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Can we trust the Bible?
This is an extremely important question that must be answered by everyone at least one time or another in their life. With that question in mind, we have been continuing down this path to see whether we can prove or disprove the historical accuracy, validity, and trustworthiness of the Bible. We’ve been using the same tests historians use for every historically discovered document they encounter. And we have seen that the Bible has withstood two tests already: The Time Gap Test and The Numbers Test. The third aspect that the Bibliographical Test focuses on is the quality of the manuscripts that we have of the New Testament.
Importance of Quality
This test is huge because it basically shows the difference between owning a Ferrari or a Ford Fiesta that’s trying to look like it’s a Ferrari. You want to own the Ferrari, not something mimicking it. That’s what this test does, it helps us see whether we have something accurate and valid or if we have a fake.
Up to this point, all we have been trying to do is determine whether or not we have what the original authors actually wrote. We’re trying to see if we have a fake or not. We have seen that the New Testament has a miniscule time-gap, ranging from 10 to 50 years, which is unprecedented because most of the others works from antiquity range within 100 to 1,000 years! Also, we’ve seen that historians have discovered and collected over 25,000 documents or pieces of evidence which support the accuracy of the New Testament. This is huge! These first two test show us that we could actually have a Ferrari on our hands.
But even with a minute time-gap and the tidal wave of document support, it doesn’t matter at all if those documents and pieces of evidence are worthless because they aren’t quality pieces of historical evidence! So how to test it?
The Quality Test
This test is actually supported significantly by the numbers test. Since we have collected over 25,000 pieces of evidence, some have even argued that that number is low and should be in the ballpark of 150,000 even, we are able to compare and contrast those ancient manuscripts with one another.
During the first century, Christianity was booming! New believers were popping up all over the place, the world’s greatest missionary Paul was so efficient that cities economical structures were even changing! People were putting their faith in Jesus by the thousands and because of this copies were needed in order for all of these new believers to continue to grow in their faith. An example of this would be that the Corinthian church would get a letter from the Apostle Paul, they would read it out to the congregation, teach from it, learn from it, and grow from it. Instead of shelving it, they would copy it and send those copies out to local congregations to also learn and grow from. This happened all over the ancient world and now we are the benefactors because we have copies of copies of copies that we can compare to each other and see if the New Testament is indeed fact or fake.
New Testament Accuracy
By comparing the ancient manuscripts, we find that the vast majority of the variations are minor spelling, grammar, and style errors, accidental omissions of words or duplication of words and phrases. Even with these variations, we are still able to reconstruct 98% the New Testament! Meaning that today’s New Testament is at least 98% pure and historically verified to be accurate and trustworthy. That’s a Ferrari, not a Fiesta!
If that isn’t astonishing enough, we can go further. “Philip Schaff calculated that, of the 150,000 variants known in his day, only 400 changed the meaning of the passage, only fifty were of real significance, and not even one affected an article of faith or a precept of duty which is not abundantly sustained by other and undoubted passages, or by the whole tenor of Scripture teaching.”1 What this means is that the New Testament is entirely free from any significant errors when it comes to essential beliefs and doctrines of the Christian faith. We can trust that we do have what the original authors actually wrote.
Today’s New Testament is at least 98% pure and 100% free from any significant errors
Conclusion
While the time-gap test, the numbers test, and the quality test do not prove that the Bible we have today is true or even something that we should choose to allow to shape our life, these tests do show us that we do have what was originally written. There can be no doubt that we have essentially what the New Testament authors wrote in the middle of the first century AD. And if that’s the case, then we need to ask ourselves “Why would the apostles lie? . . . If they lied, what was their motive, what did they get out of it? What they got out of it was misunderstanding, rejections, persecution, torture, and martyrdom. Hardly a list of perks.”2.
Quoted Sources:
1. Geisler, Norman L. and Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist, Crossway Books, Illinois, 2004, 229. 2. Ibid., 275.
Dig Deeper
Watch- Is The New Testament We Have Now, What They Wrote Then? by Dr. Daniel Wallace
Book – Defending Your Faith by Dr. Mark Bird
Article – The Apologetic Study Bible by Ted Cabal
Book – Letters from a Skeptic by Greg Boyd
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