Survival Through Time and Translation

The Bible has endured in translation without any major change. There are presently about 25,000 manuscript copies or portions of the New Testament. Of that 25,000 there are 5,686 full manuscripts of the New Testament.1 No other work of ancient literature has been as well preserved. For example, Shakespeare lived just 400 years ago, and in each of his 37 plays there are varied readings that are in dispute. There are nearly 100 different readings, and these different readings affect the meaning of many passages.2

When you compare the New Testament to writings of its own time period the evidence for its authenticity and accuracy continues. Some of the 25,000 manuscripts of the New Testament date within 25 to 50 years after the original was written. Yet of Julius Caesar’s book The Gaelic Wars there are only 10 copies, and the oldest is 1,000 years after Caesar’s time. Yet nobody doubts its authenticity.

Of Plato’s writings, only seven manuscript copies exist, with the earliest copy dated to around 1,300 years after Plato’s death. However, nobody disputes authenticity. The oldest manuscript copy of Homer’s Iliad is about 400 years after its writing. Again, nobody disputes its authenticity.

 

1 McDowell, Josh. The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict.
Dallas: Here’s Life Publishers, 1999. 34.

2 McDowell 10.