session 4

we can trust the bible

now we are using the same criteria that all historical documents are tested:
(1) the number of existing manuscripts 原稿数量
(2) the dating of the manuscripts 原稿年龄
(3) the proportion of variant readings 变量

(1) the number of existing manuscripts
Old Testament - 39 books (written in hebrew)
from 1500BC - 400BC
read from right to left
it was from Asia, not western country

New Testament - 27 books (written in Greek)
from AD50 - AD95
Why Greek?
story started from the great Alexander when he was 32 years old, he complaint there's no more places for him to conquer and he died. therefore, Greek is the language of the world that time (the time of apostle)

then the people translate the OT to Greek as well (start from 285 BC) in Septuagint 七十士译本


NT Manuscript:
Greek 5,300
Latin 10,000 (Romans Empire)
Other 9,300
total 24,600

other old manuscript in the world:
author                      time written        earliest copy         diff bet time written & copy      copies
Juslius Caesar       100-144BC                900AD                       1000 years                            10
New Testament      40-100BC                   125AD                         25 years                         24,600

(2) Dating of the Manuscript
Example:
1 Corinthians - spring 56AD
2 Corinthians - early winter 56AD
the date is so accurate

some scholar said the bible is not reliable, reasons given:
(a) genesis mention camel, they said camel was not existed at that time. but latest archeology recovered the king tomb, camel was barried together with the king at that time.



(3) Variant Readings
New Testament
20,000 lines but only 40 lines got problem = 0.5%
among the 40 lines, 1/8 of them are just having spelling mistake and arrangement of words, it means only 0.0625% of the New Testament got problem

compare to the best manuscript in the world
Iliad
15,600 lines, 764 lines got problem = 5%

Old Testament Manuscript
the Dead Sea Scrolls
there's 40,000 fragments and 500 become books
among the 500 books, 100 of them are the old testament written in hebrews, only esther is not in. among the 100 books, one of them is the book of Isaiah which is a complete manuscript copied at 125BC and it is almost identical to the Masoretic test of AD916