Walking with Jesus
~~ Brookings church of Christ sermons - 2021
~~
January 24, 2021 sermon
Can you Trust
the Bible as God’s word?
prepared
by Jim Mettenbrink
[printable PDF of sermon outline][audio MP3 -- approx. 34 min.]
[printable PDF of Jim’s handout of his chart “Time
Lapse – The Important Criterium in determining the Reliability
of Writings”]
[review January 17, 2021 sermon]
[advance to January 31, 2021 sermon]
-- begin sermon
outline (jump to beginning of chart
handout) --
[EGW editor: please
note these abbreviations Jim uses in his sermon outline —
“OT” = Old Testament; “NT” = New Testament;
“BC” refers to years before Christ’s birth; “AD”
refers to years after Christ’s birth; “DS” = Dead
Sea; “MT” = Massoretic; “mss” = manuscript
/ manuscripts]
Introduction: In our
series on Who God is and What He is, we have been considering
the Word being manifested in flesh and why the Word had to become
Jesus, a human being – God in the flesh. Christianity
based on one thing what one person did, not what was said –
Jesus’ resurrection. Apostle Paul stated – we
are the “most
pitiable” of
men if Jesus did not rise (1 Corinthians 15:17-19).
Your responsibility to tell the
lost how you know Jesus rose 1 Pe 3:15 “But sanctify the Lord
God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense
to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in
you,with meekness and fear;”
This is a command to each of us – that you know what
and why you believe Jesus is God and the Savior from our sins.
Last week in considering the proof
that Jesus is God, the risen Savior, in part we looked at Acts
1:1-3 “The
former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began
both to do and teach, until the day in which He was taken up,
after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the
apostles whom He had chosen, to whom He also presented Himself
alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs,
being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things
pertaining to the kingdom of God.”
Luke’s intro claimed it was
credible based on eyewitness accounts. Luke 1:1-4
“Inasmuch
as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those
things which have been fulfilled among us, just as those who
from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the
word delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having
had perfect understanding of all things from the very first,
to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus,
that you may know the certainty of those things in which
you were instructed.”
But what if someone asks you, “How do you know the
Bible is the one that was written 2000 years ago?” This
question is especially relevant to today in the USA. 30%
of Americans believe the Bible is just another book by men. Another
15% believe it is from God but has factual and historical errors
in it. That is a challenge to whether we have the Bible
as originally written.
In order for people to believe
Jesus is the Savior, they need to have confidence that the Bible
is accurate and true. Apologists call this the “reliability”
and the “credibility” of the Bible. The reliability
of history means “Do we have what was originally recorded
some 2000 years later?” When you read various histories
of the same event they are often revised. Usually these
variances are the result of the authors’ bias or ignorance.
Rarely are authors truly objective – simply recording
what has happened.
Regarding reliability a modern
day example. “History!” Almost everything
has been revised. Do we have what was originally written
or has it been amended or edited. Has the original Bible
been transmitted to us reliability, i.e., accurately? In order
for a person to have confidence that what the Bible says is true,
actually begins with the reliability of transmission over 2k
years. To compound that question is the fact that the ancients
did not have copy machines, or duplication of any technical ability.
That did not begin until the printing press nearly 1500
years after Jesus walked on earth. Until then, all scripture
was hand-written. That alone would challenge accuracy from
one copy to the next especially through the centuries. We
will set out to show that we can confidently trust the Bible
as accurate as the original.
I. Old Testament Reliability
A. Dead Sea Scrolls –
1947 – every OT book except Esther. The OT Hebrew
mss are dated to 100BC
B. Until 1947 the oldest
was AD916 – Massoretic
1. Word for word
comparison between DS scrolls and MT is the same in than 95%
of the cases
a. The
5% variation consists mostly of slips of the pen and spelling.
2. Complete copy
of Isaiah & a fragmented copy of Isaiah (much of Isaiah chapters
38-46)
3. Comparison
of Isaiah chapter 53 shows that only 17 letters differ from the
Massoretic text.
a. Out
of 166 words in Isaiah 53, only 1 word is in question no change
in meaning of the passage.
b. Biblical
scholars – typical of the whole Isaiah mss.
II. NT Reliability
(Handout)
A. Nearly 6000 Greek manuscripts
B. Translations – 10,000
Latin and 9,000 other (Coptic, Ethiopian, Armenian, Syrian (Aramaic)
– total over
25,000 mss copies or portions of the NT.
