Historical Reliability of the NT

[pokemaughan]

Tell me Worthy family, what do you think? Is it relevant and concise? Anything need editing?

The Historical Reliability of the New Testament

by Mathew Maughan

Thank you Dr. Martin and Dr.White for your diligent research on the topic of God's Word.

The commonly accepted view of the Christian's New Testament is that it is under at least one of these categories:

1. It was written too far after the actual events to be reliable

2. It has been altered or changed in some way, and thus is not reliable

3. All we have is copies of copies of copies (and son), so therefore it is probably unreliable

4. It is a work of fiction created by some drunk monks who wanted power

Unfortunately, this is widely accepted on little basis in fact because of partial bias against the belief in Christianity. I'm writing this to give factual reasons as to why these views on the NT are not only false, but absolutely ridiculous when put under the light of real, tangible, evidence.

According to studies by textual critics of the New Testament, there are 400,000[1] variants in the manuscripts and copies we have today.

[pokemaughan]

bump...

[pokemaughan]

Somebody please comment :|

[Blien]

grammar mistake...

3. All we have is copies of copies of copies (and son), so therefore it is probably unreliable

lol.. still reading.. though I doubt I have any knowledge to actually comment

[Blien]

I'm sorry I just had to stop at the beginning.. when you are speaking about variants do you have any evidence to back this up? I think it would be wise to cite your sources here because if you've actually seen how meticulous Jewish scribes were they would not have been many errors. So I sincerely doubt there are that many, some might say the same about this or other points you might have made (still reading).

I'll try to find the documentary I saw online about the Bible scribes.

[Blien]

I couldn't find the documentary online but it was very good episode on The Naked Archaeologist.. anyway, here is an article describing the process which was shown on the documentary

Process of copying the Old Testament by Jewish Scribes

Scott Manning

March 17, 2007

In 586 B.C., Jerusalem was captured by the Babylonians. The Temple was looted and then destroyed by fire. The Jews were exiled.

About 70 years later, the Jewish captives returned to Jerusalem from Babylon. According to the Bible, Ezra recovered a copy of the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) and read it aloud to the whole nation.

From then on, the Jewish scribes solidified the following process for creating copies of the Torah and eventually other books in the Old Testament.

1. They could only use clean animal skins, both to write on, and even to bind manuscripts.

2. Each column of writing could have no less than forty-eight, and no more than sixty lines.

3. The ink must be black, and of a special recipe.

4. They must verbalize each word aloud while they were writing.

5. They must wipe the pen and wash their entire bodies before writing the word "Jehovah," every time they wrote it.

6. There must be a review within thirty days, and if as many as three pages required corrections, the entire manuscript had to be redone.

7. The letters, words, and paragraphs had to be counted, and the document became invalid if two letters touched each other. The middle paragraph, word and letter must correspond to those of the original document.

8. The documents could be stored only in sacred places (synagogues, etc).

9. As no document containing God's Word could be destroyed, they were stored, or buried, in a genizah - a Hebrew term meaning "hiding place." These were usually kept in a synagogue or sometimes in a Jewish cemetery.

The final item is why we have no original manuscripts of the Old Testament today.

After Jerusalem was sacked by Rome in the First Century, the process was lost. While a Hebrew version of the Old Testament continued to exist, the language wasn't spoken by many. Greek and eventually Latin versions continued to be copied.

How Accurate Were the Scribes?

Beginning in the Sixth Century and into the Tenth Century A.D., some European Jewish scribes continued a similar method for copying manuscripts of the Old Testament in the original Hebrew language as originated by the scribes before Christ.

Until 1948, the oldest manuscripts of the Old Testament dated back to 895 A.D. In 1947, a shepard boy discovered some scrolls inside a cave West of the Dead Sea. These manuscripts dated between 100 B.C. and 100 A.D. Over the next decade, more scrolls were found in caves and the discovery became known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Every book in the Old Testament was represented in this discovery except Esther. Numerous copies of each book was discovered (For example, 25 copies of Deuteronomy).

While there are other items found among the Dead Sea Scrolls not currently in the Old Testament, the OT items that were found have few discrepancies to the versions from the Tenth Century. While not perfect, this is our best measuring stick to how accurate the Jewish scribes were throughout the centuries.

References

Comfort, Philip Wesley (1991). The complete guide to Bible versions. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers. pp. 16-20.

Connolly, W. Kenneth (1996). The indestructible book: the Bible, its translators, and their sacrifices. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books. pp. 17-18.

http://www.digitalsurvivors.com/archives/s...ldtestament.php

[pokemaughan]

Thank you Blien. These 'textual critics' are those that are fervently against the NT accuracy. And like I wrote, these 'errors' they cite are no more than various spelling and word order things.

Keep in mind that this is not Orthodox Jews copying the NT- this is church fathers, advocates of the Gospel and so on. I'm very aware that the Jews are very meticulous in there copying of the OT.

I'll do what I can in line of sources. This is just stuff I was taught.

[pokemaughan]

Oops double post sorry

[Blien]

Okay so finally read everything, seems okay to me but you ended it when I was expecting more. Is this for school? If so, its a little to casual for an essay

[Blien]

Thank you Blien. These 'textual critics' are those that are fervently against the NT accuracy. And like I wrote, these 'errors' they cite are no more than various spelling and word order things.

Keep in mind that this is not Orthodox Jews copying the NT- this is church fathers, advocates of the Gospel and so on. I'm very aware that the Jews are very meticulous in there copying of the OT.

I'll do what I can in line of sources. This is just stuff I was taught.

No doubt though some of them had to be Jews? And if not, most scribes believed that they indeed were copying the very Word of God so they were terrified to make any mistakes similar to the OT scribes.. just a thought

Perhaps you can also referance some material from these two books. I dont know them but they person who wrote the article above referanced them...

Comfort, Philip Wesley (1991). The complete guide to Bible versions. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers. pp. 16-20.

Connolly, W. Kenneth (1996). The indestructible book: the Bible, its translators, and their sacrifices. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books. pp. 17-18.