If we merely stopped there, despair and disbelief would surely be appropriate. It is absolutely true that we don’t have the original manuscripts the copies that we do have are filled with variants. This all sounds pretty upsetting especially when we learn that each and every claim above is accurate. There are around 400,000 discrepancies (“variants”) in our existing copies meaning, there are almost three variants for every word in the New Testament. We don’t have any early copies of entire books (since the earliest manuscripts are all fragmentary). No two manuscripts match exactly, and the closest two manuscripts to each other have at least 6 differences per chapter. In fact, we almost certainly don’t have any copies of copies-or even the copies of copies of copies. We don’t have any of the original manuscripts (called “autographs”) of the Bible or any individual book of the Bible. Though it may contain a few kernels of truth and glimpses of historical record, the winds of time have worn thin the trustworthiness of these ancient writings.
WHERE ARE THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS OF THE BIBLE FULL
It is so full of holes that there is no hope of harbor and we might as well abandon ship.
Fiction often is.Īs our culture grows ever more biblically-illiterate-and skepticism more vocal-it will be increasingly more important for faithful Christians to be equipped to understand (at least on a fundamental level) why such claims are false and misleading, and to be able to answer the question at hand:Ĭan we trust that the Bible has not been changed or corrupted? A Changing and Changed Canon?Īccording to many scholars, the Bible is a jumbled mess of indecipherable errors. That is the tale being sold on Amazon and NYT bestseller lists, in neighborhood mosques and synagogues, and even some ostensibly “Christian” churches. That is the story that the world is telling a gripping conspiracy full of intrigue, subterfuge, secret councils and villains, and told in official-sounding documentaries by official-sounding professors. Historically helpful perhaps, but hardly “inspired” or “inerrant.” The Christian Scriptures were corrupted, cannot be trusted, and have become nothing more than superstitious insights into archaic myths and fables. A little bit at a time, slowly and slightly, the word of God was diluted by the words of men. Along the way, errors crept into the text. The Bible was written over thousands of years by dozens of authors. He later signed a non-disclosure agreement and was bound to silence until the Mark fragment was published.Īs a general rule, earlier manuscripts get us closer to the original text than later manuscripts because there are assumed to be fewer. When pressed for more information, Wallace refrained from saying anything new. The manuscript, Wallace claimed, was to be published later that year in a book from Brill, an academic publisher that has since begun publishing items in the Museum of the Bible collection. He had no apologetic motive for assigning the early date. This preeminent authority was not an evangelical Christian, either.
Ehrman, Wallace reported that a fragment of Mark’s gospel, dated to the first century, had been discovered.Īs unlikely as a first-century Gospel manuscript is, the fragment was allegedly dated by a world-class specialist. Wallace, senior research professor of New Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary, seemed to confirm Carroll’s statement.
In late 2011, manuscript scholar Scott Carroll-then working for what would become the Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C.- tweeted the tantalizing announcement that the earliest-known manuscript of the New Testament was no longer the second-century John Rylands papyrus (P52). The reason stems from the unusual way that this manuscript became famous before it became available. One might expect happiness at such a publication, but this important fragment actually disappointed many observers. The Egypt Exploration Society has recently published a Greek papyrus that is likely the earliest fragment of the Gospel of Mark, dating it from between A.D.