Evidence of the Bible – Part 1

Evidence of the Bible can be remembered by the acronym MAPS — manuscript, archaeology, prophesy, statistical probability.

Manuscript
Old Testament

• Massoretic Text (900 AD) – earliest complete text of Hebrew OT; very little deviation when compared to Latin and Greek from 100 BC to 900 AD
• Dead Sea Scrolls (discovered 1947; dating 150 BC – 70 AD) – contain copies of OT books dating back to 100 BC and confirmed Massoretic Text
• Septuagint (200 BC; often abbr. LXX) – Greek translation completed by 70 scholars and confirms Massoretic Text. Septuagint contained the apocryphal books and 39 Old Testament canon. Apocrypha was coined by Jerome (discussed later) and refers to ancient set of writings between Malachi and New Testament but not recognized as canonical (inspired by God). — http://www.septuagint.net/

New Testament

• # of manuscripts: over 5,300 Greek manuscripts of NT, 10,000 copies of NT in Latin, 9,300 other early versions totaling 24,000+ manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament (ranking it first in evidence, and Homer’s Iliad being second with 643 documents)
• NT written in 40-100 AD; earliest copy is from 125 AD; gap of 25 years; Homer written in 900 BC; earliest copy is from 400 BC; gap of 500 years
• Collusion (a secret agreement between two or more parties for a fraudulent, illegal, or deceitful purpose) very difficult since manuscripts found in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Greece and Italy
• Several fragments have been dated to within 50-100 years of original documents
• Have nearly complete NT Greek manuscripts within 300-400 years
• • 1) Codex Sinaiticus – found near Mt. Sinai

• 2) Codex Alexandrinus – found near Alexandria in Egpyt
• 3) Codex Vaticanus – located at the Vatican in Rome; 325-350 AD; most of the Bible

Variations are very slight — only spelling phraseology, etc.

Only .5 percent is in question (as compared to 5% of the Iliad)

Other translations: more than 1,000 copies and fragments in Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Gothic and Ethiopic. Over 8,000 copies of the Latin Vulgate (written by Jerome), with some dating back to the original writing in roughly 400 AD.

John Rylands – fragment of John (John 18) from 130 AD

Bottomer Papyrus – most of John from 150 AD

Chester Beatty Papyrus – found in Dublin; most of the NT from 200 AD

Diatessaron – harmony of the Gospels from 160 AD

Early Church fathers documents quote the entire NT accept for 11 verses.

• All documents were before 200 AD and there were over 32,000 verses quoted.
• Tertullian (160-220 AD) – 7,000 quotes
• Irenaeus (110-200 AD) – 8 books; 1,819 quotes
• Ignatius (70-110 AD) – 15 books
• Polycorp (70-156 AD) – friend of John
• Justin Martyr (133 AD)
• Origen (185-253 AD) – 18,000 quotes
• Cyprian (258 AD) – 1,030 quotes