How much can we trust the Scriptures?

How much can we trust the Scriptures?Apologetics in Manchester8th May, 2010Brenda LewisIntroductionRavi Zacharias:the Christian message stands or falls upon the authenticity or spuriousness of the Bible.Richard Dawkins says:Much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and improved by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries.2Assessing the EvidenceM - Manuscript evidence

A - Archaeological evidence

P - Prophecy

S Statistical ProbabilityHank HanegraaffManuscript EvidenceBibliographical

Internal evidence

External evidenceBibliographical evidenceHow many copies do we have?

What is the time interval between the original and the copy?

How accurate has the copying been?How many manuscripts have we?NT: 24 970 manuscript portions 10% of all Greek documents are bible documents

Secular: see the chart attached to the handout!

Bruce Metzger says:The works of several ancient authors are preserved to us by the thinnest possible thread of transmission ... in contrast ... the textual critic of the NT is embarrassed by the wealth of his material.Old Testament ManuscriptsWe have very little, but what we have is good quality

The Dead Sea Scrolls contain a complete copy of all of Isaiah, dated to 125 BC

95% same as Masoretic TextWhat are these NT manuscripts? Papyrii

a) John Rylands papyrus, earliest, 125 AD 5 verses of John . Manchester b) Bodmer II most of John. Switzerland c) Chester Beatty most of the NT d) Bodmer p14/15 most of Luke and John

Parchments, earliest late 2nd century

Codices bound books, earliest beginning 2nd century

Dead Sea Scrolls (1)Written and collected by Essenes from 300BC to 100AD in monastery at the Dead Sea253 scrolls Between 40 000 and 100 000 inscribed fragments2 copies of Isaiah Whole copies of I Samuel and II SamuelHidden by Essenes from the Romans in 68ADDiscovered by an Arab boy in 1947Families of TranslationsAlexandrian Egyptian. Includes translations into Coptic and Ethopian, Codex Vaticanus and Codex SinaiticusEarly, but some errors. Basis of modern translations.

Byzantine90% of all mss, careful and accurateUnderlies the KJV New Testament

Western Various, mostly derived, although includes SyriacLess weight given to most of its mss

External Evidence Church Fathers32 000 citations of NT by church fathers before 325 AD

Clement and Ignatius (95-115 AD) quote 15 NT books

Between them the fathers quote every verse, bar20

Eusebius refers to every book in the canon

They do not accept gnostic gospels and epistles

External: Early TranslationsMany early translations over a wide areaSyriacArmenianGeorgianArabicGothicCopticEthiopianAnglo-SaxonHow accurately has it been transmitted?NT: 97%-98% certainNo NT variant affects doctrine300 000 to 400 000 variants among the 24 000 mss - the NT only has 134 000 words!Westcott and Hort say:If you remove trivialities ... the words ... still subject to doubt hardly amount to more than a thousandth part of the NT.VariantsAccidental typosDeliberate fixesSmoothing

38 places in NT with 10 or more words changed:End of MarkNo-one has I John 5:7-8 15-20 verses missing from the Codices Vaticanus and SinaiticusDifferences between Alexandrian and Byzantine translations account for 20% of all variantsWeighting given to variantsEarlier the better usuallyIf a difficult reading has been retained betterSmoothing is suspectByzantine mss generally seen as more accurateEarly attestations e.g. cited in that form by church fatherDifferent pages same document?HandwritingPage layoutPunctuationProvenanceThickness of pen strokesColour of inkWhich sacred abbreviations?Other testsManuscripts are regarded as more reliable if they are:

Personal letters or written to a small groupUnpolishedInclude trivia/detailsInternal EvidenceNature of contradictions some minor ones which suggest eyewitness accounts

Sufficient witnesses NT has 9 writers, 6 of whom had witnessed the miracles and the resurrection

Truthful risked damnation; persecuted, martyred

Prejudiced nothing to gain, included material which did not reflect well on themselves or on JesusEyewitness accounts3 objections:

1. Church lost interest in historicity of Jesus and invented freely 2. Eyewitness accounts had no importance then3. They could not have remembered accurately the teaching of JesusMarks of the historicity of the gospelsJesus sayings are poetic easily rememberedThey show a single mindJesus uses unique vocab and phrasingHe alone tells parablesMaterial has been translated from AramaicIncludes material irrelevant to later churchIncludes counter-productive materialHow do we date the manuscripts?Mass spectrometer carbon dating e.g John Rylands Sometimes dated or mentions dateable eventHandwritingScrolls versus Books Papyrus versus parchment

Internal evidence dating the gospelsIn the past scholars dated all gospels after 70ADButActs was probably written before 61 ADLuke wrote his gospel before he wrote ActsHe uses Matthew and Mark as sourcesMark is earlier than Matthew Mark uses some earlier sources still almost back to the resurrection!Dating material in ActsSpeeches in Acts 1-12 originally in AramaicThese speeches emphasise Jesus as Messiah, so must be spoken in Jewish contextTherefore this part of Acts cannot have been invented freely at the end of the first century by the Greek-speaking churchPreaching begins 7 weeks after the resurrection bad inventing! lacks dramatic impactConfirmation from Secular WritersThallus darkness at crucifixionJospehus many people mentioned in the bible, the crucifixion under Pilate, resurrection, disciplesTacitus Christ put to death during the reign of Tiberius by Pilate. Christianity spread quickly to RomePliny Christians met once a week, sang to Christ as to a god, righteous living, probably communionBabylonianTalmud Jesus hanged on eve of Passover after a six-week warningArchaeological evidence which corroborates the NTNo evidence refutes the bible1000s of finds support the bible, e.g:

Pool of Siloam (1897)Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judaea inscription (1961)Ossuary of Caiaphas (1990)Pool of Bethesda 1995The canonPopular idea that powerful Roman Catholics kept out many other worthy manuscripts, and chose the canon to suit themselves in the 4th centuryButChurch fathers for 300 years had cited whole NT canonThey did not cite heretical documents as scriptureThe canon was only confirmed at Hippo and CarthageThe apostles, as witnesses, were probably the real guardians of the NT material

ApocryphaIn the LXXRepudiated by Jews at Council of Jamnia, 90ADTranslated into the Vulgate by Jerome, but later he called it untrue and tried to suppress itAugustine championed its acceptance at Carthage, 397ADRoman Catholics, using the Vulgate, accept itIn KJV bible of 1611, but not 1644C of E: useful for example of life and instruction in manners, but are not a source of doctrine.SummaryDawkins charge is unfoundedThe bible was written by 40 writers, in 3 continents over more than 9 centuriesButA single purpose, an overarching meaningA mass of evidence that the bible has been transmitted accurately

Further Information fromWhy Trust the Bible? Amy Orr-EwingWhat the Da Vinci Code Does Not Tell You Michael Green(New) Evidence That Demands a Verdict Josh McDowellNorman Geisler ppt 12 Points that Prove Christianity is True CD available from www.normgeisler.comBethinking.org.ukBiblequery.org