THE RELIABILITY OF SCRIPTURE

Does good archaeological support exist for the Bible?

Yes! Unlike other books that claim to be Scripture (such as the Book of Mormon), the Bible’s accuracy and reliability have been proved and verified over and over again by archeological finds produced by both believing and non-believing scholars and scientists.  This includes verification for numerous customs, places, names, and events mentioned in the Bible.

One among many examples is the fact that for many years the existence of the Hittites (a powerful people who lived during the time of Abraham) was questioned because no archeological digs had uncovered anything about them.  Critics claimed the Hittites were pure myth.  But today the critics are silenced.  Abundant archeological evidence for the existence of the Hittites during the time of Abraham has been uncovered.

Bible scholar Donald J. Wiseman notes, “The geography of  Bible lands and visible remains of antiquity were gradually recorded until today more than 25,000 sites within this region and dating to Old Testament times, in their broadest sense, have been located.” [Donald J. Wiseman, “Archaeological Confirmation of the Old Testament,” cited in Norman L. Geisler,
Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1976), p. 322.]  Nelson Glueck, a 
specialist in ancient literature did an exhaustive study and concluded: “It can be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference.”
[Nelson Glueck, Rivers in the Desert (Philadelphia: Jewish Publications Society of America, 1969), p. 31.]  Well-known scholar William F. Albright, following a comprehensive study, wrote: “Discovery after discovery has established the accuracy of innumerable details, and has brought increased recognition of the value of the Bible as a source of history.” [William F. Albright; cited in Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict (San Bernardino, CA: Campus Crusade for Christ, 1972), p. 68.]

Does strong manuscript evidence exist for the New Testament?  What about all the “variants” the critics talk about?

There are more than 24,000 partial and complete manuscript copies of the New Testament.  These manuscript copies are very ancient and they are available for inspection now.  There are also some 86,000 quotations from the early church fathers and several thousand lectionaries (church service books containing Scripture quotations used in the early centuries of Christianity).  In fact, there are enough quotations from the early church fathers that even if we did not have a single copy of the Bible, scholars could still reconstruct all but 11 verses of the entire New Testament from material written within 150 to 200 years from the time of Christ.  Bottom line: the New Testament has an overwhelming amount of evidence supporting its reliability.

Now, in the many thousands of manuscript copies we possess of the New Testament, scholars have discovered that there are some 200,000 “variants.”  This may seem like a staggering 
figure to the uniformed mind.  But to those who study the issue, the numbers are not as serious as it may initially appear.  Indeed, a look at the hard evidence shows that the New Testament manuscripts are amazingly accurate and trustworthy.

To begin, we must emphasize that out of these 200,000 variants, 99 percent hold virtually no significance whatsoever.  Many of these variants simply involve a missing letter in a word; some involve reversing the order of two words (such as “Christ Jesus” instead of “Jesus Christ”); some may involve the absence of one or more insignificant words.  Really, when all the facts are put on the table, only about 40 of the variants have any real significance and even then, no doctrine of the Christian faith or any moral commandment is affected by them.  For more that 99 percent of the cases the original text can be reconstructed to a practical certainty.

By practicing the science of textual criticism, comparing all the available manuscripts with each other, we can come to an assurance regarding what the original document must have said.  Perhaps an illustration might be helpful.  Let us suppose we have five manuscript copies of an original document that no longer exists.  Each of the manuscript copies are different. Our goal is to compare the manuscript copies and ascertain what the original must have said.  Here are the five copies:

	Manuscript #1: Jesus Christ is the Savior of the whole world.

	Manuscript #2: Christ Jesus is the Savior of the whole world.

	Manuscript #3: Jesus Christ s the Savior of the whole worl.

	Manuscript #4:	 Jesus Christ is th Savior of  the whle world.

	Manuscript #5: Jesus Christ is the Savor of the whole wrld.

Could you, by comparing the manuscript copies, ascertain what the original document said with a high degree of certainty that you are correct?  Of course you could.  This illustration may be extremely simplistic, but a great majority of the 200,000 variants are solved by the above methodology.  By comparing the various manuscripts, all of which contain very minor differences like the illustration, it becomes fairly clear what the original must have said.

Does good manuscript support exist for the Old Testament?

Yes!  The Dead Sea Scrolls prove the accuracy of the transmission of the Old Testament books of the Bible.  In fact, in these scrolls discovered at Qumran in 1947, we have Old Testament manuscripts that date about a thousand years earlier (150 B.C.) than the other Old Testament manuscripts previously in our possession (which dated to A.D. 980).  The significant thing is that when one compares the two sets of manuscripts, it is clear that they are essentially the same, with very few changes.  The fact that manuscripts separated by a thousand years are essentially the same indicates the incredible accuracy of the Old Testament’s manuscript transmission.

The copy of the Book of Isaiah discovered at Qumran illustrates this accuracy.  Dr. Gleason Archer, who personally examined both the A.D. 980 and 150 B.C.  copies of Isaiah, comments:

	Even though the two copies of Isaiah discovered in Qumran Cave 1 near the Dead Sea in
	1947 were a thousand years earlier than the oldest dated manuscript previously known
	(A.D. 980), they proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible
	in more than 95 percent of the text.  The 5 percent of variation consisted chiefly of 
	obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling. [Gleason Archer, A Survey of
	Old Testament Introduction (Chicago: Moody Press, 1964), p. 19]


The Dead Sea Scrolls prove that the copyists of biblical manuscripts took great care in going about their work.  These copyists knew they were duplicating God’s Word.  Hence they went to incredible lengths to insure that no error crept into their work.  The scribes carefully counted every line, word, syllable, and letter to guarantee accuracy. [Dan Story, Defending Your Faith: How to Answer the Tough Questions (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1992), p. 35.]

Does any biblical basis exist for the idea that God preserves Scripture through the ages?

Yes! The God who had the power and sovereign control to inspire the Scriptures in the first place is surely going to continue to exercise His power and sovereign control in the preservation of Scripture.

Actually, God’s preservational work is illustrated in the text of the Bible.  By examining how Christ viewed the Old Testament (keeping in mind that Jesus did not have in His possession the original books penned by the Old Testament writers, but possessed only copies), we see that He had full confidence that the Scriptures He used had been faithfully preserved through the centuries.

	Because Christ raised no doubts about the adequacy of the Scriptures as His contemporaries
	knew them, we can safely assume that the first-century text of the Old Testament was a 
	wholly adequate representation of the divine word originally given.  Jesus regarded the extant
	copies of His day as so approximate to the originals in their message that He appealed to 
	those copies as authoritative. [Greg L. Bahnsen, “The Inerrancy of the Autographa,”
	cited in Norman L. Geisler, ed., Inerrancy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing
	House, 1980), p. 161.]

The respect that Jesus and His apostles held for the extant Old Testament text is an expression of their confidence that God providentially preserved these copies and translations so that they were substantially identical with the inspired originals.

