| The PRESERVATION of The BIBLE |
A study of the history of the text of the Bible is a study of the preservation of the Bible. The text, in
the original languages of the Bible {Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek), is what was originally written
by the holy men of God inspired by the Holy Spirit. Thus, when we study about the text through
the ages, we are studying how God in his providence has preserved his word.
THE PROMISE OF PRESERVATION
"For ever, 0 LORD, thy word is settled in heaven" (Psalm 119:89). For ever the word of the Lord
shall endure. "For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The
grass withers, and the flower thereof falls away: but the word of the Lord endures for ever. And
this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you" (1 Peter 1:24,25). Jesus said,
"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Matthew 24:35; Mark 13:
31; Luke 21:33). The word of God, the Holy Bible, "liveth and abides for ever" (I Peter 1:23).
PROVIDENTIAL PRESERVATION
The preservation of God's word is providential, not miraculous. By providential, it is meant God
uses a natural process rather than a supernatural process. Inspiration is a supernatural
process; the process of scribal transcription is a natural process. An example of providential
preservation is seen in the book of Esther. Every event which takes place has the hand and
guidance of God, yet the name of God is not mentioned in the entire book. There is not a single
supernatural even within the book. Through natural processes God raises up Esther to be in a
place to preserve the nation of Israel. The end result is almost miraculous. It is this same type of
providential preservation which God has exercised on his word.
THE EVIDENCE OF PRESERVATION
God cannot lie (Titus 1:2). He has promised to preserve his word, and history chronicles the
wonderful story of the care God has exercised in preserving and perpetuating his holy book, the
Bible.
The evidence for the preservation of the Bible is the most impressive of all ancient documents.
There can really be no doubt to the honest inquirer of the validity and authenticity of the Biblical
record, in either the Old or the New Testaments.
THE PRESERVATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Questions had been raised about the validity of the Old Testament text by many in
the 19th and 20th centuries, since the Hebrew manuscripts of the Massoretes that we had
dated from well into the Christian era, about 900 a.d. However,- these questions were raised by
liberal scholars influenced by the Rationalistic (Liberal, Modernistic) school of
Germany who denied the inspiration of the scriptures. Those who were counted believers, never
doubted the validity of the Old Testament text; they believed the promise of God.
There was reason to believe in God's promise. Great care had been taken
by the scribes in the transmission of the Hebrew text. Samuel Davidson, in his
book Hebrew Text of the Old Testament (Samuel Bagster & Sons: London; 1859),
relates the rules followed by the Talmudists (100-500 a.d.): "A synagogue roll must be
written on the skins of clean animals, prepared for the particular use of the synagogue
by a Jew. These must be fastened together with strings taken from clean animals. Every
skin must contain a certain number of columns, equal throughout the entire codex.
The length of each column must not extend over less than 48 or more than 60
lines; and the breadth must consist of thirty letters. The whole copy must be first-lined;
and if three words be written without a line, it is worthless. The ink should be black,
neither red, green, nor any other colour, and be prepared according to a definite
recipe. An authentic copy must be the exemplar, from which the transcriber ought not in
the least deviate. No word or letter, not even a yod, must be written from memory, the
scribe not having looked at the codex before him... Between every consonant the space of a
hair or thread must intervene; between every paragraph, or section, the breadth of nine
consonants; between every book, three lines. The fifth book of Moses must terminate
exactly with a line; but the rest need not do so. Besides this, the copyist must sit in
full Jewish dress, wash his whole body, not begin to write the name of God with a
pen newly dipped in ink, and should a king address him while writing that name he
must take no notice of him."
This insured that copies were exact copies of the manuscript being copied.
It is even because of their extreme care that the manuscripts we have come from such a late
date. Sir Frederic Kenyon, in his book Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, explains:
The same extreme care which was devoted to the transcription of manuscripts is also
at the bottom of the disappearance of the earlier copies. When a manuscript had been
copied with the exactitude prescribed by the Talmud, and had been duly verified, it was
accepted as authentic and regarded as being of equal value with any other copy. If all
were equally correct, age gave no advantage to a manuscript; on the contrary, age was
a positive disadvantage, since a manuscript was liable to become defaced or damaged
in the lapse of time. A damaged or imperfect copy was at once condemned as unfit for
use.
