The Historical Reliability of the Old Testament

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But equally impressive is the accuracy of the Old Testament, because the Old Testament text predates the New Testament by more than 400 years.</div> <bR> <div> The accuracy of the Old Testament does not draw its strength from the vast quantity of extant copies. This was the strength of the New Testament text. Instead, the Old Testament integrity is based upon the reverent and</div> <div> meticulous care the ancient Jewish scholars ascribed to God's Word.</div> <bR> <div> Because the Old Testament text was recorded on perishable material, papyrus, parchment or vellum, it was necessary to continually make copies to preserve God*s Word. Of course you can see the obvious danger. Each copy could easily have a few.  And if the errors continue as more copies are made at a later date, then the original text would be vastly changed through the centuries. How could one's faith be grounded in such a tentative document?</div> <bR> <div> But the Jewish scholars and scribes revered God's Word. They established elaborate systems whereby errors were almost impossible to commit thereby insuring and assuring the absolute integrity of the text.</div> <bR> <div> The Talmudists (100-500 A.D.), for example, established approximately 17 criteria for copying any Scripture. Each criteria insured both the copier's reverence and the accuracy in the task.</div> <bR> <div> The Massoretes (500-900 A.D.) devised a complicated system of safeguards against scribal slips. "They counted, for example, the number of times each letter of the alphabet occurs in each book; they pointed out the middle letter of the more detailed calculations than these." (<U>Ancient and English Versions of the Bible</U>, Wheeler Robinson). Therefore, as the copy was being made, the scribes could systematically match not only letters but also an elaborate counting system which could be matched against the original.</div> <bR> <div> Concerning the accuracy of the transmission of the Hebrew text, Atkinson, the</div> <div> Under-Librarian of the library at Cambridge University says, "[It is] little short of miraculous."</div> <bR> <div> However, the integrity of the Old Testament text was also established by an objective source, The Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947 by a Bedouin shepherd boy, eight miles south of Jericho. These scrolls dated to the first century A.D. Included in the find was a complete manuscript of the Hebrew text of Isaiah. So here was the challenge.</div> <bR> <div> If the Jewish scribes were faithful to their reverent task of copying the Hebrew text then it should match closely with this 2000 year old document of Isaiah. Scholars found that the Hebrew text of Isaiah which we possess today was, word for word, 95% identical with the text from the Dead Sea scrolls. The 5% which differed were credited to obvious slips of the pen or variations in spelling (<U>A Survey of the Old Testament</U>, Archer, Gleason)</div> <bR> <div> What a credit to the Jewish copyists! Two thousand years of nearly perfect copies. And surely if the Jewish scribes had taken such meticulous care of the Scriptures in the past 2000 years, there is no reason to believe that their tradition did not extend back in time to the original documents. What gratitude we all owe to these reverent Jewish men.</div> <bR> <div> Truly the Old Testament is a unique document in all human history.<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >  </FONT><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Algerian" >C Debelak</FONT></div> <bR> <bR> <div> Return to:</div> <div> <A HREF="id149.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Harvest"><U><B>The Harvest</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id150.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Testimonies"><U><B>Testimonies</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id154.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Gospel Tracts"><U><B>Gospel Tracts</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id633.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Gospel Tracts by CTR"><U><B>Gospel Tracts by CTR</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id765.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Streams In The Desert"><U><B>Streams In The Desert</B></U></A></div> <div> see also:  <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#BF0000" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.gospelgreeting.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.gospelgreeting.com"><U>www.gospelgreeting.com</U></A></FONT></div> </td> </tr></table></body>