In this three-part devotion, I plan to explore this topic and hopefully give you the confidence to believe that the Bible you hold in yours hands today, is virtually the exact same Bible people 2,000 years ago read. Today I will talk about some general issues, before I explore the New Testament tomorrow, and the Old Testament on Wednesday.
General Observations
So many people say, “How can you trust a book that was written over 2,000 years ago? It’s so full of errors and discrepancies and has been rewritten and edited so often that only the gullible would rely on it.” This is one of the greatest pieces of bad press ever hurled against the Bible. This belief is totally unfounded and just flat-out wrong. Let’s examine the evidence.
How do you know that a person named George Washington ever really existed? Since he lived from 1732 to 1799, there can be no one alive today who personally knew him. This being the case, we are left with the only other option, and that is history. We know he existed because we can read all about him in numerous books. No one would ever say that Washington never existed, although only history can prove that he did. Many contend that 200 years ago is one thing but that 2,000 years ago is too far back to really rely on the validity of a book.
In order to judge just how reliable, the biblical documents we have today are, we must put them through the same tests that historians place all ancient historical documents through. The principles of historiography are universally applied by scholars to determine the historical reliability of any document; the chief one being the bibliographical test.
The test is simple. Since we don’t have the original manuscripts for any ancient writings, we must consider how reliable the copies we do have are in relation to how many of these copies we currently possess and the time interval between the original and extant copies.
In tomorrow’s devotion we will consider the New Testament and its reliability.