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Number of manuscripts of the bible12/22/2023 ![]() If they are held to be credible, let’s then see how the New Testament compares with them. Yet this same question is rarely asked of other historical manuscripts which we refer to constantly. This has always been a problem with all known ancient documents. Since we do not possess the originals, people ask, how can we be sure they are identical to them? The initial answer is that we will never be completely certain, for there is no means at our disposal to reproduce the originals. (2) Available Manuscripts:Ī further criticism concerns whether the copies we possess are credible. The only explanation can be that they were all written prior to these events, and thus likely before 62 AD, or a mere 30 years after the death of Jesus, of whose life they primarily refer. Yet we find none of the deaths referred to in any of the 27 canonized books of the New Testament (and significantly not in Acts, the most comprehensive historical record we have of the early church). Thus their deaths were momentous events for the early Christian community. Take for instance the martyrdoms of James in 62 AD, Paul in 64 AD, and Peter in 65 AD. This same logic can be taken a step further. Had the documents been compiled in the second century as Muslims claim, then certainly they would have mentioned these very important events. Most of the New Testament was likely written before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and perhaps before the fire of Rome (64 AD), and the subsequent persecution of Christians, since none of these events, which would have had an enormous impact on the nascent Christian community are mentioned in any of the New Testament writings. In fact, outside of the book of Revelation and the three letters of John considered to have been written later, when we look at the rest of the New Testament books, there is no longer any solid basis for dating them later than 80 AD, or 50 years after the death of Jesus Christ 4. Yet, unlike the Qur’an which was compiled much more recently, we do not find with the Bible such an enormous gap of time between that which the Bible speaks about and when it was written down. Muslims assert that we have similar problems concerning the large number of years which separate the manuscripts from the events which they speak about. In fact, according to research done by Kurt and Barbara Aland, a total of 230 manuscript portions are currently in existence which pre-date 600 AD! These can be broken down into 192 Greek New Testament manuscripts, 5 Greek lectionaries containing scripture, and 33 translations of the Greek New Testament 3. What’s more, a substantial number were written well before the compilation of the Qur’an. Though we do not have any originals, with such a wealth of documentation at our disposal with which to compare, we can delineate quite closely what those originals contained. We have today in our possession 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, another 10,000 Latin Vulgates, and 9,300 other early versions (MSS), giving us more than 24,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament in existence today! 2. When we consider the New Testament, however, we find a completely different scenario. Likewise, only 5 copies of Aristotle’s writings have found their way to the 20th century, while only 10 copies of the writings of Caesar, along with another 20 copies of the historian Tacitus, and 7 copies from the historian Pliny, who all originally wrote in the first century, are available today 1. For instance, we only have eight copies of Herodotus’s historical works, whose originals were written in 480-425 BC. This is specially true when we consider the secular historians and philosophers. But if we have many witnesses, the probability that they all got it wrong becomes minute.īecause of time and wear many of the historical documents from the ancient world have few manuscripts to which we can refer. If we have only one witness to the event, there is the possibility that the witness’s agenda or even an exaggeration of the event has crept in and we would never know the full truth. ![]() The more copies we have the better we can compare between them and thus know if the document we now read corresponds with the original. Consequently a primary means for ascertaining its credibility today are the number of copies from those manuscripts which are currently in one’s possession. Yet is this assumption correct? (1) New Testament Manuscript Copies:īecause the Bible is a book, it was initially made up of manuscripts. Muslims contend, however, that since we do not have the original documents, the reliability of the copies we do have is thus in doubt. Unlike the Qur’an, when we consider the New Testament manuscripts (MSS) we are astounded by the sheer numbers of extent copies which are in existence.
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