Attached to each synagogue was a "Gheniza," or lumber cupboard, in which defective
manuscripts were laid aside; and from these receptacles some of the oldest
manuscripts now extant have in modern times been recovered. Thus, far from
regarding an older copy of the Scripture as more valuable, the Jewish habit has been
to prefer the newer, as being the most perfect and free from damage. The oldest
copies, once consigned to the "Gheniza," naturally perished, either from neglect or from
being deliberately burned when the "Gheniza" became overcrowded.
The absence of very old copies of the Hebrew Bible need not, therefore, either surprise or
disquiet us. If, to the causes already enumerated, we add the repeated persecutions
(involving much destruction of property) to which the Jews have been subject, the
disappearance of the ancient manuscripts is adequately accounted for, and those
which remain may be accepted as preserving that which alone they profess to preserve
— namely, the Massoretic text. The same type of care was taken by the Massoretes
(500-900 a.d.), who prepared the manuscripts from which our text is taken. Sir
Frederic Kenyon says of the Massoretes: Besides recording varieties of reading, tradition,
or conjecture, the Massoretes undertook a number of calculations which do not enter
into the ordinary sphere of textual criticism. They numbered the verses, words, and
letters of every book. They calculated the middle word and the middle letter of each.
They enumerated verses which contained all the letters of the alphabet, or a certain
number of them; and so on. These trivialities, as we may rightly consider them, had yet
the effect of securing minute attention to the precise transmission of the text; and they are
but an excessive manifestation of a respect for the sacred Scriptures which in itself
deserves nothing but praise. The Massoretes were indeed anxious that not one jot nor
tittle, not one smallest letter nor one tiny part of a letter, of the Law should pass away
or be lost.
The discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls verify that the text of the Old
Testament transcribed by the Massoretes from the Talmudlsts is the same text found in
manuscripts a thousand years before. The Dead Sea scrolls consist of approximately 40,000
fragments from which in excess of 500 books have been reconstructed.
The scrolls were discovered in 1947 by a Bedouin shepherd boy searching for a lost goat. He
threw a stone in a cave, heard something break, and discovered pottery jars filled with leather
scrolls. They had been placed in this cave, west of the Dead Sea, about eight miles south of
Jericho, around 68 a.d. The sealed jars had wonderfully preserved the manuscripts.
An example of the great care taken in the preservation of the Old Testament is seen in the book
of Isaiah. A complete scroll of Isaiah, dating from 125 b.c. was found by the Dead Sea: 1,000
years older than any other manuscript of the book. Geisler and Nix note:
Of the 166 words in Isaiah 53, there are only seventeen letters in question. Ten of
these letters are simply a matter of spelling, which does not affect the sense. Four
more letters are minor stylistic changes, such as conjunctions. The remaining three
letters comprise the word "light," which is added in verse 11, and does not affect the
meaning greatly. Furthermore, this word is supported by the LXX and IQ Is. Thus, in
one chapter of 166 words, there is only one word (three letters) in question after a
thousand years of transmission — and this word does not significantly change the
meaning of the passage. (A General Introduction to the Bible; Moody Press: Chicago; 1968)
Another partial manuscript of Isaiah, agrees even more closely with the Masoretic manuscripts.
After 1,000 years more than ninety-five percent of the text of Isaiah was exactly the same. Most
of the variance were obvious slips of the pen.
God, in his wondrous mercy and grace, has preserved to us the words of Moses and the
prophets.
THE PRESERVATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
The same individuals who questioned the validity and authenticity of the Old Testament, have
also doubted the New Testament; but, with even less reason. Peter had specifically stated the
gospel preached in the first century would live and abide for ever (1 Peter 1:23,24).
The New Testament was accepted as the word of God from the time it was first written. The
early church "received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which
effectually works also in you that believe" (1 Thessalonians 2:13). Paul commanded the church
at Corinth: "If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the
things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord" (I Corinthians 14:37). Peter .
referred to Paul's writing as "scripture," a term reserved only for those writings accepted as
inspired of God (2 Peter 3:15,16). Therefore, the same care exercised in copying and preserving
the Old Testament was to be expected, especially by those converted from Judaism, in the
copying and preserving of the New Testament.
