 The Bible is history which has survived – the
accuracy of copyists and the translators, number of supporting texts
Who wrote the Bible?
The Bible is split into two parts - Old Testament and
New Testament.
The Old Testament books were of Hebrew origin and
would have been written originally in the Hebrew language. The books
basically recorded events and experiences of the Hebrew nation. The New
Testament writers were mainly Jews. Even though the books contained
therein were originally written in the Greek language.
The question may be asked, did God actually
physically write the Bible? The answer to this is that even though the
Bible is full of God's thoughts and tells of his plan for this mankind
on this Earth, he didn't actually physically write the books. He
actually got various people to write the books with the inspiration or,
in other words, the thoughts of God. The books were written over a
period of almost 1,600 years, and their various authors were drawn from
all ranks of society. Kings, statesmen, priests, scribes, shepherd,
fishermen and scholars all played a part in producing the Bible. These
authors would have written in a language they were familiar with – so
different parts of the Bible have been written in three different
languages.
Yet despite the fact that these people came from all
different types of classes in society and from different times in the
history of the world, there was still a complete harmony in all the
things taught and recorded in the Bible. Each of the writers presents a
different point of view of the great plan that God has for this Earth.
When you look at the writings in the Bible and
compare it against the ancient records written by historians you will
find that the writings of the Bible match the historical writings
exactly. No historian or scientist has ever proved it to be otherwise. In fact, archaeology or research discoveries
serve only to support the Bible.
Accuracy of copying
The authors of the Bible would have recorded their
thoughts on manuscripts. The oldest manuscripts in existence now are, at
best, only copies of the original writings. Probably more likely is that
they are copies of copies, or maybe even copies of copies of copies of
copies!! Some of the more recent copies may have come down through ten
or twenty copyists’ hands. So the question could be asked – how certain
are we that the best copies we have are not full of copyists’ mistakes?
 |
|
The Dead Sea scrolls on
display in Jerusalem. |
In 1947 the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.
The scrolls were found in caves around the Wadi Qumran, north
west of the Dead Sea. About 100 scrolls are books of the Old
Testament in Hebrew and the manuscripts date from the last few
centuries BC and the earliest part of the first century AD. These
ancient scrolls verify the accuracy of the existing manuscripts
which included the Septuagint (Greek version of the Old
Testament).
Modern day translations
In the middle ages, the Latin Vulgate was the
official version of the Bible, but after the Reformation the Bible was
translated so that people could read it in their own language.
Williams Tyndale’s translation of the Bible into English in 1526 was so
controversial it had to be smuggled into Britain.
Today the Bible continues to be translated into more
and more languages. For example, the first Bible in Chinese was
translated by Robert Morrison and William Milne and published in Canton
in 1823.
 |
|