“The Bible can’t be trusted!?”
“The Bible can’t be trusted. It’s been tampered with by monks!”
Long answer:
The bible is a collection of 66 books. It was written by approximately 40 authors over the course of 1500 years. The writings were completed across 3 different continents and in 3 different languages. Interestingly, many of these authors never met each other, and yet, they contribute to one overall story about God’s plan for redemption. They record supernatural events that took place, and the fulfilment of prophecy which links the Old Testament promises to the New Testament revelation of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, the books of the Bible have a variety of different genres. The Bible includes law, history, narrative, poetry, prophecy, didactic teaching texts and apocalyptic literature. For example, the Gospel of Luke and Acts is one historical account, written with dates, times, locations and leaders, for the sole purpose that the reader would have certainty about what has taken place. (See Luke 1:1 – 4). Theses authors were also eyewitness, who recorded the events in the lifetime of other eyewitness. The most significant event in all of history, and the foundation for all Christian belief, is the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. First Corinthians chapter 15 tells us that after the resurrection, Jesus appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time. The testimony of the authors was carefully copied by faithful scribes soon after the originals. There are roughly 6000 New Testament manuscripts with some dating as early as 120 AD. This may not seem significant if you are not a historical scholar. But if we compare this to other historical figures studied in universities, even a child can see the great contrast. There are only 7 manuscripts we have on Plato, with earliest dated 1200 years after the original copy. For Julia Ceasar we have 10 manuscripts with the earliest being 1000 years after the original. Homer (Iliad) there are 643 manuscripts with the earliest written 500 years after the original. When it comes to the New Testament, we have 6000! These manuscripts were carefully copied in Syriac, Coptic and Latin and were distributed across the Eastern Europe, North and East Africa and the Middle East. Furthermore, when the church began, the early church fathers wrote commentaries. The early church fathers quoted the New Testament so much (36,289 times, to be exact) that all but eleven verses of the New Testament can be reconstructed just from their quotations. (Frank Turek in I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, p. 228).
With all this in mind, for just the New Testament to be tampered with by monks, they would need to find 6000 manuscripts, across 3 different continents and edit them without anybody noticing or seeing their markings. They would then need to find all the copies in Syriac, Latin and Coptic and edit them carefully and put them back without anybody noticing. They would also need to find the early churches, that were in hiding and get their copies and all of the commentaries from the early church fathers and edit those without anybody noticing. Lastly, they would need to travel across 3 continents for more than a hundred years, without stopping, transporting and hiding documents that would result in a death penalty if they were ever caught.
“The Bible can’t be trusted. It’s been tampered with by monks!”
Short answer:
No. The Bible is the most reliable historical document on the planet. It is a collection of 66 books, written by 40 authors and eyewitnesses who wrote in the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. They record supernatural events, the fulfilment of prophecy and the way of salvation: that all men are born in sin and must repent and put their trust in God, who so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