The evidence for the preservation of the New Testament is overwhelming. There are
approximately 300 uncial manuscripts (that is, manuscripts written in all capitals, or block
letters) in the Greek, over 2700 minuscule manuscripts (that is, manuscripts written in small
letters in a cursive or running hand) in the Greek, over 2100 lectionaries (that is, books
containing special readings of scripture selected for the churches on particular days) in Greek,
and approaching 100 papyri in Greek, for a total of over 5300 Greek manuscripts. In addition to
this, there are manuscripts of early versions: over 10,000 Latin version manuscripts; over 2,000
Ethiopic version manuscripts; over 4,000 Slavonic manuscripts; over seventy-five Arabic
manuscripts, as well as manuscripts in Anglo-Saxon, Gothic, Sogdian, Persian and Frankish.
This means there are over 24,000 manuscripts of the New Testament bearing record to its
validity and authenticity that date back to within possibly twenty-five years of when the New
Testament was written. Compare that to only 643 manuscripts of Homer's Iliad separated from
the time it was written by a minimum of 500 years. Or, compare it with the ten copies of Caesar's
Gaulic Wars separated from his time by a minimum of 1,000 years.
Add to the manuscript evidence the fact that there exist over 86,000 quotations of the New
Testament by early writers from which all but eleven verses can be reproduced; and, there
remains no doubt whatsoever of the validity and integrity of the New Testament. In fact, to deny
the validity and integrity of the New Testament, one would have to deny all that we know of
ancient history and the writings of Plato, Tacitus, Thucydides, Suetonius, Herodotus, Sophocles,
Euripedes and Aristotle.
It is true that there are variations in the existing manuscripts of the New Testament. In fact, they
number over 200,000. However, these 200,000 variants represent only 10,000 places since
every time a variant occurs (let us say a word is misspelled 4,000 times) it is considered a
different variant (thus, 4,000 variants). It is also important to realize that most of these variations
occur in less than 15% of the manuscripts. Over 85% of the manuscripts are in virtual
agreement with one another in all particulars. The variations themselves, for the most part, are
accidental in nature. They are due to: 1) a difference in Greek orthography (spelling); 2) different
forms of words (not affecting their meaning), 3) insertion or omission of words, 4) use of
synonyms, and 5) transportation of words. Of these five, the insertion and omission of words is
the most notable in an English translation (although orthography, synonyms, and transposition
of words can and do affect an English translation).
the original languages of the Bible {Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek), is what was originally written
by the holy men of God inspired by the Holy Spirit. Thus, when we study about the text through
the ages, we are studying how God in his providence has preserved his word.
THE PROMISE OF PRESERVATION
"For ever, 0 LORD, thy word is settled in heaven" (Psalm 119:89). For ever the word of the Lord
shall endure. "For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The
grass withers, and the flower thereof falls away: but the word of the Lord endures for ever. And
this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you" (1 Peter 1:24,25). Jesus said,
"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Matthew 24:35; Mark 13:
31; Luke 21:33). The word of God, the Holy Bible, "liveth and abides for ever" (I Peter 1:23).
PROVIDENTIAL PRESERVATION
The preservation of God's word is providential, not miraculous. By providential, it is meant God
uses a natural process rather than a supernatural process. Inspiration is a supernatural
process; the process of scribal transcription is a natural process. An example of providential
preservation is seen in the book of Esther. Every event which takes place has the hand and
guidance of God, yet the name of God is not mentioned in the entire book. There is not a single
supernatural even within the book. Through natural processes God raises up Esther to be in a
place to preserve the nation of Israel. The end result is almost miraculous. It is this same type of
providential preservation which God has exercised on his word.
THE EVIDENCE OF PRESERVATION
God cannot lie (Titus 1:2). He has promised to preserve his word, and history chronicles the
wonderful story of the care God has exercised in preserving and perpetuating his holy book, the
Bible.
The evidence for the preservation of the Bible is the most impressive of all ancient documents.
There can really be no doubt to the honest inquirer of the validity and authenticity of the Biblical
record, in either the Old or the New Testaments.
THE PRESERVATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Questions had been raised about the validity of the Old Testament text by many in
the 19th and 20th centuries, since the Hebrew manuscripts of the Massoretes that we had
dated from well into the Christian era, about 900 a.d. However,- these questions were raised by
liberal scholars influenced by the Rationalistic (Liberal, Modernistic) school of
Germany who denied the inspiration of the scriptures. Those who were counted believers, never
doubted the validity of the Old Testament text; they believed the promise of God.
