March 7th: The Bible Manuscripts
Speaker: Pastor Ibrahim Ag Mohamed
The remarkable story of the Old and New Testaments - how the inspired text has been preserved despite the loss of the original manuscripts. Failure to adopt trustworthy manuscripts has given rise to many unreliable modern Bible versions.
More than a book, the Bible is a Divine library with Christ as its running cable. It answers all existential questions. It was the 1st book to be translated in another language: the Septuagint (LXX) in Alexandria (3rd century BC). The 1st book printed on Gutenberg’s printing press. It has been translated into more than 2,000 languages. It is the No1 best-selling book in the world. But can we trust the Bible (reliable)?
The Pentateuch was written around 1,400BC. The autographs were put into the Ark of the Covenant (Dt. 31.25-26). The writings were on papyrus scrolls velum (lasted longer). Joshua and Samuel added to Moses’ writings and stored them in the Tabernacle. After the Tabernacle, these originals were safely kept in the Temple.
Transmission down the centuries: Copies of the Pentateuch were made available to every king of Israel (Dt.17.18, 2Chr. 23.11), the Judges and perhaps believers more generally had access to copies. At first priests were responsible for copies but later scribes took on this role. Ezra was a scribe. The scribes took very great care to make exact copies. Such copies were considered to be the Word of God (1 Kings 2.3).
In 586 BC Jerusalem fell. The Temple was destroyed (2 Chr. 36.17-19). The originals were lost then. However, many copies existed and some were taken into Babylon. In 537 BC some Jews returned from captivity and Ezra re-established worship in Jerusalem. In Neh. 8.1 the people requested Ezra to bring ‘the book of the law of Moses.” It was only a copy, but it was described as the ‘law of Moses.’ Ezra reorganized the religious life of the nation. Copies were collected and subjects to meticulous examination and comparison. Minor errors (such as omission of a letter or a word) were corrected. A manuscript with up to 3 errors on a page was rejected and buried. It was from these copies that a Gr. translation called the LXX was made (250 BC). The Lord Jesus constantly quoted from the Heb. OT.
The Massoretes (Jewish Scribes) established a standard OT Heb. text upon which our AV is based on. They took great care to insure top-quality manuscripts.
The O.T. Canon (39 books): The books had to pass several tests (provided by God) before being considered to be scripture:
- Inspiration to the sacred writers;
- Illumination to the sincere reader;
- Discernment to the body of believers to recognise the divine books.
- The book had to agree with Moses’ books
- The book has to have self-vindicating authority to be the word of God.
- It had to be written by a holy man of God (2 P.1.19-21).
THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS – (changed how the world view the O.T.) was discovered in 1947. This was a remarkable testimony to the accuracy of the Masoretic Text (almost 100% accuracy) on the whole OT, except the book of Esther (2 to 100 years B.C).
What about the N.T (canon) written in Greek? The NT (27 books written in a span of 30-40 yrs.) warns against changing the text. Divine inspiration, not the decision of the church, determines whether a NT book is part of the Canon. Christ promised to send the H.S to enable His apostles to record His truth including all that He taught them during His earthly ministry (Jn.14-16).
· Through the efforts of modern archaeology, 1,000s of manuscripts were discovered, some dating to within 100 yrs. of the writing of the original text. It is believed that there are 24,000 partial or complete manuscripts of the N.T. None of the variations affect any article of faith or the character of God.
· From the church Fathers, we find 86,000 biblical quotations directly from the Bible. They quoted intensively the NT in their writings that one is able to reconstitute the entire N.T, except from 11 verses (not affecting any doctrinal matter). This is just 40 to 70 yrs. from the originals.
If you compare the NT with any ancient book, no match.
E.g.: The Gallic Wars of Julius Caesar, written around 50 BC. Only 10 valid manuscripts, the oldest dated 900 years after Caesar. One of the most famous ancient books in history is The Iliad (by the Greek Writer Homer) has only 700 manuscripts. The oldest is dated 500 yrs. after the original. So allegations that the Bible has not been transmitted accurately, simply cannot be honestly upheld in the light of so many infallible proofs.
The 1st compilation of the N.T was completed in 1516 by Didier Erasmus (a Dutch scholar and humanist), The Textus Receptus, also called The Received Text. It became widely the basis for the translation of the N.T. during the Reformation. Several 16th and 17th century translations of the N.T. such as The Luther Bible, The King James Bible were based on The Textus Receptus. We have a Bible we can trust. We have sufficient manuscript evidence to back it up as God protected and preserved His Word for us (2 Tim.3.16-17; Jn.7.16-17).
