Most have played the whisper game often called, "Telephone," in which one person whispers a message to another, which is passed through a line of people until the last player announces the message to the entire group. Most of the time the final message is nothing like the original. This is what many people perceive has happened to the Bible, and so their assumption is that Bible we have today is not what was originally written down.
Fortunately, this is not the case. The ancient scribes were very meticulous and careful in making copies. Here are some of the rules they followed:
The scroll must be written on the skin of a clean animal.
Each skin must contain a specified number of columns, equal throughout the entire book.
The length of each column must extend no less than forty-eight lines or more than sixty lines.
The column breadth must consist of exactly thirty letters.
The space of a thread must appear between every consonant.
The breadth of nine consonants had to be inserted between each section.
A space of three lines had to appear between each book.
The fifth book of Moses (Deuteronomy) had to conclude exactly with a full line.
Nothing – not even the shortest word – could be copied from memory, it had to be copied letter by letter.
The scribe must count the number times each letter of the alphabet occurred in each book and compare it to the original.
If a manuscript was found to contain even one mistake, it was discarded.
Dr. F. F. Bruce is Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester. Dr. Bruce states in his book, that the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament) written about 200 BC helps to establish the reliability of the Old Testament’s transmission through 1,300 years when compared with the Massoretic Text (916 AD) we have today. Regarding the New Testament, he says the following, “There is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament.” To understand what he means, just compare the New Testament to other ancient writings and you will see there is no comparison. For example, the ancient book, “History of Herodotus” was written in 425 B.C., but the date of the earliest known manuscript is over 1,300 years afterwards dating to 900 A.D., and we only have eight manuscript copies. Another ancient book is, Josephus’ “Jewish Wars”. It was written in 70 A.D., but the date of the earliest known manuscript is 400 A.D. We have 9 manuscripts of this book. One more example, the ancient book, “Histories of Tacitus”, was written in 100 A.D., but the date of the earliest known manuscript is from 800 years later in 900 A.D. Only two manuscripts exist of this book. So, what about the New Testament? It was written between 35 and 100 A.D, and the earliest known manuscript is just 25 years later from 125 A.D. There are 24,633 known manuscripts of the New Testament. As you can see, other books of antiquity do not compare. The bottom line is what we hold as the Bible today, can be trusted to be the same as it originally was written.
One bit of evidence that the Bible is the truth is simply that the Bible contains many scientific facts. Facts that the majority of the world did not believe at the time they were written. Examples:
The Bible talks about the water cycle long before scientific discoveries suggested one exists. Ecclesiastes 1:7 says, “All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.” Amos 9:6 says, “He… calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth…
For many more scientific facts of the Bible I recommend reading “Scientific Facts in the Bible” by Ray Comfort
We can also look to historical prophecies to see the truth of the Bible. The Bible contains many historical prophecies. One of these is recorded in the book of Daniel. Daniel 11:2-4 says, "And now I will tell you the truth. Behold, three more kings are going to arise in Persia. Then a fourth will gain far more riches than all of them; as soon as he becomes strong through his riches, he will arouse the whole empire against the realm of Greece. 3 And a mighty king will arise, and he will rule with great authority and do as he pleases. 4 But as soon as he has arisen, his kingdom will be broken up and parceled out toward the four points of the compass, though not to his own descendants, nor according to his authority which he wielded, for his sovereignty will be uprooted and given to others besides them."
The prophecies in Daniel 11:2-4 were recorded in 535 B.C. All right, so what happened? Three kings just as predicted: the first king, Ahasuerus, is known as Cambyses, reigned from 529 to 522 B.C. The second king, Pseudo-Smerdis, reigned from 522 to 521 B.C. The third king, Darius Hystaspes, reigned from 521 to 485 B.C. As predicted, the fourth king was very rich: Xerxes, the son of Darius Hystaspes, and he reigned from 485 to 465 B.C. His wealth enabled him to build up vast armies and send them out very well supplied. Xerxes stirred up the Persians against Greece, and in 480 B.C. he invaded Greece with a huge army and navy. He was defeated, and that defeat started the end of the Persian Empire.
Alexander the Great comes on the scene in 336 B.C., 200 years after the prophecy was given, and quickly builds a vast empire.
What does verse 4 say again? "But as soon as he has arisen, his kingdom will be broken up and parceled out toward the four points of the compass, though not to his own descendants, nor according to his authority which he wielded, for his sovereignty will be uprooted and given to others besides them." What happens with Alexander the Great? He gets sick and dies and his family fights over control of the empire and they all die. The empire is divided among his four generals, not family members, just as predicted.
Isn’t that amazing? It is so incredible to see God’s word come alive in history.
What about the New Testament? We know we can trust the New Testament because the writers of the New Testament wrote as eye witnesses or recorded eye witness accounts. Not only that, but the events recorded were presented in front of hostile witnesses. What does that mean? That means people who did not believe as the disciples of Jesus did, yet were still witnesses to the events they wrote about. Therefore, if the disciples said anything that was not accurate, the hostile witnesses would have spoken up regarding the inaccuracy, and say, "No, I was there, that is not how it happened."
Finally, we can know that we can trust what the Apostles wrote by examining their lives. Matthew 26:55-56 reveals to us that all of Jesus's disciples fled upon the arrest of Jesus. John 18:16-17 tells us that the leader of the disciples, Peter, even denied knowing Jesus when he was accused of being a disciple of Jesus. Once Jesus died, all of his disciples went to a house with an upper room where they hid for fear of the Jews. These were the biggest bunch of cowards, of spineless wimps, ever assembled in a single place. Once Jesus rose from the dead, he had to go to the disciples and reveal himself. Then, what happens? The disciples go to the temple, yes, the Jewish temple, singing praises to God. Then, after Jesus spends time with them, reveals Himself to over 500 people, and ascends to heaven, and sends the Holy Spirit to be with the disciples, their transformation from spineless wimps to courageous Apostles is complete. It is nothing other than a miracle. Each of the Apostles became courageous witnesses of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Each of them, except the Apostle John, died a martyr’s death, but they all lived their lives for the sake of Christ Jesus. No one does that for the sake of a lie.