1. Dated from
100 to 300 years after the originals.
C. Early fragments:
1. John Ryland
mss AD130 (Egypt)
2. Bodmer mss
– most of John’s gospel AD 150-200.
D. Comparison with other
ancient documents (available copies versus the originals):
1. Caesar’s
Wars –10 copies – 1000 year gap
2. Tacitus –
20 copies – 1000 year gap
3. Plato –
7 copies – 1200 year gap
4. Summary –
1000 times more NT evidence than classical writings of that time
E. Early Church Fathers
1. Clement of
Rome (a disciple of the apostles) cited Matthew, John, and 1
Corinthians in AD95 to 97
2. Ignatius (who
knew the apostles well) referred to six Pauline Epistles in about
110.
3. Polycarp (disciple
of the apostle John) quoted Gospels, Acts, & most of Paul’s
Epistles from 110 to 150
4. Taitian’s
harmony of the Four Gospels completed in 160
5. Irenaeus quoted
Matthew, John, Acts, and 1 Corinthians 160
6. Of the four
Gospels alone, there are 19,368 citations from the late first
century on.
•
If no mss the entire NT (except 11 verses) could be reconstructed
from these quotations.
Conclusion: Oct 4,
2018 – Daniel Wallace. Addressed four questions.
1. How many
textual variants are there?
2. What kinds
of text variants?
3. What theological
beliefs are textually suspect?
4. Has the essence
of Christian faith been affected?
5% of the text are variants. 99%
of the variants make no difference in meaning. 5/1000 effect
meaning. 1/1000 of variances change meaning of the text
– none effect core doctrine of the Bible.
The relatively short time lapse
from the original writing to the earliest extant¹ mss and
the meticulous scribal rules give us mss that are reliable. We
are assured we have the Bible in hand as it was written.
[¹ EGW editor: dictionary.com
defines “extant” as meaning “in existence; still
existing; not destroyed or lost” — for example: “There
are only three extant copies of the document.”]
-- begin chart
handout (jump to beginning
of sermon outline)
--
Time Lapse – The Important
Criterium in determining the Reliability of Writings
This is a comparison of the time
lapse from the event to the earliest existing manuscripts –
New Testament manuscripts and ancient secular writings.
The number of materials for the New Testament becomes even more
significant when we compare it with other ancient documents which
have been accepted without question. [EGW
editor: “ca.” = abbreviation for “circa”
indicating “approximately”.]
Author and
Work |
Author’s
Lifespan |
Date of Events |
Date of
Writing* |
Earliest
Extant
MS** |
Lapse: Event
to Writing |
Lapse: Event
to MS |
|
Matthew |
ca. 0-70? |
4 BC-AD 30 |
50 - 65/75 |
ca. 200 |
<50 years |
<200 years |
|
Mark |
ca. 15-90? |
27-30 |
65/70 |
ca. 225 |
<50 years |
<200 years |
|
Luke |
ca. 10-80? |
5 BC-AD 30 |
60/75 |
ca. 200 |
<50 years |
<200 years |
|
John |
ca. 10-100 |
27-30 |
90-110 |
ca. 130 |
<80 years |
<100 years |
|
Paul, Letters |
ca. 0-65 |
30 |
50-65 |
ca. 200 |
20-30 years |
<200 years |
|
Josephus, War |
ca. 37-100 |
200 BC-AD 70 |
ca. 80 |
ca. 950 |
10-300 years |
900-1200 years |
|
Josephus, Antiquities |
ca. 37-100 |
200 BC-AD 65 |
ca. 95 |
ca. 1050 |
30-300 years |
1000-1300years |
|
Tacitus, Annals |
ca. 56-120 |
AD 14-68 |
100-120 |
ca. 850 |
30-100 years |
800-850 years |
|
Seutonius, Lives |
ca. 69-130 |
50 BC-AD 95 |
ca. 120 |
ca. 850 |
25-170 years |
750-900 years |
|
Pliny, Letters |
ca. 60-115 |
97-112 |
110-112 |
ca. 850 |
0-3 years |
725-750 years |
|
Plutarch, Lives |
ca. 50-120 |
500 BC-AD 70 |
ca. 100 |
ca. 950 |
30-600 years |
850-1500 years |
|
Herodotus, History |
ca. 485-425 BC |
546-478 BC |
430-425 BC |
ca. 900 |
50-125 years |
1400-1450years |
|
Thucydides, History |
ca. 460-400 BC |
431-411 BC |
410-400 BC |
ca. 900 |
0-30 years |
1300-1350years |
|
Xenophon, Anabasis |
ca. 430-355 BC |
401-399 BC |
385-375 BC |
ca. 1350 |
15-25 years |
1750 years |
|
Polybius, History |
ca. 200-120 BC |
220-168 BC |
ca. 150 BC |
ca. 950 |
20-70 years |
1100-1150years |
* Where a slash occurs, the first
date is conservative, and the second is liberal.
