Author: Higher Things

More than any other ancient writing, the New Testament has tons of evidence that show that it has been faithfully and accurately copied and transmitted down through the ages. Check out this week’s article spotlight from the The Apologetics Issue of Higher Things Magazine where Pastor Mark Pierson highlights the amazing way in which the New Testament has been preserved and gives you the facts for reminding those who doubt, that the New Testament is a book as reliable as they come! Click here for a PDF copy of the article. You can also download a bible study and accompanying Leaders’ Guide.

Rev. Mark Pierson

I remember when it first dawned on me that there might be “problems” with the New Testament. As I casually flipped through the red-lettered words of Jesus in my parents’ study Bible, something surprising caught my eye. There, in the Gospel of John, I noticed a particularly strange footnote. It said something like, “This part is not the same in all ancient manuscripts.” This struck me as rather odd and out of place. Why would a note like that be in the New Testament? Does this mean we don’t know the whole truth about Jesus? Can a book that contains typos really be God’s holy Word?

Not all of these questions were at the forefront of my mind that day, but years later they popped up. In fact, one of the most common misconceptions about the New Testament (NT) is that it has been copied, translated, and altered so many times that it no longer resembles what the original authors wrote. Thankfully, an apologist—a defender of the faith—explained to me why the NT is actually the most trustworthy collection of texts from the entire ancient world.

The Older the Better: The Earliest NT Manuscripts
Have you heard those radio ads telling you to back up your computer before it crashes and all your data is erased? Well, as far as we know, the original writings of the NT have been erased from existence. Copies were made, but since neither computers nor the printing press existed back then, everything was preserved by hand for centuries. So how do we know some drunken monks from the Middle Ages didn’t change the text? Maybe somewhere along the line people put words into the mouth of Jesus, having Him claim to be God, or that His death would pay for our sins, when He himself never said such things. Could it be that the text was tampered with and we just don’t know it? The answer is NO, for at least two reasons.

First, the oldest surviving parts of the NT date all the way back to the beginning of the second century. This may seem like it’s still not early enough, since Jesus and the apostles lived in the first century. But keep in mind that most of the NT was written in the latter half of that century, such that only a couple of decades separate the last living apostle from our earliest copies. (In fact, even as I write this article, scholars are claiming a new discovery—a portion of Mark’s Gospel from the first century. The official report will come out next year, but this new find could make any time gap completely negligible.) Second, since discovering the Dead Sea Scrolls we have learned that texts could be used for a hundred years before they wore out and disintegrated. This means our oldest copies of the NT were likely made when the originals were still being read in the churches. Thus, it is far-fetched to think significant changes crept into the NT so soon after the apostles died while their original writings remained in circulation. Plenty of people who knew the apostles firsthand lived into the second century and could have prevented this from happening.

Too Much of a Good Thing? The Number of NT Manuscripts
“Thou shalt commit adultery.” How’s that for a commandment? This is what one version of the Bible actually said, due to a printer’s error. But what if this was our only copy of the Ten Commandments? Or what if we only had one other copy, which said “Thou shalt not commit adultery?” The fewer the manuscripts, the harder it is to know what the text initially said. On the other hand, if there are lots of copies to compare with each other, reconstructing the original is much easier. So how many NT manuscripts are there, and how well do they match?

Currently, there are 5,700 NT manuscripts in ancient Koine Greek (its original language). Add to that all the early translations into other languages, as well as quotations made by early Christians, and we have around 25,000 sources for the NT text. In fact, if all Greek copies were permanently destroyed, almost the entire NT could be reconstructed from these other sources alone. Scholars have even admitted that they are embarrassed by such a large quantity of manuscripts. After comparing them, altogether 99 percent of the NT has been established with confidence.

Quantity vs. Quality: The Variants in the NT Manuscripts
Returning to that footnote from the Gospel of John, I later learned that it was called a “variant.” Variants occur whenever there is not a letter-for-letter or word-for-word match between copies. Such discrepancies are actually quite common in the NT—a fact which some skeptics have pounced on and made into a big deal. “There are more variants in the New Testament,” they’ll say dramatically, “than there are words in the New Testament!” This is true, but also entirely misleading. The reason for so many variants has to do with the vast number of copies, not with a vast number of errors in the text.

For example, this article contains over 1,000 words. If someone were to copy it by hand and make only one mistake, that copy would be 99.9 percent accurate. Then let’s say 2,000 people copied this article, with each of them making one mistake. This would create twice as many variants as words, but each copy would remain 99.9 percent accurate. So the real question is not how many variants there are, but how significant the variants are.

