The large number of ancient documents to cross check with, the short time gap between the ancient copies in existence compared to the original documents’ composition time, and the large number of citations, all of these factors comfortably assure us that the 27 books of the New Testament are well-preserved and historically reliable.
How about the Old Testament, the 39 books of the Bible that describe events happened hundreds of years before Jesus was born?
The composition time for the Old Testament books is around the 9th to 5th centuries B.C. That means these books were composed 2,400 to 2,800 years ago! Were they transmitted reliably ever since they were written originally, or were they “distorted by hundreds of anonymous authors” over time?
The basis of most translations of the Old Testament that we have today comes from “Masoretic Text”. These were copies of the Old Testament from AD 800 to 1100. The Old Testament text cannot be changed for the last thousand years, as we can always check the new translation with the Masoretic Text!
So, we have been good for the last thousand years. Can we do better than that? After all, the original documents have been written for more than 2,000 years.
Actually, we can! Around 1946, some shepherds accidentally found several ancient scrolls in a cave near the Dead Sea in Israel. Since then, archeologists found more caves and more ancients scrolls around the area. These scrolls are collectively called the “Dead Sea Scrolls”. They are described as “the greatest archaeological find of the twentieth century”. These scrolls are dated between 250 BC to 135 BC. Out of all the Dead Sea Scrolls, there are about 300 biblical scrolls that span over 38 out of the 39 Old Testament books.
The best part about the Dead Sea Scrolls is that all biblical manuscripts found there are virtually identical to the Masoretic Text. Therefore, we can have confidence that the Old Testament we are reading today is at least two thousand years accurate!
Can we find even earlier copies of the really original Old Testament books, as they were composed around 9th to 5th B.C.? I would need to dig deeper into it, but I have reported whatever I found so far.
It will be interesting to discuss more about the credibility of the Bible, perhaps with archaeological findings? I will be glad to do so if my dear readers would let me know that they are interested.
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