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Gentle Conquest is Published Monthly by Charles Carrin |
Reliability of the Oldest New Testament Manuscripts Monthly Commentary
The following article is an excerpt from my book, The Edge Of Glory, recently released by Creation House Press. This material is vital to all serious students of Scripture. Memorize it. Be ready to "give a reason for the hope that is within you."
The most common attack against Scripture centers upon the reliability of ancient manuscripts and their having been copied numerous times. Since we have only copies and not the original works of the apostolic writers, how can we intelligently defend a book that is thousands of years old? Our defense of the Bible academically can begin with this observation: There are no original copies of any of the following ancient manuscripts. For example,
1. Plato: Greek philosopher. His writings are found in a mere seven manuscripts, the oldest copy written twelve hundred years after his death. 2. Aristotle: Greek philosopher, student of Plato, tutor of Alexander the Great. Only five copies of any one work of Aristotle exist, and none of these were written less than fourteen hundred years after his death. 3. Herodotus: Greek historian. Only eight manuscripts survive; these were copied thirteen hundred years after the original. 4. Euripides: Greek playwright. Nine manuscripts exist, dated thirteen hundred years after they were first written.
One is immediately struck by the scarcity of copies of these authors and the vast time lapse between the originals and today's reproductions. Yet no one questions their authenticity. Contrast the scarcity of works done by these secular writers to the abundance of New Testament copies. Renown scholar and professor, Dr. F.F. Bruce, verified approximately 4,000 ancient Greek New Testaments still in existence. Two complete manuscripts are dated less than three hundred years after the original. Most of the New Testament is preserved in copies written less than two hundred years after Jesus. Some existing books were composed about one hundred years after the originals. Part of one book came within a generation of the first-century.
If approximately four thousand ancient New Testament manuscripts survived the ravages of time, we are overwhelmed with this question: How large was the original number of others, now lost, that exploded upon the public in the first centuries? What was the motivation--the power--that excited early believers into mass production of this book? The answer, of course, is that the book itself was composed by the Holy Spirit and contained His miraculous anointing. Those who read it became motivated to copy and preserve it. The Bible's claim to authenticity is totally beyond the reach of all other writers of antiquity. As believers, we stand secure in its reliability.
Two of the ancient manuscripts, the Sinaitic and Vatican, do not contain the last eleven verses that appear in the King James Version of Mark's Gospel. These verses do appear in other ancient manuscripts and were quoted by Irenaeus and Hippolytus in the second century. The controversy involves not just the antiquity of the passage but also the contents. It says this:
These signs will follow those who believe; In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover (Mark 16:17-18).
A major complaint regards the statement: "They shall take up serpents." This passage has had two adverse effects: At the suggestion of handling snakes, some have rejected the passage altogether. Others, having determined to prove the passage literally, have suffered snakebite and died. Neither position is valid. The Greek verb airo, translated as "take up," means "to seize, bear away, cast out" in the sense of removing violently. The same word is used in John the Baptist's introduction of Jesus, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29). Jesus never caressed or fondled sin; He snatched it away in angered fury. The expression, "They will take up serpents" is parallel to one Jesus made earlier, "I give you the authority to trample on serpents ..." (Luke 10:19). In both instances, trampling and snatching away, serpents are parabolic examples of demonic power-- power that is under the authority of Spirit-filled believers.
Gentle Conquest * September 2001 |