• Is the Bible Trustworthy?

Faithful Christians and Jews believe the Bible is a rich resource for understanding ancient cultures and history, and that it teaches us God's desire for our lives. Others, sometimes called Bible Minimalists, reject almost everything recorded in the Bible. How can we know which view is correct? What do the critics claim?

Julius Wellhausen's^<1> influential book, Prologue to the History of Israel, was published in 1878. He advocated for, and extended, an already proposed theory known as the "documentary hypothesis." ^<2> It claims that the Old Testament was woven together from multiple sources at a time far later than the events they report. If that is true, then the Old Testament dates and events should not be trusted.

Dating Old Testament Events

His hypothesis been tested. Archaeological researchers discovered many artifacts, and even ancient documents, in the two and a half centuries since Wellhausen's book was published. Archeology is a slow and laborious process in the best of circumstances. Wars and politics in the Middle East add to the difficulties. We can not expect perfect agreement with written records, whether the Bible or any other source. Yet, many discoveries support the Old Testament accounts.

For example, the defeat of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, is reported in the Bible:

Jehoiachin king of Judah, his mother, his attendants, his nobles and his officials all surrendered to him. In the eighth year of the reign of the king of Babylon, he took Jehoiachin prisoner ... Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiachin captive to Babylon. He also took from Jerusalem to Babylon the king's mother, his wives, his officials and the prominent people of the land. 

2 Kings 24:12-15, [NIV]HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® by Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved., Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by International Bible Society publisher: International Bible Society

This was a devastating and humiliating event, yet the Bible reports it. That is evidence the event is accurately recorded. What culture would discredit themselves with a lie?

When did this happen? The Bible tells us it was the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign.

Time spans between important events are recorded in the Bible, for example:

In the eighteenth year of the reign of Jeroboam, Abijah became king of Judah,  and he reigned in Jerusalem three years. His mother's name was Maakah, a daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. There was war between Abijah and Jeroboam.

Second Chronicles 13:1-2, [NIV]HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® by Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved., Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by International Bible Society publisher: International Bible Society

Valerius Coucke ^<3> used these records, along with information available outside the Bible, in 1925, to compute the initial fall of Jerusalem to 597 BC. An English translation of his article can be found at this link. ^<4>

Was Coucke correct? The "Babylonian Chronicles" are a collection of cuneiform inscribed clay tablets. One of them, cataloged as ABC 5, is known as the Nebuchadnezzar Chronicle. It records the first eleven years of his reign as king of Babylon. It was first translated in 1956 by Donald Wiseman, ^<5> and was not available when Coucke wrote his article. Wiseman's translation includes:

In the seventh year (of Nebuchadnezzar) in the month Chislev (Nov/Dec) the king of Babylon assembled his army, and after he had invaded the land of Hatti (Turkey/Syria) he laid siege to the city of Judah. On the second day of the month of Adar (16 March) he conquered the city and took the king (Jeconiah) prisoner. He installed in his place a king (Zedekiah) of his own choice, and after he had received rich tribute, he sent forth to Babylon.

Wikipedia Nebuchadnezzar Chronicle ^<6>

We now know even the day of the year when Jehoiachin was taken captive:

This date was confirmed in 1956 with the publication of the Babylonian Chronicle that showed that the captivity of Jehoiachin began on the second of Adar (April 16), 597 B.C. This illustrates a general truth: our understanding of the historical texts of the Bible has been enhanced by progress in both exegesis and archeology. In the proper use of the inductive method, neither of these disciplines can be neglected.

Roger Young, page 4 of a book review.^<7>

Agreement with events recorded in the Bible and sources outside the Bible raise our confidence in the accuracy of the Old Testament.

Has the Biblical text we have today changed over time? The agreement with archaeological results provides evidence that the text is accurately preserved. Even better evidence exists though. We have ancient copies of many portions of the Old and New Testament. The most famous discovery was found near the Dead Sea:

In the winter of 1946-7, Bedouin shepherd Muhammed Edh-Dhib followed a goat into a cave near Qumran and emerged with 7 ancient scrolls. The finding led to the discovery of ten other caves over the ensuing decade yielding a total of 929 texts – scrolls housed in jars inside the caves – known collectively as the Dead Sea Scrolls. The scrolls include the oldest manuscripts of the Hebrew Biblical Scriptures ever found. Most have been carbon dated to the second and first century BC.

Ancient Qumran^<9>

When were the New Testament books written? Who wrote them? Are the texts we have now the same as the originals?

The oldest known scrap of any New Testament writing, pictured here, is known as P52. It includes parts of John 18:31-33 on the front (left in this picture), and John 18:37-38 on the back. You can view it in fine detail at this link. ^<12> The original, found near Cairo, Egypt, is housed in the John Rylands University Library, in Manchester, England. Experts in Greek writing estimate it was copied in the second century, perhaps around AD 150.

John was one of the apostles closest to Jesus. He wrote the Gospel bearing his name late in his life while he was in Ephesus, probably before AD 90. Ephesus is in what is now Turkey. Today the trip by car, according to Google Maps, is 2,553 km (1,586 miles), and takes 32 hours, without traffic.

This is evidence for the rapid and wide distribution of Greek copies of John's gospel. The text of this fragment, though short, agrees with the Greek of the same book we have today. ^<13> Many other ancient manuscripts have been found. The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts ^<14> has digitized many of these ancient documents using modern multi-spectral imaging techniques, and displays them for all to see on their web site.

This partial codex (meaning ancient manuscripts that were in book format) of John's Gospel is in the Martin Bodmer collection at the Univeristé de Genève in Geneva, Switzerland. ^<15> It is dated to AD 200 plus or minus a few decades. It was collected by Martin Bodmer^<16> in Cairo around 1950.

Many thousands of ancient copies of portions of the New Testament have been found and analyzed. Most of them are in Greek, but some are in Coptic, Aramaic, and other Middle East languages. The text of these ancient documents is essentially identical to the Bible we have today.

Constantine Tischendorf ^<17> discovered what is now known as Codex Sinaiticus in 1844 on his first visit to the remote Saint Catherine's Monastery, ^<18> high in the mountains of the Sinai peninsula. It is the oldest, nearly complete, copy of the Bible. Parts of it are stored in various museums around the world. Fortunately it is now carefully digitized and available on-line at CodexSinaiticus.org:

Codex Sinaiticus, a manuscript of the Christian Bible written in the middle of the fourth century, contains the earliest complete copy of the Christian New Testament. The hand-written text is in Greek. The New Testament appears in the original vernacular language (koine) and the Old Testament in the version, known as the Septuagint, that was adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians. In the Codex, the text of both the Septuagint and the New Testament has been heavily annotated by a series of early correctors.

The significance of Codex Sinaiticus for the reconstruction of the Christian Bible's original text, the history of the Bible and the history of Western book-making is immense.

https://codexSinaiticus.org^<19>