Authority and Preservation of the Bible
The authority of the Bible is acknowledged because God, who wants to save mankind, has preserved the Bible for thousands of years so that it will not be distorted. Christ Jesus, too, acknowledged the authority of the Bible, preaching the gospel by quoting the Old Testament. The New Testament was written by the apostles Jesus established and those who worked hard for the gospel together with them, and the Church acknowledged it as the Bible to follow the teachings of Jesus.
Authority of the Bible
As the Bible is the word of God, its authority is absolute. The Bible warns us not to add to or subtract from God’s word.[1] It is because God’s word recorded in the Bible is directly related to the salvation of mankind.
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
This shows God’s will to pass on to mankind the Bible which decides their salvation. Since God wants all people to be saved,[2] He will not allow the Bible to be distorted and changed. Therefore, we can be convinced that God Almighty has preserved the Bible for the salvation of mankind. In other words, the living God guarantees the authority and value of the Bible. About 2,000 years ago, Jesus, God who came to this earth, quoted many words from the Old Testament while preaching the gospel. He also said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”[3] This shows that Jesus Himself acknowledged the authority of the Old Testament.
Recording and Preservation of the Bible
Old Testament
Although the original Bible does not exist, it can be seen from the manuscript that the original Bible has been preserved as it is. In the days when there was no publishing technology like today, people made books by handwriting letters one by one. As time passed and the original text was worn out, people wrote a copy of the original text on clay, leather, cloth, or tree bark, and this is called a manuscript. Materials such as parchment and papyrus could easily be obtained around the Nile River in Egypt, so they were commonly used. The Bible was recorded on such materials and was handed down.
In Israel, there were scribes, who professionally wrote copies of the Bible and examined its accuracy. When a scribe made copies of the Bible, he counted the total number of letters in order to not omit a single letter, and another scribe examined it once more. They made great efforts to preserve the original text.
Some people may guess that the Bible could have been changed in the process of manuscribing because the Bible has been handed down for a long time through scribes. However, the accuracy of copying the Bible was already verified through the comparison of various manuscripts which were written at different times.
The Hebrew Old Testament was recorded and preserved by the Masoretes who took the place of scribes; the earliest complete copy was dated from approximately the 9th century. The scrolls written in 100 B.C. were discovered in the Qumran Cave near the Dead Sea in 1947. They are called the Dead Sea Scrolls or Qumran Caves Scrolls. When scholars compared the Masoretic Text and the Dead Sea Scrolls with an interval of about a thousand years, the two were almost identical.
“ The oldest known existing Hebrew manuscripts of Old Testament books were made about A.D. 900. On these are based what is called the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Old Testament. . . . In these manuscripts, there is so little variation that Hebrew scholars are in general agreement that our present Bible text is essentially the same as that in the original books themselves. Then, in 1947 . . . some wandering Arab Bedouins . . . searching for a lost goat . . . came upon a partially collapsed cave, in which they found a number of crushed jars from which ends of scrolls protruded. The Bedouins pulled out the scrolls, took them along, and passed them on to St. Mark’s Syrian Orthodox Convent in Jerusalem, who turned them over to the American Schools of Oriental Research. One of these scrolls was identified as the book of Isaiah, written 2,000 years ago—1,000 years older than any known manuscript of any Hebrew Old Testament book. It is a scroll, written in ancient Hebrew script on parchment . . . It was made in the 2nd century B.C. . . . the Dead Sea Scrolls of Isaiah are essentially the same as the book of Isaiah in our Bible—a voice from 2,000 years ago confirming the integrity of our Bible. William F. Albright called this “the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times.” “ — Henry H. Halley, Halley’s Bible Handbook, Zondervan Publishing House, 1962
This shows that the Jews were extremely careful in copying the Bible and that the Bible had not been tempered or distorted throughout the years even though it was handed down as copies for a long time. Josephus, a Jewish historian in the 1st century AD, wrote about how the Jews regarded the Bible, in the “Against Apion” Book 1. His testimony, too, shows that the original text of the Bible has been preserved without any alteration.
“ Book I. AGAINST APION. [A]nd how firmly we have given credit to these books of our own nation, is evident by what we do; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one hath been so bold as either to add anything to them, to take anything from them, or to make any change in them; but it is become natural to all Jews, immediately and from their very birth, to esteem those books to contain divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be, willingly to die for them. For it is no new thing for our captives, many of them in number, and frequently in time, to be seen to endure racks and deaths of all kinds upon the theatres, that they may not be obliged to say one word, against our laws and the records that contain them: “ — Flavius Josephus, Complete Works of Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews, the Wars of the Jews Against Apion, etc., Volume 4, 1924, p. 419
New Testament
The New Testament was recorded in the Apostolic Age during the 1st century. As the disciples who witnessed Jesus’ life and resurrection died one by one, it was necessary to write Jesus’ work and preserve it.[4]
On top of that, church leaders, including apostles, could not frequently visit the churches established in each region. In order to build up the faith of the members, they sent letters to the churches. The members made copies of these letters and shared them with other churches.[5][6][7][8]They were later bound together to form the New Testament of today.
The New Testament was written by Jesus’ apostles (Matthew, John, Peter, Paul) and the people who worked hard for the gospel with them (Mark, Luke, James, and Jude), and it was widely read for a long time in many churches. Churches acknowledged these books as the Bible in order to follow teachings of Jesus and the apostles.
See also
External links
- "Why Is the Bible God’s Word?" Christ Ahnsahnghong Official Website