Bible Think
Manuscript Evidence and Textual Reliability
One of the more common criticisms made of the Bible is the idea that the text of the Bible has somehow changed since it was written. The usual statement is that there are long gaps between the writing of the originals and the manuscripts available and that there are great differences between the different manuscripts. However, the evidence is that the text of the Bible has not been changed in any significant way since it was written.
The Old Testament and the New Testament were copied by different communities who used different methods. As a result the evidence for them is different for them both. However, the New Testament was all copied by the same kinds of people, so there is no difference between the evidence for the reliability of the text of the Gospels and that of the rest of the New Testament.
The Reliability of the New Testament Text
The evidence for the reliability of the New Testament depends on the large number of manuscripts that have been made of it. There are more than 5,800 manuscripts in Greek and another 18,000 manuscripts of translations into ancient languages. The oldest substantial manuscripts date from the end of the second century, less than a century and a half after the originals were completed. The combination of a very large number of manuscripts and a short gap between the writing and the earliest witnesses to the text is unique among ancient documents. If one were to reject any document which had fewer than a thousand witnesses or a period of over four centuries from the first writing the New Testament would be the only book before the time of printing that could survive! The evidence for the reliability of the New Testament text is far better than the witness to any other ancient text.
The Reliability of the Old Testament Text
The text of the Old Testament has a different history from that of the New Testament. The Jewish copyists of Hebrew manuscripts carried out an extremely accurate process for copying the text of the Old Testament. As a result there is no variation at all in the text of official Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament. The accuracy of the text is also shown by translations into other ancient languages including Aramaic, Greek and Latin. These translations were copied completely separately from one another by religious communities who were not friendly to one another. As a result there are independent witnesses to the accuracy of the text of the Old Testament. The final evidence is from the Dead Sea Scrolls, a substantial portion of which are scrolls of the Old Testament. Some of these were copied before 250BC. These also testify to the accuracy of copying of the Old Testament.
Papyrus P72 - manuscript of the letters of Jude and Peter from about 300AD
The Text of the Old Testament
A review of the evidence for the reliability of the text we now have for the Old Testament.
The Aleppo codex
This is from about 800AD and is one of the oldest modern copies of the Old Testament. It is essentially identical to the modern Hebrew text (although a few pages are missing).
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Textual Reliability