Is the Old Testament consistent in the text that we have? Has the text of the Old Testament been reliably transmitted through the centuries and millenia?
INTRODUCTION:
ISA 40:8
The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.
MATT 24:35
“Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.
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Is Old Testament Reliable?
RELIABLE is defined as consistency, has it been changed over time or is what we see what we get
Goal : Know what exactly is the SUBJECT / CENTER of our study
BACKGROUND
Age of Enlightenment (1685-1815 ) is :
A shift of thought that favored reason over things supernatural.
The rise of Deism – saw clockmaker God as uninvolved , sitting by, watching, after putting everything in motion.
In this period (and following ages) Skepticism is prevalent – religious teachings , church , government, and authority of kings and God demoted. Man and reason are elevated.
This SKEPTICISM has roots that reach into the 21 century.
The Bible in this ‘age of enlightenment’, was called into question. The question of the day was, ” Can it be reasonable to think that this ancient book ( the Bible) has been consistently transmitted over the centuries and millenia and reliable ?”
“Has the Bible really been maintained uncorrupted over all the millennia ….?”
REASONS THAT SUPPORT BIBLICAL RELIABILITY
1) JEWISH FAMILY LIFE ( those who received the biblical instructions from Moses )
Their lives revolved around these words and were faithfully taught and passed down from generation to generation.
Biblical admonitions for parents & it’s daily practice
– DEUT 11: Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 19 Teach them to your children,talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 20 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 19 Teach them to your children,talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 20 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates,
Deut 18:19-2 Listen only to prophets that speak truth
Those who spoke words that were not what the people were previously taught from the Old Testament were false prophets. False prophets were put to death. This would reinforce the purity of the what they received and greatly discourage corruption of the text.
Because of their daily habits, they would be very aware if any corrupting influences were brought to the text they were previously taught
2) THE WORK OF SCRIBES ( as a profession ) were tasked with meticulous copying the text by hand.
Web Quote –
“I Chron. 2:55 speaks of the schools of professional scribes, men who trained in the art of writing, who were specialists in the Law, and who were the supreme guardians of the text. The scribes copied exactly what was in the text. For instance, if there was a letter of unusual size (be it smaller or larger than the others in the text and/or how it normally appears) they would copy that unusual size into the new copy. Why would they do such a thing? Scribes understood that the text was unalterable. The most famous of these scribes were the Massorettes. They took scribing to a whole other level. Neil Lightfoot in his book How we got the Bible had this to say about the Massorettes. “They numbered the verses, words, and letters of each book. They noted verses that contained all the letters of the alphabet or certain number of them. They calculated the middle letter, the middle word and the middle verse of the entire Hebrew Bible and so forth … with these safeguards, and others when a scribe finished making a copy of a book, he could check the accuracy of his work before using it (Page 132).”
The professional work of the Scribes ensured that errors were not accidentally inserted into the text.
3) THE DISCOVERY OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS –
The scrolls were discovered by Bedouin boy searching for lost goat. He tossed a rock into a cave and heard crashing / breaking sound. Archeology of these caves followed from 1947-56.
Video Illustration :
1st – https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nJYYR-mRL5E
BBC – https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9I2a1zuJznU
Prior to the Dead Sea Scroll discovery, the oldest manuscript copy was from about the year A.D. 1000. Among the Dead Sea Scrolls were found Old Testament copies that dated from 250 B.C.. From this discovery, we now had copies of scripture that went back an additional 1200 years EARLIER THAN any of the previously known Old Testament copies from around the year A.D. 1000.
The discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls confirmed that virtually the same text was shared between manuscripts with 1200 years of separation!
This evidence alone demonstrates the remarkable accuracy that the Scribes had empoyed in their copying of the Old Testament.
CONCLUSION
The evidence of the accuracy of the Biblical text clearly demonstrates a strong argument that the Old Testament is amazingly CONSISTENT!
History bears out its “unchange- ness” at man’s hands
That leads to nest step ( next week) -” Is the Old Testament text something that can it be trusted…”