Historical Reliability of the NT

[Shiloh62]

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.

[Guest shiloh357]

People who make the assertion that the Bible is flawed due to scribes who were either grossly incompetent or were maliciously trying to alter the text to reflect their own bias do not really understand how the scribal vocation worked.

Even today Orthodox Jewish Scribes (known as "Soferim") are heavily governed. In Judaism today and going back thousand of years even before modern Judaism existed as a religion, a Jewish scribe had to be of the highest caliber and most sterling character in the community. Not only that, but they had to be experts in writing Hebrew letters.

The Jewish people see a lot of spirituality in the letters and words of Hebrew and so writing any portion of Scripture in Hebrew was/is a task that is not taken lightly at all. If a scribe knows that he will writing the four-letter name of God, he will, before going to his studio, immerse himself in a mikveh (baptismal) beforehand. When sitting down to write, some letters are harder to write and he has special "scrap" parchment handy to practice letters on before writing them on the main parchment that will become a Torah Scroll or a megillah scroll. The Sofer not only writes Torah scrolls, but also writes the "mini-scrolls" that go inside a mezzuzah case or the tefillin (phylacteries) worn during prayer by Orthodox Jewish males.

Everything he writes, from little mezuzah parchments to the main Torah scrolls for synagogues are rigorously inspected by multiple rabbinic authorities and compared against other kosher copies before it is given a "hescher" (seal of approval making it kosher). Not just anyone can write a scroll, and the Sofer is rigorously inspected by his rabbnic peers, right down the ingredients in his ink! Even the ink had to be prepared a special way in order to be kosher. There really is no way that an errant scribe would be able to slip an altered Old Testament text into the mix. This has been true for thousands of years.

As for the New Testament, the copying process was very similar except that you had groups of men copying portions of texts in order to maximize circulation. Even then, the process was not unsupervised and all manuscripts were measured against other known copies for accuracy. Even in ancient times, there were filters in place to weed out errors and produce the most accurate texts possible.

I think some of the skeptics get the idea that the Bible was produced by men working independently by candelight in some obscure ivory tower where he could make the Bible say whatever he wanted, but that is just not how it was done.

[pokemaughan]

I think some of the skeptics get the idea that the Bible was produced by men working independently by candelight in some obscure ivory tower where he could make the Bible say whatever he wanted, but that is just not how it was done.

Ya I really tried to make the point that if someone would have tried to alter the Gospel in any way, he would have been refuted and called out on it. It's just the same as it is today- if someone tries to teach, say, that Jesus died on a torture stake and not a cross, or that Jesus was not God (coughJehovah'sWitnessescough), there are millions that cry 'Baloney!'

[Dog House Bill]

Some of these posts are way too long to read in their entirety. However, I would just like to say that where knowledge fails, Faith fulfills. By faith, I hold true to the accuracy and the reliability of God's word.

[Shiloh62]

Good point nChrist, when the apostles were preaching, all they had to reference was the Old Testament to convince unbelievers.

Poke, do you know about the messages in the Old testament that show Jesus? How about one where it speaks of him from Genesis? Did you know Jesus was prophesied about there? Might be a good thing to add in.

I thought this was for school so that's where my comments were based upon previously, sorry dude lol. I thought you were in Bible College for a long time now.

My favorite portrayal of Jesus in the Old Testament was when Shadrach,Meshackh, and Abednego were in the fiery furnace,and when Nebuchadnezzar looked in and saw 4 men.