Is the Bible True: The Dead Sea Scrolls
The importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls, in basic terms, is that the more "modern" copies of the Bible used for the translations we use today, were proven accurate!
Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, many critics and cynics claimed that the Bible that is in use would have greatly differed from the one that was originally written due to transcription errors and human editorializing. To their credit, there is much evidence of this in other"holy" books. The Koran has been greatly altered due to editorializing and transcription errors in the 1500 years (approximately) of its existance. Even the Book of Morman (written sometime around 1830) has been greatly altered due to editorializing of its content.
The prior oldest copies of the Hebrew Scriptures (which make up the Old Testament of the Christian Bible) were dated near 1000 AD. The originals were written between 1500 and 400 BC. So, seeing as how "similar" books had changed in much shorter times, the scholars assumed that the Bible of 1000 AD would be entirely different from the original.
Then the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. The Dead Sea Scrolls included a complete copy of the Book of Isaiah, and another nearly complete copy. These were dated to about 100 BC, a difference of over 1000 years! Scholars were certain that these would not even be close to the 1000 AD versions. They were very suprised to find that they were nearly identical! The only "errors" were some spelling variations and some minor grammer differences that do not alter the meanings.
Because of the nearly 6000 greek copies of the New Testament, made near (within a 100 years or so) the originals, and the thousands of citations in other writings (it has been said that the New Testament could be entirely reconstructed from the writing of the early church fathers quoting it in their own letters), it has never been seriously disputed.
Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, many critics and cynics claimed that the Bible that is in use would have greatly differed from the one that was originally written due to transcription errors and human editorializing. To their credit, there is much evidence of this in other"holy" books. The Koran has been greatly altered due to editorializing and transcription errors in the 1500 years (approximately) of its existance. Even the Book of Morman (written sometime around 1830) has been greatly altered due to editorializing of its content.
The prior oldest copies of the Hebrew Scriptures (which make up the Old Testament of the Christian Bible) were dated near 1000 AD. The originals were written between 1500 and 400 BC. So, seeing as how "similar" books had changed in much shorter times, the scholars assumed that the Bible of 1000 AD would be entirely different from the original.
Then the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. The Dead Sea Scrolls included a complete copy of the Book of Isaiah, and another nearly complete copy. These were dated to about 100 BC, a difference of over 1000 years! Scholars were certain that these would not even be close to the 1000 AD versions. They were very suprised to find that they were nearly identical! The only "errors" were some spelling variations and some minor grammer differences that do not alter the meanings.
Because of the nearly 6000 greek copies of the New Testament, made near (within a 100 years or so) the originals, and the thousands of citations in other writings (it has been said that the New Testament could be entirely reconstructed from the writing of the early church fathers quoting it in their own letters), it has never been seriously disputed.
posted by Bryan at 5:42 AM
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