There are only seven copies in existence. The copies we have today are dated 1, years after he wrote it. We have ten copies. When it comes to the New Testament, written between A. D, there are more than 5, copies. All are within years of their original writing. Further, when it came to Scripture, scribes monks were meticulous in their copying of original manuscripts. They checked and rechecked their work, to make sure it perfectly matched. What the New Testament writers originally wrote is preserved better than any other ancient manuscript.
For a comparison of the New Testament to other ancient writings, click here. A comparison of the New Testament to other ancient writings Four of the writers of the New Testament each wrote their own biography on the life of Jesus. These are called the four gospels, the first four books of the New Testament. When historians try to determine if a biography is reliable, they ask, "How many other sources report the same details about this person?
Here's how this works. Imagine you are collecting biographies of President John F. You find many biographies describing his family, his presidency, his goal of putting a man on the moon, and his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Regarding Jesus, do we find multiple biographies reporting similar facts about his life? Here is a sampling of facts about Jesus, and where you would find that fact reported in each of their biographies.
Two of the gospel biographies were written by the apostles Matthew and John, men who knew Jesus personally and traveled with him for over three years.
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The other two books were written by Mark and Luke, close associates of the apostles. These writers had direct access to the facts they were recording. At the time of their writing, there were still people alive who had heard Jesus speak, watched him heal people and perform miracles. So the early church readily accepted the four gospels because they agreed with what was already common knowledge about Jesus' life. Each of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, read like news reports, a factual accounting of the days events, each from their own perspective.
The descriptions are unique to each writer, but the facts are in agreement. For a sample from one of the Gospels, click here. The Gospels are presented as matter-of-fact, "this is how it was. One typical example is the account in Luke, chapter 8, where Jesus brings a little girl back to life. Notice the details and clarity in its reporting:.
Then a man named Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, came and fell at Jesus' feet, pleading with him to come to his house because his only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying. As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her.
She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. When they all denied it, Peter said, "Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you. Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed.
Then he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. While Jesus was still speaking, someone came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue ruler. When he arrived at the house of Jairus, he did not let anyone go in with him except Peter, John and James, and the child's father and mother. Meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning for her. But he took her by the hand and said, "My child, get up!
Then Jesus told them to give her something to eat. Her parents were astonished, but he ordered them not to tell anyone what had happened. Like other accounts of Jesus' healing people, this has a ring of authenticity. If it were fiction, there are portions of it that would have been written differently. For example, in a fictional account there wouldn't be an interruption with something else happening. If it were fiction, the people in mourning would not have laughed at Jesus' statement; get angry maybe, be hurt by it, but not laugh.
And in writing fiction, would Jesus have ordered the parents to be quiet about it? You would expect the healing to make a grand point.
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But real life isn't always smooth. People do react oddly. And Jesus had his own reasons for not wanting the parents to broadcast this. The best test of the Gospels authenticity is to read it for yourself. Does it read like a report of real events, or like fiction? If it is real, then God has revealed himself to us. Jesus came, lived, taught, inspired, and brought life to millions who read his words and life today. What Jesus stated in the gospels, many have found reliably true: In the early years after Jesus' death and resurrection there was no apparent need for written biographies about Jesus.
Those living in the Jerusalem region were witnesses of Jesus and well aware of his ministry. However, when news of Jesus spread beyond Jerusalem, and the eyewitnesses were no longer readily accessible, there was a need for written accounts to educate others about Jesus' life and ministry. If you would like to know more about Jesus, this article will give you a good summary of his life: The early church accepted the New Testament books almost as soon as they were written. The Gospel writers Matthew and John were some of Jesus' closest followers. Mark and Luke were companions of the apostles, having access to the apostles' account of Jesus' life.
The other New Testament writers had immediate access to Jesus as well: James and Jude were half-brothers of Jesus who initially did not believe in him. Development of the New Testament canon. Language of the New Testament. Biblical manuscript and Textual criticism. Biblical inspiration , Biblical literalism , Biblical infallibility , and Biblical inerrancy. Bible translations and List of Bible translations by language. Islamic view of the Christian Bible. Biblical studies and Biblical criticism. Higher criticism and Lower criticism. Biblical archaeology school and The Bible and history.
