Has the Bible been corrupted, altered, edited, revised, or tampered with? | Got Questions | Published 2003
Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2024 10:07 am
EVIDENCE SET (X of X) FOR GOD
The books of the Old Testament were written from approximately 1400 BC to 400 BC. The books of the New Testament were written from approximately AD 40 to AD 90.
We do not have the original Hebrew or Greek manuscripts but we have enough copies to authenticate them.
The Holy Scriptures are God-breathed and therefore inerrant (2 Timothy 3:16–17; John 17:17)
Obviously, only the originals are inerant. Copies are not perfect, however, the vast majority of these differences are simple spelling variants, inverted words, or an easily identified missing word. In short, over 99 percent of the biblical text is not questioned. Of the less than 1 percent of the text that is in question, no doctrinal teaching or command is jeopardized. In other words, the copies of the Bible we have today are pure.
Copies of the Bible dating to the 14th century AD are nearly identical in content to copies from the 3rd century AD.
When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, scholars were shocked to see how similar they were to other ancient copies of the Old Testament, even though the Dead Sea Scrolls were hundreds of years older than anything previously discovered.
God has preserved His Word despite the unintentional failings and intentional attacks of human beings. We can have utmost confidence that the Bible we have today is the same Bible that was originally written. The Bible is God’s Word, and we can trust it (2 Timothy 3:16; Matthew 5:18).