Chapter 3
THE BRIDGE OF
MANUSCRIPT EVIDENCE
"More than 5,750 manuscripts of the New Testament exist today, making the New Testament the best-attested document in all ancient writing." ~ Norman L. Geisler1
You are reading a respected periodical—not the cheap pulp kind you find at the checkout counter of your grocery store with screaming headlines about babies being fathered by aliens from outer space—and you notice an article on the Bible. With your interest piqued, you turn to the article. As you read you find statements such as, “The Bible has been through countless translations from the time its chapters were originally penned to the present. Along the way there have been changes and alterations that have diminished the purity of the doctrine.” The writer charges that the purity of the Bible has been “tampered with by religious philosophers, councils, panels, and kings”.2
Immediately you think, “It can’t all be smoke and mirrors!” You reason that if it is in print then surely there must be some truth in what is written. Besides, you notice that there is a Ph.D. following the author’s name. “Can’t be a fool,” you think, “and have his education and experience. If it isn’t true, wouldn’t the magazine get sued?”
Then what about the cover stories you periodically find on news magazines such as Time, U.S. News and World Report, and The Economist? A few of the more blatant which I have filed are these:
HOW TRUE IS THE BIBLE? – Time3
IS THE BIBLE FACT OR FICTION?
Archaeologists in the Holy Land are shedding new light on what did and didn’t—occur in the greatest stories ever told – Time4
IS THE BIBLE TRUE?
New discoveries offer surprising support for key moments in the Scriptures – U.S. News and World Report5
How can you be sure with cover stories such as these? Each time I pick up such a magazine or read a similar account in a newspaper, I fully expect a smattering of facts and a great deal of conjecture along with inaccuracies—all concocted to sell magazines. Of course, for every conservative scholar that is quoted an opposing view has to be presented. That’s the stuff that creates magazine sales. The result: The average person who is not well grounded in Scripture closes the magazine saying, “You know, I’m confused. I really don’t know what to believe.”
Individuals who have never made a thorough study of the manuscripts or have a strong prejudice against the Bible and, subsequently have an agenda to discredit the Bible, are not valid sources of authority. Most of what is acclaimed today as “new discoveries” have actually been around for a long time. It was not by coincidence that news stories broke touting the discovery of the “Gospel of Judas” at the time “The Da Vinci Code” movie was being released. That document, which is neither “new” nor a “gospel,” as we will see later in this chapter, had been available to scholars who had rejected it as being authentic for at least fifty years.
You may be thinking, "What do a few old manuscripts have to do with my life today?" If you are concerned with the integrity of the Bible, they are of great importance. When manuscripts, which are very, very old, are discovered, and their substance is the same as the text of the Bible you have in your home or office, you are assured that the text has not been changed or altered; your confidence in what God tells you in the Bible increases.
The story told by old pieces of papyrus and the skins of animals
God has providentially allowed the preservation of biblical manuscripts that have been passed from generation to generation. Realize also what a great contribution the science of biblical criticism has made to verifying and preserving the accuracy of the biblical text. This knowledge and understanding can carry you across the chasm of doubt or question.
It is more than coincidental that at the very time when science and technology seemed to eclipse spiritual values, God has seen it fit to allow manuscripts to be discovered that are at least 1,000 years older than anything of the same portion of Scripture in existence at the time of the discovery. Popular wisdom tells us that truth is always stranger than fiction. If you don’t believe that, perhaps you will after you’ve read the following section.
The discoveries at Qumran
Should you visit my office, you will see a reproduction of the first few chapters of the Isaiah scroll found in Cave 1 in Qumran, a short distance from the Dead Sea in Israel. The story behind the important discovery of the scroll is a good starting point.
It was spring of 1947 and hostilities were accelerating between Israel (not yet an independent nation) and her Arab neighbors. A young man, Jum’a Muhammed from the Ta'amireh Bedouin tribe, had lost some of the goats he was tending.6 Muhammed began searching for them. Wandering up a wadi or desolate valley, he saw a cave—something that was relatively common, caused by erosion when the rains gushed down the ravines towards the Dead Sea far below. “Is it possible that the goats may have wandered into the cave?” he thought.
He picked up a rock and threw it into the opening of the cave. The strange noise he heard though wasn’t the bleating of a goat. “It’s a spirit!” he thought, and fearful of what might be there, he tucked tail like a scared puppy and headed towards the warmth and security of the goat-skin tent which was the family home.
That evening as the family sat around the fire recounting the events of the day, Muhammed told them how he had encountered an evil spirit. His cousins scoffed at him. “There’s no such thing,” they said, and to prove that, the next morning they accompanied their cousin to the cave to find out what had made the noise.
Reaching the cave high above the ravine was not easy. But they got there and when they did, they discovered that the noise from the rock was the result of the stone’s shattering an old earthenware vessel that originally was about 36 inches tall. Among the broken pieces of pottery they found an old scroll that centuries before had been placed in the jar and sealed with a kind of bituminous pitch—hardened by the hot, arid weather. The cousins were illiterate so the writing on the scrolls meant nothing to them. Eight or nine other scrolls were in the cave, which came to be identified as Cave 1.
The story that I’ve just related is the popular one that I would like to believe, but may be a public-relations-sort-of-tale that makes good copy but embellishes what actually happened.7
Chapter 3: The Bridge of Manuscript Evidence
1 Norman L. Geisler, personal correspondence dated December 1, 2006.
2 “The Mormon apostle Ballard in an article entitled, “Our Search for Happiness,” as quoted in Christianity Today, June 14, 1998, 30.
3Time, December 30, 1974
4Time, December 18, 1995
5 U.S. News and World Report, October 24, 1999.
6 Nigel Gillingham in Qumran, a pictorial guide, says, “A group of Bedouin from the Ta’amireh tribe were on their way from Transjordan to the black market in Bethlehem. The purpose of the journey was to sell a herd of ‘contraband’ goats. Normally such a route would not have been used but due to the political scene in Palestine at that time, before the birth of the State of Israel, they needed a route that would avoid both British and Arab patrols. It was on this journey through the Judean Wilderness that the discovery took place” ( Herzila, Israel: Palphot Marketing Ltd, n.d.), 4.
7 John Trever was the first to photograph the scroll in its original condition. In their book The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls authors James VanderKam and Peter Flint says Trever’s The Untold Story of Qumran provides the best and most comprehensive account of the initial discovery. In a footnote, they say that Trever refers to numerous tape-recorded interviews with the Bedouins who responded to 63 questions he put to them. Their answers, of course, comply with the “lost goat” story.
Read some book excerpts here:
Note: The preceding material is excerpted from the book God Said That? So What? and is copyrighted by the author, Harold J. Sala. It cannot be copied or reproduced without written permission of the author who may be contacted at guidelines@guidelines.org
GUIDELINES ASIA
http://www.guidelines.org
Box 4000, Makati City
Philippines
E-mail: box4000@guidelines.org
Phone No.: 632.687.4127
