The Word of God ♦ Bible Text
Bible Manuscripts
Even though we don’t have the original writings, the oldest biblical manuscripts are much closer to the time when the original text was written, than any other ancient book. Because people that were copying the text were very confident in the value of that text, the copies were made with a very high degree of accuracy. So, today we can be sure that the text we have in the Bible is the one that was written by the original authors.
A lot of biblical manuscripts have been found.While less than 700 manuscripts were found for “Iliada” of Homer, and only 8 manuscripts were found for “History” of Herodot, the New Testament of the Bible has over 5000 copies and other 20000 manuscripts of parts of the New Testament. And the examples could go on. No other ancient writing can compare with biblical manuscripts.
Also, when checking the oldest manuscripts found, we realize that biblical manuscripts are again by far the most reliable. The earliest copies of “Iliada” of Homer are dated 400 years after the original and the earliest copies of Herodot’s “History” are dated about 1350 years after the original. Compared to those ancient writings, the earliest manuscripts of parts from the New Testament are dated 50 years after the original.
Denying the validity of the biblical text means denying all other ancient writings.