The Kennicott Bible, Jephthah's daughter laments — Maciejowski Bible France, ca.
- What is the Bible? | theranchhands.com;
- Nerd Pimp.
- Gli Angeli Custodi Rolf e Carmelo (Italian Edition).
This table reflects the canon of the Old Testament as used currently in Orthodoxy. Retrieved August 11, Simply put, the Bible is the most influential book of all-time The Bible has done more to shape literature, history, entertainment, and culture than any book ever written. Even pop culture is deeply influenced by the Bible. Retrieved 9 December The Wall Street Journal. Top 10 of Everything Archived from the original on 5 May Memories of ancient Israel. Westminster John Knox Press. The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Very Short Introduction.
See "Rare scroll fragment to be unveiled," Jerusalem Post, May 21, Dorff Conservative Judaism: Our Ancestors to Our Descendants. This evaluation is not reflective of the well-being of the nation, of the king's success or failure in war, or of the moral climate of the times, but rather the state of cultic worship during his reign. Those kings who shun idolatry and enact religious reforms are singled out for praise, and those who encourage pagan practices are denounced. They raged intensely during the reign of Ahab, and did not end until the time of Jeroboam II — Many of the people were compelled to sell their houses and lands, with the result that a sharp social cleavage arose: The decay affected both Judah and Israel High minded men were appalled at this development.
A student of philosophy who runs from the discourses of the great metaphysicians to the orations of the prophets may feel as if he were going from the realm of the sublime to an area of trivialities. Instead of dealing with the timeless issues of being and becoming, of matter and form, of definitions and demonstrations, he is thrown into orations about widows and orphans, about the corruption of judges and affairs of the market place. Instead of showing us a way through the elegant mansions of the mind, the prophets take us to the slums.
The world is a proud place, full of beauty, but the prophets are scandalized, and rave as if the whole world were a slum. They make much ado about paltry things, lavishing excessive language upon trifling subjects. What if somewhere in ancient Palestine poor people have not been treated properly by the rich? Indeed, the sorts of crimes and even the amount of delinquency that fill the prophets of Israel with dismay do not go beyond that which we regard as normal, as typical ingredients of social dynamics. To us an injustice is injurious to the welfare of the people; to the prophets it is a deathblow to existence; to us an episode; to them, a catastrophe, a threat to the world.
It recognizes that Israel would not have survived, either politically or culturally, without the steadying presence of a dynastic royal house. A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament: Rodkinson, first published — published by Forgotten Books, p. How We Got the Bible , 3rd edition, rev. Baker Book House Company. Cerfs, , p. Jobes and Moises Silva Invitation to the Septuagint. Retrieved 10 February Its divergence from the accepted text afterward called the Masoretic was too evident; and it therefore could not serve as a basis for theological discussion or for homiletic interpretation.
This distrust was accentuated by the fact that it had been adopted as Sacred Scripture by the new faith [Christianity] [ This is comparable to the authority claimed for the original Arabic Koran according to Islamic teaching. As a result of this teaching, translations of the Torah into Koine Greek by early Jewish Rabbis have survived as rare fragments only. Rhodes, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Dines, The Septuagint , Michael A.
Retrieved 26 December Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition. Retrieved 6 August List of the Canonical Scriptures. The Canon of Scripture. De Hamel, Christopher Bible at Wikipedia's sister projects. Understanding the Old Testament. Asimov's Guide to the Bible. The Jewish Study Bible.
Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, This is a critically reconstructed text of the Authorized "King James" Bible with its entire contents including all of its marginalia , fore-matter, the Apocrypha, etc. Fitzmyer , and Roland E. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. Herzog, Ze'ev 29 October Archived from the original on 21 December The Absolute Beginner's Guide to the Bible. A Short History of the Hebrew Language. New York University Press, Reformed Episcopal Publication Society, Place of publication also given as Philadelphia, Penn.
The Bible, The Church, and Authority. The Battle for the Bible. Zondervan Publishing House, London, Zed Books, Hendrickson Publishers 1 January The Origins of the Bible: Series statement given here in the more extended form of it on the book's front cover. From Genesis to Revelation. Galilee Trade 15 January Van Kampen, , pp. Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia , s.
