The Gospel writer Mark reports that as Jesus was leaving the Temple in Jerusalem, one of His disciples said to Him, "Look Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!" Jesus replied, "Do you see all these great buildings? Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down." (Mark 13:2, but also Matthew 24:2 and Luke 21:6). Jesus proceeded to the Mount of Olives where the disciples, stirred by His prediction, asked when this would happen and what would be the sign of His coming at the end of the age. While giving a lengthy apocalyptic reply, Jesus also declared that "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words shall not." (St. Matthew 24:35; St. Mark 13:31; St. Luke 21:33)

The Bible was accepted as true for centuries on the basis of its internal testimony, like the verse above. (See also, Psalms 119:89, 144, 152, 160; Isaiah 40:8; 55:11; St. Matthew 5:18; St. Luke 16:17; and I Peter 1:23.) Then, with the decline of Christianity's influence, the accuracy of the Bible was seriously challenged, first by individuals, then especially by scholars starting first in the 19th century. Among other things they asked "Were there Hittites?" The Bible spoke of them. For instance, Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, was a Hittite. However, at that time there was no extra-Biblical evidence that Hittites existed; frankly there had not been a need for such evidence.

Critics claimed, with no evidence, that both the Old and New Testaments were written much later, after the Bible narratives had passed orally from generation to generation. Thus these stories could be distorted and embellished over time as they were told and retold. Who Wrote the Bible? (pictured on the right), is a modern version of their challenge to Bible authorship.

One response was archaeology in and around Jerusalem. Ongoing archaeological discoveries have turned up plenty of extra-Biblical evidence for the Hittites. Similarly, evidence has been found for David, Solomon, Pontius Pilate, and other people and places recorded in the Bible. For example, there is an article in the 1994 Biblical Archaeological Review on the discovery of an inscription referring to the "House of David." So far, archaeological finds have supported rather than disproved the Bible.

A second response to the critics' challenge was finding ancient Bibles. Some important ones are: Codex Vaticanus (325-350 A.D.), Codex Sinaiticus (350 A.D.), Codex Alexandrinus (400 A.D.), and Codex Washingtonensis (c450 A.D.). These Bibles are the basis for the modern ones. They were written on vellum, a thin animal skin especially prepared for writing. Vellum is still used for special occasions. Some diplomas today are printed on it and I know of some wedding invitations that were sent out on vellum.

Codex Sinaiticus: This MSS, which contains almost all the N.T. (lacks Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11) and over half of the O.T., was discovered by L.F.Tischendorf in the Mount Sinai Monastery in 1844 and presented by the Monastery to the Russian Tsar in 1859. The British Government and people bought it from the Soviet Union for 100,000 pounds on Christmas Day, 1933. ⁽¹⁾ Sharon and I saw it, along with Alexandrinus on display, in the British Museum some 20 years ago.

On a visit to Washington, D.C., I went to the Freer Gallery of Art, which is one of the museums of the Smithsonian Institution. Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919) was a Detroit businessman who used his fortune to collect Oriental and American art. When he died, he donated his collection to the Smithsonian. He also collected Early Christian manuscripts. One is the Codex Washingtonensis. It, like the other ones, is written in capital Greek letters.

These Bibles caused the critics to shorten their time frames, but they still stuck to their claim that the Bible, especially the New Testament, was written long after the apostles died.

A third response was finding old papyri. Papyrus is made from reeds that grow in the Nile River. It is cheaper than vellum and is more fragile, but it preserves well in dry climates, like that of Egypt. Therefore, ancient Biblical papyri are more beat up with time than the vellums and are also rare because of persecutions of Christians. Roman persecution of Christians and destruction of their sacred books lasted up to and including the last great one by the Emperor Diocletian (d. 316 A.D.).

An important papyrus is John Ryland P⁵² (130 A.D.). Because of its early date and location in Egypt, which is some distance from the traditional place of composition in Asia Minor, this portion of the gospel of John supports the traditional date of the composition of the gospel at around the end of the 1st century. ⁽²⁾ Bruce Metzger speaks of defunct criticism: "Had this little fragment been known during the middle of the past century, that school of New Testament criticism which was inspired by the brilliant Tubingen professor, Ferdinand Christian Baur, could not have argued that the Fourth Gospel was not composed until about the year 160." ⁽³⁾

Chester Beatty: P⁶⁶ (150 A.D.), is also a fragment of St. John. The rest of P⁶⁶ is in the Bodmer Library near Geneva. Sharon and I saw it when we went to the Chester Beatty Library during our visit to Dublin. We saw it on display along with the other Beatty papyri.

Alfred Chester Beatty (1875-1968) was an American mining engineer who, like Freer, used his fortune to collect art and manuscripts. He moved to Great Britain, and a restored 18th century building near Dublin castle is where his donated collection can be seen.

