Introduction
There are a few religious groups in the world who claim that the Bible has been corrupted over the years by men.
I used to wonder why anyone would make such a claim but after studying with various groups, it became very clear that they wanted to plant doubts in my mind as to whether I could trust the Bible or not.
I also noticed that they want to encourage Christians to stop using the Bible and start using their own ‘holy book’ ‘creed books’ or their own version of the Bible.
Some will suggest that their book and the Bible go hand in hand, but this isn’t really the case. Slowly but surely, they will draw you away from the Bible in order to support the doctrine that they teach from their book.
The Bible
The word ‘Bible’ means ‘book,’ actually, it is a compilation of 66 books written by about 40 different authors scattered across many countries during a period of 1600 years.
The Old Testament books, written in Hebrew, were written from around 1400 to 400 BC. The New Testament books, written in Greek, were written from around AD 40 to 96.
We must note that there are no original manuscripts remaining, but what we do have is copies of copies and there are plenty of them.
Entire copies of the New Testament are still in existence today, dating from the fourth century. Two of these are the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus and what is written within them certainly helps us to confirm the earliest wordings in nearly every instance.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, the first of which were discovered in 1947 in a cave near the Dead Sea and which date from the first or second century before Christ, have helped in recent translations of the Old Testament.
They have also substantiated the accuracy of the manuscripts from which earlier translations were made so that we may be even more confident that we have the real message of the Old Testament writers.
There are two additional sources of information about the original New Testament books. One is the translations made soon after the New Testament was written.
The most important, written in Latin, is called the Vulgate, and was completed by Jerome in 405 A.D. We also have numerous Bible quotations from the writings of the early church fathers.
By comparing the Greek manuscripts, the early translations, and the quotations of the church fathers, Bible scholars have been able to determine with great accuracy what the New Testament authors wrote.
In fact, so sure are we that we have the Bible almost as it was given that we can positively say that no major Bible doctrine is in any way affected by minor errors of copying through the centuries.
Contradictions
As I mentioned earlier there are some religious groups who claim the Bible has been corrupted over the years, but there is absolutely no historical proof of this. Most of the claims of corruption arise from so-called ‘contradictions’ within the Bible but there are no contradictions with the Bible.
Nothing establishes the authenticity of a writing better than apparent inconsistencies which evaporate when closely examined. Such apparent inconsistencies show that no collusion was engaged in by the writers.
Examples
An example is found in regard to the ruling family of Palestine. In Matthew 2:1 we read of ‘Herod the King’ who was reigning when Jesus was born. Matthew records his death. Yet in Acts 12:12 we read once more of ‘Herod the King’ killing James, the brother of John.
How could he do this if he were dead? Does the bible contradict itself? Josephus, an unbeliever in Christ, explains the difficulty by showing that the Herod of Acts 12 was actually the grandson of the Herod mentioned in Matthew 2. The Bible agrees perfectly with the facts.
Again, Luke 2:1 mentions ‘Caesar Augustus’ as the ruling monarch of the Roman Empire. In Luke 3:1 we are told that John the Baptist began his ministry in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar.
This shows that Augustus was no longer on the throne. Still later in Acts 25:21, we find Paul appealing against his arrest to Augustus. A superficial reading might lead us to suppose that the Bible contradicts itself.
But on close examination with other known facts, we find that the emperor at that time was Nero whose full name was Caesar Augustus Nero.
Luke, the author of both books in question, does not explain this because the first-century readers were familiar with the fact that there were two different men named Augustus.
The Credibility Of The Bible
The attacks upon the credibility of the Bible have served to make stronger, not weaker, the conviction of its students that it is truly God’s inspired word.
Any suggestion that the Bible has been altered or changed in any way isn’t based on any historical facts. Yes, there may be minor differences in the manuscripts, but the overall message of the Bible is the same.
Conclusion
The Bible itself says that God has given us all we need for life and godliness, 2 Peter 1:3, and Scripture is enough to make us wise for salvation and holy unto the Lord, 2 Timothy 3:14-17.
If the Bible is everything we need to know about God and how to be saved and how to be the kind of people God wants us to be, then why do we need another book? Saying we need another book implies that the Bible isn’t everything we need.
If we believe that God is all-powerful, Luke 1:37, and all-knowing, Psalm 139:4, then surely, we must have the faith that God has preserved His Word throughout the ages.