Moody Bible Press, Books of the Bible. Letter of Baruch Psalms — Category Portal WikiProject Book. Outline of Judaism Index of Jewish history-related articles. Jews and Judaism Judaism portal Judaism — Wikipedia book. Retrieved from " https: Bible Christian literature Judeo-Christian topics. Views Read View source View history. In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource. This page was last edited on 18 December , at By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Biblical Hebrew , Koine Greek , Aramaic. Part of a series on the. Song of Songs Shir Hashirim.
However, although many people have started to read the Bible simply as a fascinating account of ancient history or as the spiritual development of individuals or even as a body of literature, they have also found that it speaks reality and wisdom, hope and comfort, into their lives. So even if you see the Bible as a purely human product, that is no reason not to read it! But they were copied — and copies made of those copies and so on until we have the documents that do still exist.
The originals wore out or were lost, but the various copies persisted.
The Bible: What Is it, Who Wrote it, and Why it Still Matters Today
This raises a lot of questions and there is much that could be discussed on this point. For example, whenever a copy of a document is made by hand and that was the only way at the time , there is the possibility of errors creeping into the resulting text. Most of these are irrelevant to the meaning, but the issue needs to be considered. A whole area of study called 'Textual Criticism' attempts to study the different texts that remain and compare and contrast the differences to work out the most likely original.
But in the vast majority of cases, we are not talking about huge differences that dramatically affect the overall meaning. Most of these, in fact, make no difference to the resulting translation into English or other languages. Very few variations between documents affect the actual meaning or make any significant difference to what Christians believe. As one example of the ability of those copying the Old Testament documents, we can look at the book of the prophet Isaiah. An almost complete copy was found in in the Dead Sea Scrolls, dating back to the first century BC.
When compared to the earliest copy that was previously available, dating from a thousand years or so later, the translators of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible found it necessary to make only three changes to their updated translation. These changes were equivalent to the difference between spelling Saviour as Savior British and American spellings. The original New Testament documents are also lost, but the copies we do have are very close to the date of writing — perhaps 50 to years difference.
Compared to most other works of ancient history, the validity of which are rarely questioned, this gap is minute. The works of Julius Caesar, for example, written in the first century BC, only survive in less than a dozen copies dating from about AD — a gap of some years. By contrast, there are many thousands of New Testament documents in the original Greek not all of these give the whole of the New Testament, of course , as well as many more in translations into various languages, as well as quotations in other early writers.
Warner Wallace examined the Gospels as a detective and atheist and concluded in his book Cold-Case Christianity: Cold-Case Christianity is a great book for anyone wanting to read more about whether the New Testament Gospels can be trusted as reliable accounts of Jesus' life and death. For more on the historical reliability of the Bible, see the links in Did the Bible events happen?
It's certainly true that there is much in the Bible that can appear to be in error or contradicting other parts of the Bible. Many of these can be explained by a careful reading of what is and is not really being said, and by reading the whole context. Again, Cold-Case Christianity is a really helpful book to read on this, by a detective who is used to hearing apparently contradictory evidence statements from eyewitnesses and coming to see the consistent story that lies behind them all. To read more on this topic, see the bethinking article: Isn't the Bible Full of Errors?
The consistent witness of Christians over the year is that reading the Bible can lead to an encounter with the living God and the transformation of your life. In the Bible, God has revealed who he is and how we can come to know him. In other words, the whole Bible is about God, but at its very centre is Jesus Christ. The whole of the Old Testament looks forward to and points towards him while the whole of the New Testament flows from him. It is through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that we can meet God in a new way and have our lives transformed by his forgiveness, love and peace.
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We need to see the big picture of God's plan, the whole of the Biblical story, to see how all the pieces of life, as well as all the parts of the Bible, finally fit together. Using the analogy of trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle without the picture on the box, Mike Cain puts it like this:. The Christian claim is that God is the one person big enough to see everything that is going on, and that in the Bible he has given us the picture on the box that really does make sense of all the pieces of our lives.
- Brewsters Millions.
- What is the Bible? History & Facts on the World's Most Read Book.
- What is the Bible About?;
In the end, the picture on the box that tells the story of the universe is a picture of a person — Jesus Christ. He says, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.