“I believe the Bible is the best gift God has given to man . . . But for this Book, we could not know right from wrong . . . Take all you can of this Book upon reason, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man.” -- ABRAHAM LINCOLN
The Uniqueness of the BibleThe Bible is not just a book. It is 66 books written by over 40 authors over a period of 1500 years on 3 continents. It has stood the test of time as being reliable and accurate. It continues to be the number one book of all time. The Bible claims to be the Word of God. It claims that sin spread to all men because of Adam and that the wages of sin is death. It claims Jesus walked on water, calmed a storm, healed blind men, raised people from the dead, and that Jesus rose from the dead three days after being crucified. It claims that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and He suffered a horrible death by crucifixion in order to pay the penalty of sin that mankind so deserves. Jesus’ followers claimed he rose from the dead. It claims that all who repent and put their faith in Jesus Christ will be forgiven and will obtain everlasting life. The Bible makes very extraordinary claims. Many people have an opinion about the Bible who have never read it or seriously studied it. The Bible claims to be the word of God. The Bible makes the following claims as the Word of God:
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Manuscript EvidenceAristotle’s Ode to Poetics was written between 384 and 322 B.C. The earliest copy of this work is dated A.D. 1100, and there are only forty-nine extant manuscripts. The gap between the original writing and the earliest copy is 1,400 years. There are only seven extant manuscripts of Plato’s Tetralogies, written 427–347 B.C. The earliest copy is A.D. 900—a gap of over 1,200 years.
What about the New Testament? Jesus was crucified in A.D. 30. The New Testament was written between A.D. 48 and 95. The oldest manuscripts date to the last quarter of the first century, and the second oldest A.D. 125. This gives us a narrow gap of thirty-five to forty years from the originals written by the apostles. From the early centuries, we have some 5,300 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Altogether, including Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic, we have a whopping 24,633 texts of the ancient New Testament to confirm the wording of the Scriptures. So the bottom line is, there was no great period between the events of the New Testament and the New Testament writings. Nor is there a great time lapse between the original writings and the oldest copies. With the great body of manuscript evidence, it can be proved, beyond a doubt, that the New Testament says exactly the same things today as it originally did nearly 2,000 years ago. |
"Defend the Bible? I would as soon defend a lion! Unchain it and it will defend itself." -Charles H. Spurgeon