This is very interesting! The copies of other ancient manuscripts are often many hundreds of years later than the originals. Sir Fredric Kenyon, one of the greatest authorities in the field of New Testament textual criticism, adds: "Scholars are satisfied that they possess substantially the true text of the principle Greek and Roman writers whose works have come down to us of Sophocles, of Thucydides, or Cicero, or Virgil; yet our knowledge of their writings depends on a mere handful of manuscripts (in some of the Greek & Roman writings, we have only a few copies), whereas the manuscripts of the New Testament are counted by hundreds, and even thousands." The New Testament has 5,300 known Greek manuscripts available.

• Over 10,000 Latin Vulgate and at least 9,300 other early versions.
• We have 24,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament in existence today—Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, p. 39.

It is a fair statement on the basis of the evidence that no crucial doctrine of the Christian faith is under any attack or discredited because of errors in copying or transmission.

• The implication is, Christianity is not a secret religion, reserved only for the insider who has somehow learned to jump through an endless set of religious hoops to discover the truth.
• All we believe is found in one book—the Bible.
• Scholars can also date the books of the New Testament quite accurately.
• Scholarship reveals that the books reporting Jesus' words and works were genuinely written within the lifetime of Jesus' friends and followers.
• In the last 150 years, this was affirmed further because earlier manuscripts of the Bible were found.
• Thus we have a better understanding of the original languages, so that modern translations are even more precise than ever.

Therefore, the Bible is an accurate record of what Jesus said and did!

• Prev
• Next