Verse: 1 John 1:1-3
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life — the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us — that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
Devotional Thoughts:
In last week’s article, I proposed the question – why do we believe what the Bible has to say? I want to continue considering that question in this article as well.
I’ve heard several reasons for not believing the Bible as the inspired and inerrant Word of God. One such argument some people make is the “telephone game” argument.
Most of us have probably heard of, or likely even played, the telephone game. Basically, several people stand side by side in line. The first person tells the person beside them something, then that person turns and tells their neighbor, and this continues until it reaches the last person. Almost always, by the time it reaches the last person, the message is completely changed and is almost unrecognizable to the original message.
Many claim this is what happened to the Bible. It was true at first, but after being passed down time after time, translation after translation, it’s now completely different than what was originally written.
Others say that scribes have changed the Bible. Unintentionally or perhaps even deliberately, they say the Bible has been changed and therefore cannot be believed. Still others say that the Bible cannot be proven scientifically, and therefore could not possibly be true.
Understand me when I say this – none of these arguments are reasons to doubt the validity of the Bible.
First, the Bible is largely a historical document, and should be read as such. It can’t be proven scientifically? That’s absolutely right, but that doesn’t really make sense anyway. Because the Bible doesn’t fit within the confines of the scientific method. To be proven scientifically, something must be observable, measurable, and repeatable. For instance, gravity. If I drop my keys, they will fall to the ground every single time. But you can’t prove history is factual by the scientific method. I can’t prove that Alexander the Great was a great military leader by using the scientific method.
So how does the Bible measure up according to historical evidence? Let’s take a look at the New Testament in particular. If we can establish the New Testament, and therefore Jesus, as reliable and factual, then it would follow that the Old Testament is reliable and factual, because Jesus himself saw the Old Testament as such.
For historical writings, scholars look at two main things to determine reliability:
- The number of copies of manuscripts that largely agree. For very old literary works, we generally don’t have the original manuscript, but rather copies of the original.
- The amount of time that passed between the original writing and the earliest copy.
Here’s the amazing thing – we have over 5,000 copies or portions of copies of the Greek New Testament. Over 5,000 copies. That’s a lot of manuscripts. Do you know what historical document is closest to the New Testament in the number of copies? Homer’s Iliad, with around 1,800 copies.
Caesars’ writings? 251 copies. Plato’s writings? 210 copies. Socrates? 0 copies. Everything we know about Socrates comes from the writings of Plato. Much of what we know about the Roman Empire comes from the writings of a governor named Pliny. And we only have 200 copies of his historical writings.
Even more, the closest copy we have (in time and date) to the original writing is Pliny’s with the earliest copy being dated to around 400 years after he wrote the original. But the earliest New Testament copies we have are dated to around just 50 years after the original was written.
New Testament – Over 5,000 copies that agree almost completely, with the earliest copy we have written around 50 years after the original.
Pliny – 200 copies, with the earliest copy we have written around 400 years after the original.
I want you to understand this – the historical writings found in the Bible are the best-attested historical writings of all time. We have thousands of more copies of the New Testament than the next closest work, and we have manuscripts that are closer in date to the original writing that any other work.
When a new translation is written, editors go back to these manuscripts and translate them from there. It’s not “passed down” from one translation to another. So, the telephone game doesn’t even apply, because the editors are going back to the source to translate.
Lastly, could the scribes have made errors in copying these manuscripts? Certainly. Neither eyeglasses nor coffee were discovered until many years after most of these manuscripts were written. But this really isn’t much of a concern. In addition to over 5,000 Greek manuscripts we currently have, the New Testament was quickly being translated into other languages. We have around 19,000 ancient manuscripts in other languages as well, from around the same time period.
Most of the mistakes and errors could be caught, simply because of the sheer amount of manuscripts we have. Even more, if we were to suddenly lose every single ancient manuscript we have, nearly the entire New Testament could be recovered because most of it is found in the writings of the early church fathers, some of whom were alive when the New Testament letters were written.
The Bible is factual. It is accurate. And it is reliable. If we can believe that the Roman Empire ever even existed, then we have even more historical evidence to believe that a man named Jesus walked on water and fed 5,000 people. We have even more historical evidence to believe that He actually died and rose again, and remains alive today.
Blessings,
Zac
