We have several “complete MSS” that date only 300 to 400 years after the originals. These MSS don’t even take into consideration all the quotes from the Bible, from ancient writers that are within 30 years of the originals in some cases. Some of these might sound like a long time but look at other ancient MSS that are considered without question accurate. The Gallic Wars we mentioned earlier are 950 years later copies and the Annals is 950 years later. Some others like the Histories of Herodotus are 1,350 years later. Lastly, and thus fourthly the test is, “what variances exist between the copies.” In other words are there large numbers of differences in the copies or minor differences. There is no doubt that there are “some” variations or differences between N.T. MSS. However, the “vast” majority of these are “spelling differences,” “phraseology differences,” and “grammatical differences.” And with those only half of one percent is in question. Compare that to Homer’s Iliad which has five percent in question. I know this is a lot to take in and so I hope you go back and study this again. From all this there is no doubt what Paul wrote Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:16…

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV

16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

This reality, that God inspired men to write his word and providentially kept it so as no one could deny it’s truth and trustworthiness is seen in an ex-atheist, Josh McDowll’s comments, “After trying to shatter the historicity and validity of the Scriptures, I came to the conclusion that they are historically trustworthy. If one discards the Bible as being unreliable, then he must discard almost all literature of antiquity.”