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(This
talk was delivered on March 3, at the first session
of DCBC’s March 2007 Discovery Meetings. It set
the tone for the rest of the sessions using methods
of Christian Apologetics, the branch of theology that
deals with the defense of Christianity. –Ed.)
If
Hollywood director James Cameron and award-winning filmmaker
Simcha Jacobovici would be able to prove beyond reasonable
doubt in their new documentary film entitled “The
Lost Tomb of Jesus” that DNA evidence from the
tombs discovered in 1980 contain the bones of Jesus
Christ and his alleged wife Mary Magdalene, then they
may have, as it were, succeeded where many others before
them had failed.
But
then again, this could probably be another publicity
stunt to draw attention to their new documentary to
be aired on Discovery Channel tomorrow, March 4.
If
Jesus did not rise from the dead, then Christianity
crumbles to the ground. Millions upon millions of souls
who had placed their faith in Christ for many centuries
now have been deceived all along. If the resurrection
of Christ did not happen, then Christianity is a big
sham.
But
Jesus did rise from the dead. I invite you to investigate
the truth of the empty grave. However, that is not the
topic for this evening.
My
task is to discuss with you the issue IS THE HOLY BIBLE
RELIABLE?
Did
you know that the book “The Purpose Driven Life”
by Rick Warren is not the all-time bestseller worldwide
even if it sold more than 30 million copies in a span
of 5 years, and still counting?
Neither
is the Harry Potter series, even though it made author
J.K. Rowling one of the richest women alive. No, it
is not “The Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien
either.
It
is The Bible that has been the world’s no.1 best-selling
book ever since it was first published.
The
Bible is actually a collection of 66 books. It is divided
into two main sections: The Old Testament, or OT and
the New Testament, or NT. The OT was written before
Jesus was born while the NT was written after Jesus
was born. The OT has 39 books in it while the NT has
27. The 66 books were written by at least 40 different
writers over a span of 1,500 years. The writers lived
in different localities, came from different cultures,
and even spoke different languages.
Well,
you might say, so what? Why should I give attention
to what the Bible says? Is the Bible a worthy place
to seek the answers to my many questions and find guidance
for my life here on earth? The Bible claims to be THE
WORD OF GOD! If that is true, then we all should pay
attention to it and at the very least read it.
My
talk will have 3 main parts:
I.
Is the Bible historically reliable?
II. Is the Bible consistent?
III. Is the Bible relevant?
I.
Is the Bible historically reliable?
How sure are we that the Bible we read in the 21st
century is close to, if not exactly the same as the
documents that were read 1,000 to 2,000 years ago? How
sure are we that the message of the original text was
not obscured by the translations and the versions that
have come out over the centuries?
The
task of examining the origins of the 66 books contained
in Scriptures is called the science of textual criticism.
We will do a little textual criticism this evening.
Let
us briefly examine the data for the Old Testament.
The
OT was originally written in Hebrew. The first complete
copies of the Hebrew OT were circulated around AD 900
by a group of Jewish scribes called the “Masoretes.”
But it seems evident that portions of the OT were copied
by hand much earlier than 900 AD. Priests and scribes
used clay and wooden tablets, as well as reed papyrus
and parchment skins which were rolled into scrolls.
This was the meticulous work of highly professional
and very devout Jewish scribes through generations.
We should all remember that the OT was the Bible that
Jesus read.
Copies
of the “Masoretic Text” are still intact today.
But how do we verify the accuracy of the text in pre-Masoretic
times?
The
Masoretic text versus the Dead Sea Scrolls:
In
1947 the world learned about what has been called the
greatest archaeological discovery of the century. In
caves, in the valley of the Dead Sea, ancient jars were
unearthed containing the now famous Dead Sea Scrolls.
From these scrolls, it is evident that a group of Jews
lived at a place called Qumran from about 150 BC to
AD 70. Theirs was a communal society, operated much
like an exclusive monastery. In addition to farming,
they spent time studying and copying the Scriptures.
It became apparent to them that the Romans were going
to invade the land. So they placed their leather scrolls
in jars and hid them in caves in the side of cliffs
west of the Dead Sea.
In
the providence of God, the scrolls survived undisturbed
until discovered accidentally by a wandering goat herdsman
in February or March of 1947. The accidental discovery
was followed by careful exploration, and then several
other caves containing more scrolls were found. The
find included the following:
•
The earliest manuscript copy of the complete Book of
Isaiah
• A fragmented copy of Isaiah chapters 38-66
• A tattered copy of the Books of Samuel
• Two complete chapters of the Book of Habakkuk
• Fragments of almost every book in the Old Testament
• Some other non-biblical items including the rules
of their ancient Qumran community
What
is the significance of this major find? In comparing
the Qumran manuscript of Isaiah 38-66 with that of the
Masoretic text, here’s what scholars found out:
“The
text is extremely close to our Masoretic text. A comparison
of Isaiah 53 for instance shows only 17 letters differ
from the Masoretic text. 10 of these are mere differences
of spelling like our “favor” and “favour”
and produce no change in meaning at all. The other differences
were just the presence of conjunctions here and there
which is just a matter of style. This is typical of
the whole manuscript.”
