The Old Testaments

Opponents of the Bible often argue that the modern printings of the Bible do not accurately reflect the original autographs of the Old and New Testaments collectively. This criticism of the ultimate authority of some 1 billion people is not a claim that should be taken lightly or readily discarded. Rather, this claim must be carefully investigated and a conclusion must be reached. There are three issues that will be discussed that will satisfactorily answer critics regarding the modern reflection of the original autographs of the Bible. Initially, the date of the oldest on-hand manuscripts must be evaluated to determine the likelihood of mistakes during the transmission process. Secondly, the method of transmission itself from the autographs

Beginning with the Old Testament, the oldest manuscripts we have came from the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran. The find represented all of the Hebrew canon except for Esther and they range in date from 250 BC to 70 AD. The most prominent of the finds was the scroll of Isaiah (ca. 150 BC). This was written approximately 500 years after the autograph. This may seem like a while, however, taking into consideration the life of the average scroll (300 years) this scroll could be only two revisions removed from the original, making it highly unlikely that there would be any massive mistakes made during the time. Moving to the New Testament, the Codex Sinaiticus which contains the entire New Testament is less than 300 years removed from the autographs. In addition, the discovery of the Rylands Library P52 papyrus (an excerpt from the book of John) dates to 125 AD. This is roughly only 30 years removed from the autograph, making it nearly impossible for meticulous copying to make a mistake. In sum, the sheer dating of the oldest biblical manuscripts attests to the likelihood of accuracy from the autographs to the on-hand

If however the scribal transmission process was meticulous and had a mission to maintaining accuracy, then we can ascertain from our ancient manuscripts that what we read reflects what was written. With regards to the Old Testament, the scribal transmission process was tedious and held accuracy in the highest esteem. Most notably the Masoretic tradition was so faithful to maintaining accuracy that they developed a vowel system within the Hebrew language. This tradition probably can find its firmly established roots in Ezra the scribe ca. 447 BC. With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 AD, scholars were able to take a first-hand look at the stunning accuracy that had been maintained up to a 1,000-year