Almost all variants in the NT have absolutely no bearing on what the text means. The most common of these are spelling mistakes and changes in word order. (In Greek, you can speak like Yoda and still make perfect sense). So can you tell what this verse is saying? “God gave his only Son, for love the world so much he did that whosever beleives in him will have life etneral and perish not.” Though this is an exaggerated example of a variant, you probably had no trouble figuring out what it means (“typos” and all). And of those few variants where scholars remain divided on what the original text said, none of them brings into question anything Christians believe about Jesus. You could literally 
cut out each of these variants from your Bible and your understanding of Jesus would remain the same.

Putting it into Perspective
To realize how well preserved the NT is, it should be compared with other ancient manuscripts from about the same time. Three historians who lived in the first century, Josephus, Suetonius, and Tacitus, make for helpful examples here. The time gap between them and the oldest surviving copies of their works is 800 to 1,000 years. For the number of manuscripts, there are 133 of Josephus’ writings, 200 for Suetonius, and only three for Tacitus. Reconstruction of Suetonius’ text often rests on speculation, and too few copies of Tacitus remain for comparison. Josephus is the best preserved of these, but that is largely due to the efforts of Christian copyists. Professional historians accept these texts as generally reliable sources, and yet the NT clearly has much stronger credentials.

It is evident that the New Testament has been preserved with remarkable accuracy. There is simply no reason to think we cannot know what the original texts said. The Jesus we find in our modern Bibles is the same Jesus who once walked this earth, who has taken away the sins of the world, and who is present in the midst of His church for you today. The Word who became flesh among us for our salvation has preserved His Word in the pages of the Bible to make sure that salvation is delivered to you!

Rev. Mark Pierson is currently working toward a Ph.D. in New Testament studies. He also has a passion for evangelism and apologetics. You can email him at markapierson@gmail.com.

“Apologetics” is about defending the faith. When you have the truth, how can you not stand and speak it? Our series of Apologetics articles begins with Pastor George Borghardt’s article reminding us that doing apologetics is just another part of daring to be Lutheran! Remember, you can access all the articles in the Apologetics Spring Issue of Higher Things Magazine here! Stay tuned for more article spotlights from this awesome-packed issue!

Rev. George F. Borghardt

After the Gospel became clear to Dr. Luther, the Lutherans presented a statement to Emperor Charles V on June 25, 1530. They confessed that salvation was by Jesus alone, that it is by grace alone, and is received by faith alone. Although they quoted the Fathers of the Church, their arguments were based solely on Scripture.

The Emperor was not impressed. His reply, written by the Roman Catholic theologians at Augsburg, was read to them on August 3, 1530. It was supposed to be the final statement on the matter. No written copy was even given to the Lutherans! Thus, says the Church and the Emperor, “You are done. The end.”

Would you be done? Would you back down? If you knew you were right, if you believed that you were right, if every time you looked at the Scriptures, all you could see was that salvation is freely won by Jesus’ death on the cross and freely delivered in the Word, would you tuck your tail and run back home just because some theologians and the Emperor said you were wrong? The Lutherans didn’t. A layman, Philip Melanchthon, who taught at the University at Wittenberg, prepared an Apology to the Augsburg Confession. The Lutherans weren’t saying they were sorry for anything they had confessed. They were defending it! An apology, (in Greek ἀπολογία), is “to speak in defense of something.”

Lutherans historically have always engaged in apologetics. We have defended the Christian faith—even when it might mean certain death. When you know you are right, when you can’t see anything other than the Truth, you defend it.

Apologetics is all about defending your faith. When you defend your faith, when you defend what you believe in Christ, you are doing apologetics. You are doing apologetics when you talk to your friends about why you believe what you believe as a Lutheran. You are doing apologetics when you stand up (respectfully!) to your teachers and professors about how God made you and all creatures. The question is not whether to do apologetics, but when you do them, what’s the best way?

“What does this mean?” in our catechism is followed by, “Why does this mean what it means?” The why always comes from Jesus’ death and resurrection. The answers flow from the Scriptures with sound reasoning to a world around you that thinks everything you believe is just plain foolishness.

But Christ’s death and resurrection is anything but foolishness to you. His death and resurrection is the basis for all that we believe in (1 Corinthians 15). The faith of Christ flows from the death and the resurrection of Christ. If Christ rose, then everything we believe in really is possible—
a seven day creation, Noah’s flood, Jonah and the big fish, Jesus’ birth from a Virgin, eternal life…even heaven itself. And for Lutherans, that especially includes the belief that salvation is by grace alone received by faith alone.

What was published as “Melanchthon’s Apology to the Roman Confutation to the Augsburg Confession,” became the official Lutheran Confession of faith. Since that time, it has been included in the list of our doctrinal confessions. Apologetics has been, still is, and should always be what we continue to do as Lutherans. We confess and we defend because who Jesus is and what He has done is the unchanging Truth.

Rev. George F. Borghardt is the senior pastor at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church in McHenry, Illinois, and serves as the Deputy and Conference Executive of Higher Things. His email address is revborghardt@higherthings.org.