accuracy of the Bible

The Bible was written over a period of 1600 years by 40 different authors.  The Old Testament tells of the old agreement between God and man, and the New Testament tells of the new covenant.  The new agreement entails that Jesus Christ bridged the gap and serves as the mediator between God and man.  The new covenant contains three promises: 1) the power to obey the Lord’s commandments through the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives; 2) forgiveness of sins through acceptance of Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross and our commitment to God and His will; 3) eternal inheritance of Christ’s kingdom.  [Hebrews 8-10 are one of many chapters that clarify these points – definitely worth checkin’ out!]

This new covenant offers so much hope and blessing.  Salvation is a gift greater than anything we could ever need.  And yet so many people choose to ignore the gift.  A common reason I have come across is that people don’t believe that this covenant in the New Testament is legit because they don’t believe that the Bible, itself, is legit or true.  Question is … what have they, and you, done to determine whether the Bible is true or not?  Through some recent searching, this is what I have found:

So there are 3 basic questions that are used in order to test all ancient literature for its accuracy.  The 3 basic questions are … 1)how soon after the original manuscript was written was the earliest manuscript copy produced? 2)how many manuscript copies have been produced since then? 3)how much variance is there between current copies and the original manuscript?  Well let’s compare the New Testament of the Bible to 3 very well known pieces of literature that have been discussed and studied in schools across the world for years and years.

Aristotle’s very first manuscript was written in 340 BC.  The earliest copy of that writing was produced in 1100 AD … 1400 years later.  There are now 5 manuscript copies of the original manuscript.

Caesar wrote the history of the Gallic wars around 50 BC.  The earliest copy of that manuscript was written in 1000 BC … 1100 years later.  Since 50 BC, only 10 manuscript copies of the original have even been made.

Homer wrote the Iliad in 850 BC. The earliest copy of that manuscript was produced in 150 AD … 1000 years later.  There are now 5000 manuscript copies of the Iliad.

The New Testament was completed in 90 AD.  The earliest manuscript copy of it was dated to 130 AD ... 40 years later.  There are now a whopping 24,363 copies of the original New Testament manuscript.  And it has been determined by Christian and non-Christian historians alike that there is less than 1/2 of 1% variance between the 24,363 manuscript copies and the very first manuscript from 90AD.

Keep in mind that when we talk about biblical manuscripts, we are talking about handwritten copies of the original text of the Bible.  The actual number of Bibles in circulation is estimated to be 6 billion copies; hence it is the best selling "book" of all time.   That's gotta tell people something. 

Common sense tells us that the sooner manuscript copies are made after the original manuscript, the more reliable they are likely to be.  Moreover, the more manuscript copies there are in existence, the easier it is to catch any changes made, which would blemish a piece of literature's accuracy.  The Bible fits into all of this: it has an incredible number of manuscript copies that vary negligibly, and these copies began to be produced only 40 years after the original manuscript was written.  From the test mentioned above, the same test given to every piece of ancient literature, we have incredible evidence that the recorded message of the New Testament Bible is very accurate.  And the more accurate a manuscript is, the closer it reflects the reality of what actually happened. 

I have lots more I'm learning right now, and I am super excited to share it with you.  So I'll add plenty more in the upcoming days or weeks.  Hopefully it can help clarify things for you, just as it has for me.

K thanks for reading.  Grace and peace ♥