Apologetics Corner

A Wealth of Evidence

Some Bible sceptics will challenge the accuracy of the Biblical text, claiming that what we have today in our Bible is not accurate to what was used first recorded. The wealth of manuscript evidence, however, directly refutes such an assertion.

It is well known and widely accepted amongst historians and archaeologists that so far, over 5,000 New Testament Greek manuscripts have been discovered. Many of these can dated to within the lifetimes of the Apostles themselves, giving us a firm, evidence-based footing to say that the text that fills our Bibles today, is indeed accurate with the original texts. If you were to count the Latin Vulgate manuscripts and others too, the overall number of Biblical manuscripts would swell to 24,000! This gives us an enormous spread of ancient evidence to clearly show all sceptics, that the text we read today, can indeed be trusted as God’s Word.

If we to look at the nearest challenger to the wealth of supporting ancient manuscripts to the Biblical text, we arrive at Homer’s Iliad. There are a mere 650 manuscripts in total of this work, and none are dated closer than 1,000 years after the date it was first written. Given these facts, it is very surprising that no one questions whether we have an accurate rendering of Homer’s work!

To conclude, we’ll end with the words of Sir Frederic Kenyon, former director of the British Museum and author of The Palaeography of Greek Papyri. Sir Kenyon noted, “In no other case is the interval of time between the composition of the book and the date of the earliest manuscripts so short as in that of the New Testament…. The last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed.”