From: willism@engin.umich.edu (Mark Benjamin Willis)
Subject: Is the Bible really what the authors wrote?
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 92 21:34:55 EDT
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor

In article <1992Jul19.014650.1256@eskimo.celestial.com> ericj@eskimo.celestial.com (Eric Jorgensen) writes:
>besides, almost the entire Old Testament was handed down for many generations
>orally, just like Homer's two books, so why don't religious people have faith
>in those books?  

In this excerpt Eric identifies with many other people who have strugled with
the question of the authenticity of the Bible.  Eric's question deals with the
issue of whether or not the Bible we have today is the same Bible that was 
written many years ago.  It turns out that the archeological evidence 
overwhelmingly supports the position that we do in fact have an accurate 
replication of the original Bible.  I am glad that Homer was referenced 
because the authenticity of ancient documents like those of Homer, Herodotus
and Thucydides among others are accepted without question on the basis of 10
or fewer partial manuscripts, the oldest of which date 900 years or so after
the events recorded.  

In contrast, we have several thousand partial manuscripts of the Bible.
A scribe's work was a tedious, time consuming task that was done with the
utmost devotion.  The devout Jew believed that he was dealing with the Word of
God and was consequently very concerned about the accuracy of his copy.  I
understand that if a scribe made three mistakes (incorrect letters) in his
copy, the entire copy was burned.  Quite impressive, considering the fact that
some Old Testament books are on the order of a hundred thousand characters
in length!  

Till the 47, the Massoretic text, dating around A.D. 900 was the most recent
complete version of the OT.  However, in 47, the discovery of the Dead Sea 
Scrolls were discovered and we found that a group of Jews lived in Qumran from
about 150 B.C. to A.D. 70.  In one swell foop we were able to see the impact
of a millenium of hand copying the scripture.  The result?
 "The text is extremely close to our Massoretic Text.  A comparison of Isaiah
 53 shows that only 17 letters differ from th Massoretic text.  Ten of these
 are mere differences in spelling, like our "honor" or "honour," and produce
 no change in the meaning at all.  Four more are very minor differences, such
 as the presence of the conjunction, which is often a matter of style.  The 
 other three letters are the Hebrew word for "light" which is added after
 "they shall see" in verse 11.  Out of 166 words in this chapter, only this one
 word is really in question, and it does not at all change the sense of the
 passage.  {/em This is typical of the whole manuscript.}"  (Harris, R. Laird,
 "How Reliable Is the Old Testament Text?", 1963)

The New Testament also has excellent complete manuscripts from the fourth 
century and fragments of papyrus dating around A.D. 130

Additionally, there are references in other historical, non-Christian documents
that reference and/or quote parts of the Bible and Bible stories.  Also, there
are versions, which are Syriac, Egyptian, Coptic or Latin versions of the Bible
that were translated from Greek, as well as the lectionaries, the readings
used in public church services which quote portions of the Bible.

In the face of the overwhelming evidence, it would be imprudent to deny the
conclusions of the late Sir Frederic Kenyon, a world-renowned scholar of
ancient manuscripts who said 
 "The interval, then between the dates of the original composition and the 
 earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and 
 the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come dow to us 
 substantially as they were written has now been removed.  Both the authen-
 ticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be 
 regarded as finally established."  (Kenyon, Sir Frederic, "The Bible and
 Archaeology", 1940)

However, the real issue confronting a person is what will they do with the 
claims of the Bible?  Ie., given that we know that the claims and teachings of
Jesus and the disciples that we read in our New Testament were actually made,
what is our response?  If my next door neighbor claimed he was God, I would
have only a couple options.  I could believe he is lying (he isn't God and 
knows it) a lunatic (he isn't God but doesn't know it) or he really is God.
Jesus claims also demand one of these responses...


Mark Willis                   		willism@caen.engin.umich.edu 
9319 Harbor Cove Circle #312
Whitmore Lake, MI  48189                Bumpersticker:  He who dies with the
(313) 449-5638                                          most toys is dead!
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