Wow!
Remember, the Dead Sea Scrolls were written between
150 BC and AD 70 and the Masoretic text was “book-launched”
in AD 900. The accuracy of the OT text available as
of 1946 which was based on the Masoretic text hurdled
around 1,000 years in one dramatic stroke. That’s
accurate transmission and copying over a period of a
millennium! Amazing!
What
about the accuracy of the OT prior to the discovery
of the Dead Sea Scrolls?
The
Masoretic Text versus The Septuagint:
Alexander
the Great conquered and Hellenized much of the Middle
East around 250 BC. Consequently, many Jewish people
knew no Hebrew; only Greek, thus they could not participate
in temple worship. There was a need to translate the
Hebrew OT into Greek. This was done by a group of 70
Jewish scholars in Alexandria in the 3rd century BC.
This Greek text has been referred to as the LXX or the
Septuagint because it was the work of 70 scholars.
The
accuracy of the Masoretic text was further established
with the help of the other scrolls discovered in caves
near the Dead Sea. The scrolls found there show a type
of Hebrew that is very similar to that from which the
LXX was translated. It is now apparent that the Masoretic
text has not significantly changed since 200 BC, although
it was “officially launched” in AD 900!
The
New Testament Documents:
What
about the New Testament Documents? Are they historically
reliable, too? We need to establish this because in
the Gospels, Jesus claims to be the Messiah, the incarnate
Son of God, who died on the cross to atone for the sins
of humanity and rose bodily from the dead. Jesus also
claimed that it is only through humbly accepting Him
as Savior, turning away from sin, bowing down to Him
as our Master and Lord that you and I can be saved from
hell; that we can know and have the assurance of going
to heaven in the here and now. Our acceptance of these
claims depends on whether or not the New Testament documents
are reliable historical sources about Jesus.
The
situation with the NT documents is somewhat different.
The NT books were written in Greek, the common language
of the Roman Empire. Unlike the OT books which were
kept “under lock and key” by the Jewish scribes,
the books of the NT were never formally managed. They
are mostly letters written to individuals and churches.
Those who received the originals naturally wanted to
share them with others.
However,
there was no Xerox machine yet nor the printing press.
They could not forward these letters to their e-groups.
The early Christians usually could not afford to hire
professional copyists. So they did the next best thing:
they hand-copied the documents themselves. Sometimes,
to make a lot of copies fast, one would dictate while
several others would listen and write. Writing was done
with ink and pen, mostly on papyrus (from the plant)
or parchment (animal skin).
You
can imagine that with so many non-professionals making
copies and with no one supervising the process, errors
would normally happen and be copied by others. But to
the amazement of scholars who did meticulous textual
criticism, only a tiny percentage of the thousands of
manuscripts are in question. Here’s what they found:
•
87% are errors of spelling or copying the same line
twice.
• Of the remaining 13%, most are stylistic variations
like a conjunction here and there that make no significant
difference in meaning.
• Some variants remain but none were significant
enough to affect any crucial doctrine or teaching of
the Bible.
So,
when was the New Testament written?
It
is generally agreed that the crucifixion of Jesus took
place about AD 30. According to NT scholar F.F. Bruce,
the event was carefully compared with the dates of the
ruling Roman emperor at that time, Tiberius Caesar.
The NT was complete or substantially complete by AD
100 and much of the writing was done long before that
by the writers who were followers of Christ. These writers
were still alive at that time; they saw, heard, and
remembered things Jesus had said and done. Hence they
would be able to dispute the facts and events as written
in the manuscripts if there were inaccuracies.
The
time that elapsed between the actual events and the
writing of the books, from the standpoint of historical
research, is actually short. The extraordinary number
of copies of early NT materials defies imagination.
Can you guess how many copies of NT documents were counted?
Around 14,000 ancient copies are in existence today!
Approximately 5,000 copies in Greek, 8,000 in Latin,
and 1,000 in other languages.
Let
us compare and contrast the NT documents versus the
works of classical writers who were contemporaries of
Christ. Socrates is among those classical writers. We
all assume that he lived during his time and nobody
would really bother to question that. Yet there is far
less supportive documentary evidence for his existence
and that of other Greek and Latin writers around 400
BC than there is for Jesus Christ. Let us see the chart
below:
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