** New Testament manuscripts are
fragmentary. Earliest complete manuscript is from ca. 350;
lapse ofevent to the complete manuscript is about 325 years.
The Dead Sea Scrolls
In 1947 Qumran near the valley
of the Dead Sea, a goat herdsman found clay jars in caves. Inside
the
jars were some leather scrolls. The “Dead Sea Scrolls”
include a complete copy of the Book of Isaiah, a
fragmented copy of Isaiah (much of Isaiah 38-46), and fragments
of almost every book in the Old
Testament. The majority of the fragments are from Isaiah
and the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). The books of Samuel
and two complete chapters of the book of
Habakkuk were also found. The Dead Sea scrolls are dated
to 100 BC.
Significance “This
complete document of Isaiah antedates by more than a thousand
years the oldest
Hebrew texts preserved in the Massoretic tradition.”
A comparison of the Qumran manuscript
of Isaiah with the Massoretic text (10th cent AD) revealed
them to be extremely close in accuracy to each other: ‘A
comparison of Isaiah 53 shows that only 17
letters differ from the Massoretic text. Ten of these are
mere differences in spelling (like our “honor” and
the English “honour”) and produce no change in the
meaning at all. Four more are very minor
differences, such as the presence of a conjunction (and) which
are stylistic rather than substantive. The
other three letters are the Hebrew word for “light.”
This word was added to the text by someone after
“they shall see” in verse 11. Out of 166 words
in this chapter, only this one word is really in question,
and it does not at all change the meaning of the passage. We
are told by biblical scholars that this is
typical of the whole manuscript of Isaiah.’
The Septuagint (200-280
BC) (LXX) is the translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into
Greek by 70
Jewish scholars in Alexandria Egypt. Some Old Testament
citations by Jesus are from the LXX.
The LXX appears to be a rather
literal translation from the Hebrew, and the manuscripts we have
are
good copies of the original translation. Earliest mss of
Septuagint is Vaticanus, the 4th century mss of the
Bible.
The Greek Manuscript Evidence
There are nearly 6000 different
ancient Greek manuscripts containing all or portions of the New
Testament that have survived to our time. These are written
on different materials.
Examples — Codex Vaticanus
and Codex Siniaticus – These are two excellent parchment
copies of the entire New
Testament which date from the 4th century (AD325-450).
Older Papyrii — Earlier
still, fragments and papyrus copies of portions of the New Testament
date from
100 to 200 years (AD180-225) before Vaticanus and Sinaticus.
The outstanding ones are the Chester
Beatty Papyrus (P45, P46, P47) and the Bodmer Papyrus II, XIV,
XV (P46, P75).
From these five manuscripts alone, we can construct all
of Luke, John, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians,
Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians,
Hebrews, and portions of
Matthew, Mark, Acts, and Revelation. Only the Pastoral
Epistles (Titus, 1 and 2 Timothy) and the
General Epistles (James, 1 and 2 Peter, and 1, 2, and 3 John)
and Philemon are excluded.
Oldest Fragment — Perhaps
the earliest fragment is a papyrus codex found in Egypt containing
John
18:31-33 and 37. It is called the Rylands Papyrus (P52)
(AD130).
-- jump to beginning of
sermon outline
--
-- jump to beginning of chart handout --
[printable PDF
of sermon outline][audio MP3 -- approx. 34 min.]
[printable PDF of Jim’s handout of his chart “Time
Lapse – The Important Criterium in determining the Reliability
of Writings”]
[review January 17, 2021 sermon]
[advance to January 31, 2021 sermon] |