There was reason to believe in God's promise. Great care had been taken
by the scribes in the transmission of the Hebrew text. Samuel Davidson, in his
book Hebrew Text of the Old Testament (Samuel Bagster & Sons: London; 1859),
relates the rules followed by the Talmudists (100-500 a.d.): "A synagogue roll must be
written on the skins of clean animals, prepared for the particular use of the synagogue
by a Jew. These must be fastened together with strings taken from clean animals. Every
skin must contain a certain number of columns, equal throughout the entire codex.
The length of each column must not extend over less than 48 or more than 60
lines; and the breadth must consist of thirty letters. The whole copy must be first-lined;
and if three words be written without a line, it is worthless. The ink should be black,
neither red, green, nor any other colour, and be prepared according to a definite
recipe. An authentic copy must be the exemplar, from which the transcriber ought not in
the least deviate. No word or letter, not even a yod, must be written from memory, the
scribe not having looked at the codex before him... Between every consonant the space of a
hair or thread must intervene; between every paragraph, or section, the breadth of nine
consonants; between every book, three lines. The fifth book of Moses must terminate
exactly with a line; but the rest need not do so. Besides this, the copyist must sit in
full Jewish dress, wash his whole body, not begin to write the name of God with a
pen newly dipped in ink, and should a king address him while writing that name he
must take no notice of him."
This insured that copies were exact copies of the manuscript being copied.
It is even because of their extreme care that the manuscripts we have come from such a late
date. Sir Frederic Kenyon, in his book Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, explains:
The same extreme care which was devoted to the transcription of manuscripts is also
at the bottom of the disappearance of the earlier copies. When a manuscript had been
copied with the exactitude prescribed by the Talmud, and had been duly verified, it was
accepted as authentic and regarded as being of equal value with any other copy. If all
were equally correct, age gave no advantage to a manuscript; on the contrary, age was
a positive disadvantage, since a manuscript was liable to become defaced or damaged
in the lapse of time. A damaged or imperfect copy was at once condemned as unfit for
use.
Attached to each synagogue was a "Gheniza," or lumber cupboard, in which defective
manuscripts were laid aside; and from these receptacles some of the oldest
manuscripts now extant have in modern times been recovered. Thus, far from
regarding an older copy of the Scripture as more valuable, the Jewish habit has been
to prefer the newer, as being the most perfect and free from damage. The oldest
copies, once consigned to the "Gheniza," naturally perished, either from neglect or from
being deliberately burned when the "Gheniza" became overcrowded.
The absence of very old copies of the Hebrew Bible need not, therefore, either surprise or
disquiet us. If, to the causes already enumerated, we add the repeated persecutions
(involving much destruction of property) to which the Jews have been subject, the
disappearance of the ancient manuscripts is adequately accounted for, and those
which remain may be accepted as preserving that which alone they profess to preserve
— namely, the Massoretic text. The same type of care was taken by the Massoretes
(500-900 a.d.), who prepared the manuscripts from which our text is taken. Sir
Frederic Kenyon says of the Massoretes: Besides recording varieties of reading, tradition,
or conjecture, the Massoretes undertook a number of calculations which do not enter
into the ordinary sphere of textual criticism. They numbered the verses, words, and
letters of every book. They calculated the middle word and the middle letter of each.
They enumerated verses which contained all the letters of the alphabet, or a certain
number of them; and so on. These trivialities, as we may rightly consider them, had yet
the effect of securing minute attention to the precise transmission of the text; and they are
but an excessive manifestation of a respect for the sacred Scriptures which in itself
deserves nothing but praise. The Massoretes were indeed anxious that not one jot nor
tittle, not one smallest letter nor one tiny part of a letter, of the Law should pass away
or be lost.
The discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls verify that the text of the Old
Testament transcribed by the Massoretes from the Talmudlsts is the same text found in
manuscripts a thousand years before. The Dead Sea scrolls consist of approximately 40,000
fragments from which in excess of 500 books have been reconstructed.
The scrolls were discovered in 1947 by a Bedouin shepherd boy searching for a lost goat. He
threw a stone in a cave, heard something break, and discovered pottery jars filled with leather
scrolls. They had been placed in this cave, west of the Dead Sea, about eight miles south of
Jericho, around 68 a.d. The sealed jars had wonderfully preserved the manuscripts.
