ARE THE GOSPELS RELIABLE -PART FIVE

                                        ARE THE GOSPELS            RELIABLE ?

    PART FIVE

   (copied from
    Y-Jesus.com)


Who Needs Kinko's ?

The original writings of the apostles were revered.  Churches studied them, shared them and  carefully preserved them. and stored them away like buried treasure.

But alas, Roman confiscations, the passage of 2,000 years and the second law of thermodynamics have taken their toll. So, today, what do we have of those original writings?  Nothing.  The original manuscripts are all gone
(though each week Bible scholars, no doubt tune into Antiques Road Show  hoping one might emerge).

Yet, the New Testament is not alone in this fate; no other comparable document from ancient history exists today either. Historians aren't troubled by 
the lack of the original manuscripts if they have reliable copies  to examine. But are there ancient copies of the New Testament available and if so, are they faithful to the originals?

As the number of churches multiplied, hundreds of copies were carefully made under the supervision of church leaders. Every letter was meticulously penned in ink on parchment or papyrus. And so, today scholars can study the surviving copies (and the copy of copies, and the copies of copies, of copies - you get it!), to determine authenticity, and arrive at a very close approximation of the original documents.

In fact, scholars studying ancient literature have devised the science of textual criticism by devising a three-part test to examine documents such as The Odyssey, comparing them with other ancient documents to determine their accuracy. More recently, military historian, Charles Sanders, augmented textual criticism by devising a three-part test that looks at, not only the faithfulness of the copy but also the credibility of the authors. His tests are these:

*  The bibliographical test
*  The internal evidence test
*  The external evidence test (7)

Let us see what happens when we apply these tests to the early New Testament manuscripts.

Bibliographical Test

This test compares a document with other ancient history from the same period. It asks:

*  How many copies of the original document are
     in existence?
*  How large of a time gap is there between the 
     original writings and the earliest copies?
*  How well does a document compare with 
        other ancient history?

Imagine if we had only two or three copies of the original New Testament manuscripts. The sampling would be so small we couldn't possibly verify accuracy. On the other hand, if we had hundreds or even thousands, we could easily weed out the errors of poorly transmitted documents.

So, how well does the New Testament compare with other ancient writings  with regard to both the number of copies and the time gap from the originals?  More than 5,000 manuscripts of the New Testament exist today in the original Greek language. Many of these manuscripts are mere fragments, while others are virtually complete books. When counting translations into other languages, the number is a staggering 24,000 - dating from the second to the fifteenth  century.

Compare that with the second-best-documented ancient historical document, Homer's Iliad, with 643 copies. And, remember, that most ancient  historical works have far fewer existing manuscripts as that one does, (usually fewer than ten). New Testament scholar, Bruce Metzger,  remarked:  "In contrast with these figures (of other ancient manuscripts) the textual critic of the New Testament is embarrassed by the wealth of his material. "


next post tomorrow  17th July