![]() ![]() “The average classical Greek writer has less than 20 copies of his works still in existence. New Testament Scholar Daniel Wallace puts it this way: When you count other languages (Latin, Syriac, Coptic, and Arabic), there are more than 20,000! No one disputes the authenticity of these manuscripts.īut when it comes to the New Testament, we have 5824 copies in the original Greek. Then there are the writings of Julius Caesar (10 copies), and the Roman historians Tacitus (20 copies) and Pliny (7 copies). By comparison, the next closest is the writings of Demosthenes at 400 copies. This is by far the most copies of any ancient document. For instance, we have about 1800 known copies of Homer’s Iliad. When you have lots of copies of a document, it is easy to compare them and see where variations in the text may occur. We Have Thousands of New Testament Manuscripts And one mark of reliable documentation is that it comes from multiple, independent sources. We should judge the new testament manuscripts just like we would any other historical document. And they offer us a remarkably coherent story from beginning to end. They were written by about 40 different authors (35 of which we are very confident of). ![]() But that book is a collection of letters, poems, and historical documents that span thousands of years of human history. Multiple, Independent Sources Contributed to It Here are 12 reasons you can trust the New Testament manuscripts. But the conclusions we can draw from it are simple to understand. “Textual criticism” is the science that analyzes these kinds of issues. And, second, knowing that the Bible we have today contains what the original authors wrote down. First, that the original authors recorded historically accurate information. Trusting the Bible means knowing two things. If you claim to believe the Bible, you better be able to trust that what it says is true. ![]()
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