An example of the great care taken in the preservation of the Old Testament is seen in the book
of Isaiah. A complete scroll of Isaiah, dating from 125 b.c. was found by the Dead Sea: 1,000
years older than any other manuscript of the book. Geisler and Nix note:
Of the 166 words in Isaiah 53, there are only seventeen letters in question. Ten of
these letters are simply a matter of spelling, which does not affect the sense. Four
more letters are minor stylistic changes, such as conjunctions. The remaining three
letters comprise the word "light," which is added in verse 11, and does not affect the
meaning greatly. Furthermore, this word is supported by the LXX and IQ Is. Thus, in
one chapter of 166 words, there is only one word (three letters) in question after a
thousand years of transmission — and this word does not significantly change the
meaning of the passage. (A General Introduction to the Bible; Moody Press: Chicago; 1968)
Another partial manuscript of Isaiah, agrees even more closely with the Masoretic manuscripts.
After 1,000 years more than ninety-five percent of the text of Isaiah was exactly the same. Most
of the variance were obvious slips of the pen.
God, in his wondrous mercy and grace, has preserved to us the words of Moses and the
prophets.
THE PRESERVATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
The same individuals who questioned the validity and authenticity of the Old Testament, have
also doubted the New Testament; but, with even less reason. Peter had specifically stated the
gospel preached in the first century would live and abide for ever (1 Peter 1:23,24).
The New Testament was accepted as the word of God from the time it was first written. The
early church "received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which
effectually works also in you that believe" (1 Thessalonians 2:13). Paul commanded the church
at Corinth: "If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the
things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord" (I Corinthians 14:37). Peter .
referred to Paul's writing as "scripture," a term reserved only for those writings accepted as
inspired of God (2 Peter 3:15,16). Therefore, the same care exercised in copying and preserving
the Old Testament was to be expected, especially by those converted from Judaism, in the
copying and preserving of the New Testament.
The evidence for the preservation of the New Testament is overwhelming. There are
approximately 300 uncial manuscripts (that is, manuscripts written in all capitals, or block
letters) in the Greek, over 2700 minuscule manuscripts (that is, manuscripts written in small
letters in a cursive or running hand) in the Greek, over 2100 lectionaries (that is, books
containing special readings of scripture selected for the churches on particular days) in Greek,
and approaching 100 papyri in Greek, for a total of over 5300 Greek manuscripts. In addition to
this, there are manuscripts of early versions: over 10,000 Latin version manuscripts; over 2,000
Ethiopic version manuscripts; over 4,000 Slavonic manuscripts; over seventy-five Arabic
manuscripts, as well as manuscripts in Anglo-Saxon, Gothic, Sogdian, Persian and Frankish.
This means there are over 24,000 manuscripts of the New Testament bearing record to its
validity and authenticity that date back to within possibly twenty-five years of when the New
Testament was written. Compare that to only 643 manuscripts of Homer's Iliad separated from
the time it was written by a minimum of 500 years. Or, compare it with the ten copies of Caesar's
Gaulic Wars separated from his time by a minimum of 1,000 years.
Add to the manuscript evidence the fact that there exist over 86,000 quotations of the New
Testament by early writers from which all but eleven verses can be reproduced; and, there
remains no doubt whatsoever of the validity and integrity of the New Testament. In fact, to deny
the validity and integrity of the New Testament, one would have to deny all that we know of
ancient history and the writings of Plato, Tacitus, Thucydides, Suetonius, Herodotus, Sophocles,
Euripedes and Aristotle.
It is true that there are variations in the existing manuscripts of the New Testament. In fact, they
number over 200,000. However, these 200,000 variants represent only 10,000 places since
every time a variant occurs (let us say a word is misspelled 4,000 times) it is considered a
different variant (thus, 4,000 variants). It is also important to realize that most of these variations
occur in less than 15% of the manuscripts. Over 85% of the manuscripts are in virtual
agreement with one another in all particulars. The variations themselves, for the most part, are
accidental in nature. They are due to: 1) a difference in Greek orthography (spelling); 2) different
forms of words (not affecting their meaning), 3) insertion or omission of words, 4) use of
synonyms, and 5) transportation of words. Of these five, the insertion and omission of words is
the most notable in an English translation (although orthography, synonyms, and transposition
of words can and do affect an English translation).
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