Has the Bible Been Corrupted By Time?
Read time: 5 mins / Author: Paul Records
When talking with skeptics about the validity, truth, and trustworthiness of the Bible, the following three questions are likely to arise:
Can we really trust what we read in the Bible to be identical to its original manuscripts?
Copies of copies normally have flaws, so how can we really know that the Bible, which has been copied through time, hasn’t been corrupted?
Isn’t it likely that with the sheer number of scribes and copyists that have handled the Bible throughout history, some have inserted their own agendas and ideas into the text?
All of these questions are legitimate and must be answered to cast out the doubt held by many. The answers to these three questions determine if the Bible is really trustworthy, if it is a valid source of history, and if it can stand as a book of divine truth.
As we shall see, each of these questions has a solid answer, raising the standard of the Bible far above all other sacred texts.
In the words of Hank Hanegraaf,
“Old Testament scribal luminaries ranging from Ezra to the Masorites set an unimaginable standard of excellence in their copyist practices – a standard that should provide us with complete confidence in the Old Testament canon.”*
When looking at the New Testament, critics argue that the thousands of variants in manuscripts strip the Bible of its legitimacy. But, as scholar Ron Rhodes points out:
“Of these 150,000 variants, 99% hold virtually no significance whatsoever. Many simply involve a missing letter in a word; some involve reversing the order of two words (such as “Christ Jesus” instead of “Jesus Christ); some may involve the absence of one or more insignificant words. Really, when all the facts are put on the table, only about 50 of the variants have any real significance—and even then, no doctrine of the Christian faith or any moral commandment is affected by them.”*
Looking into history, we find that ancient scribes and copyists held their tasks in the highest regard. Before beginning their work, they washed and put on clean clothes. Jews had such an exalted view of the Old Testament that they perceived the missing of a mere tittle (a microscopic appendage at the end of a Hebrew letter) to be an affront to the holiness of their creator.*
To explain this point further, consider the exhaustive process by which Scripture was copied by Jewish scribes. In their day, there were no computers or typewriters. Everything that was written, and in our case copied, was written by hand, sentence by sentence, word by word, letter by letter.
To prevent errors, Jews developed a series of rules to govern their work. Before them would be two scrolls. One would have a copy of the Scriptures written on them by an earlier scribe, and the other would be blank.
Writer Larry Stone points out:
No word or even a letter could be written from memory. A scribe must have another scroll open before him and pronounce every word and letter out loud before copying it.
Before writing the name of God, a scribe must reverently wipe his pen and say, “I am writing the name of God for the holiness of His name.”
Every letter had to have some space around it. If one letter touched another or if a letter was defective because of incorrect writing, a hole, a tear, or a smudge so that it could not be easily read, the scroll was invalidated.
Each column must have no fewer than forty-eight or more than sixty lines and must be exactly like the manuscript being copied.*
After manuscripts were completed, a particular kind of editorial scribe called a Sopher (meaning “counter”) counted every word and every letter.* These editors “would also ensure that the middle word on each page of the copy was the same as the middle words on the manuscript being copied.”*
Sometimes, if mistakes were found that could not be fixed, a manuscript was burned. In other cases, for more severe errors, manuscripts were buried in the ground. But even before this laborious process was started, scribes tested their reed pens to ensure that each was writing well.
Later, a group of scribes called Masorites was tasked with copying the Scriptures for future generations.* Their efforts were just as meticulous and intensive.
In the words of Bible scholar Dr. Kenneth Barker:
“The Masorites developed a system to ensure that every copy was as nearly perfect as humanly possible. They counted the number of times each letter of the alphabet occurred in each book. They noted and recorded the middle letter of the entire Old Testament. They recorded the middle letter on each page and the number of letters and words in each column. They examined every copy of the Old Testament and withdrew from circulation all copies in which any error was discovered.”*
By this arduous system, modern readers can rest assured that the Bible has not lost its originality and can be trusted as it was thousands of years ago.
“The contention that careless, capricious copyists created cartloads of clearly contaminated copies simply does not correspond to reality.” –Hank Hanegraaf
THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS
In modern times, not only do we have the gift of hindsight, but we are also not far removed from one of the most significant manuscript finds of the twentieth century. In 1948, a Bedouin shepherd boy found ancient scrolls and manuscript fragments housed in a series of caves a few miles southeast of Jerusalem near the Dead Sea. These ancient scrolls are referred to as the Dead Sea Scrolls. They are significant for many reasons.
Photo showing the entrance to one of the caves where fragments were found for the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The Dead Sea Scrolls include a complete copy of the book of Isaiah, another fragment of Isaiah, and fragments of almost every Old Testament book.
Before 1947, the oldest known biblical manuscripts dated back to the Masorites of medieval times. With the find of the Dead Sea Scrolls, scholars had texts 1,000 years older than that. The scrolls and fragments had survived for nearly 2,000 years in the sand.
They were written at the time of Jesus and tell us about the religious and political atmosphere of the time.
But most importantly, the Dead Sea Scrolls (apart from insignificant spelling changes and other small differences) match the Hebrew text that is the basis of today’s Old Testament. They predated the Masoretic text by more than 1,000 years, yet they had no significant difference in substance! This shows modern Bible readers that what they read remains pure and has been amazingly preserved from generation to generation.
If God would orchestrate the right men at the right time and, through his divine inspiration, birth the Scriptures, wouldn’t he also orchestrate history and exercise his sovereignty to preserve those Scriptures? Clearly, the answer is yes.
In short, the Dead Sea Scrolls established what countless people worldwide already knew—that the Bible is just as true as it was when it was first written. It is a valid and unchanging source of the heart and mind of God, and it is trustworthy!
The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times (Psalm 12:6).
An active archeological dig at Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.
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FOOTNOTES
*Hank Hanegraaf, Has God Spoken: Proof of the Bible’s Inspiration (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2011), 12.
*Ron Rhodes, “Manuscript Evidence for the Bible’s Reliability” © Ron Rhodes, 2012. http://www.ronrhodes.com (accessed October 31, 2012).
*Hank Hanegraaf, Has God Spoken, 11.
*Larry Stone, The Story of the Bible: the fascinating history of its writing, translation, and effect on civilization (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010), 21.
*Hank Hanegraaf, Has God Spoken, 10.
*Larry Stone, The Story of the Bible, 21.
*The Masorites were early medieval Jewish scribes mostly known for adding vowel points into the ancient Hebrew text, which was initially composed of only consonants. It’s interesting to note that the Hebrew people held the name of God to be so sacred that they refused to say it aloud and instead used the substitute, “Adonai,” meaning Lord. From Hebrew transliterated to English, the name of God is written as “YHWH.” Into these letters, the Masorites inserted the vowel points of Adonai and produced the common word for God, “Jehovah.”
*Dr. Kenneth Barker, “Copying the Old and New Testament Manuscripts,” http://www.helpmewithbiblestudy.org/5Bible/TransCopyingTheOTNTManuscripts_Barker.aspx (accessed November 18, 2012).