Chester Beatty BP II (200 A.D.) consists of the letters of St. Paul. This is the second significant New Testament papyrus in the Beatty collection. "Fifty-six pages of this codex were acquired by Chester Beatty, while thirty pages of the same book were purchased by the University of Michigan. Together, the Beatty and Michigan papyri make up an almost complete text of the Letters of St. Paul. Only four other known papyri contain portions of more than one of St. Paul's letters, and two of these are of a much later date. The early date and the fact that it contains almost the complete text of the Letters of St. Paul, make this codex (Chester Beatty Biblical Papyrus II, or P⁴⁶) extremely important for the study of the text of St. Paul's letters.

An unusual feature of this papyrus is the fact that the Epistle to the Hebrews is placed second in the order of the texts in the manuscript, between Romans and I Corinthians. Today, the Epistle to the Hebrews is generally considered not to have been written by St. Paul, and doubts as to whether he wrote it were expressed by several ancient theologians. The Beatty papyrus, however, indicates that at least in one area of Egypt at the start of the 3rd century, Hebrews was included as a genuine letter of St. Paul." ⁽⁴⁾

BP I (200-250 A.D.) is a collection of the Gospels. "One of the most striking of the Beatty papyri is this codex containing the four Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke and St. John, and the Acts of the Apostles (Chester Beatty Biblical Papyrus I, also known to scholars as P⁴⁵). Until its discovery, only small fragments of the single Gospels on papyrus were known, and it was believed that all four Gospels had not been collected into one book until a later date. This Beatty papyrus, dating from around A.D. 200-250, showed that the four Gospels and the Acts of the apostles had been compiled in one volume much earlier than many expected." ⁽⁵⁾ So some critics have had to revise their story.

BP III (250 A.D.), "the third New Testament papyrus acquired by Beatty in the early 1930s, contains chapters 9-17 of the Apocalypse, or Revelation of St. John (Chester Beatty Biblical Papyrus III, or P⁴⁷). It is probable that the codex originally contained the whole of the Book of Revelation, but the beginning and end of the manuscript have been lost. Nevertheless, the portion of the text that remains is the largest single portion of the text of Revelation to have been preserved on papyrus." ⁽⁶⁾ Because of these papyri and others, some scholars have had to revise their claims.

Response #4 was the serendipitous find of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which show the accuracy of the Old Testament. They date from 250 B.C. through 68 A.D. They are the most stunning find ever of early Biblical documents. Included in the find is possibly a fragment of Mark. Carson Thiede, a German scholar, thinks so and has dated this part of Mark, along with fragments of St. Matthew, to the 60's A.D. If so, then the information in these fragments would have been based on eyewitnesses, and therefore would not have been distorted due to oral transmission. Thiede's arguments were publicized in 1994 and the story of the subsequent theological debate was presented by the Learning Channel in "Eyewitness to Jesus." ⁽⁷⁾

Response #5 - Look at the books and information listed in the following Table. ⁽⁸⁾

AUTHORWhen Written Earliest Copy Time Span No. of Copies

Caesar 100-44 B.C. Earliest Copy 900 A.D. Time Span 1,000 yrs. 10 Copies

Plato (Tetralogies)427-347 B.C. Earliest Copy 900 A.D. Time Span 1,200 yrs. 7 Copies

Tacitus (Annals)100 A.D. Earliest Copy 1,100 A.D.Time Span 1,000 yrs. 20 Copies

Pliny the Younger (History) 61-113 A.D. Earliest Copy 850 A.D. 750 yrs. 7 Copies

Thucydides (History) 460-400 B.C. Earliest Copy 900 A.D. Time Span 1,300 yrs. 8 Copies

Suetonius (De Vita Caesarun) 75-160 A.D. Earliest Copy 950 A.D. Time Span 800 yrs. 8 Copies

Herodotus (History) 480-425 B.C. Earliest Copy 900 A.D. Time Span 1,300 yrs. 8 Copies

Sophocles 496-406 B.C.Earliest Copy 1,000 A.D. Time Span 1,400 yrs. 100 Copies

Lucretius Died 55 or 53 B.C. Earliest Copy 1,100 yrs. 2 Copies

Catullus 54 B.C. Earliest Copy 1,550 A.D. Time Span 1,600 yrs. 3 Copies

Euripedes 480-406 B.C.Earliest Copy 1,100 A.D. Time Span 1,500 yrs. 9 Copies

Demosthenes 383-322 B.C. Earliest Copy 1,100 A.D.Time Span 1,300 yrs. 200*

Aristotle 384-322 B.C.Earliest Copy 1,100 A.D. Time Span 1,400 yrs. 5+ Copies

Aristophanes 450-385 B.C. Earliest Copy 900 A.D. Time Span 1,200 yrs. 10 Copies

*All from one copy.

+Of any one work.

Taken from F.W. Hall, "MS Authorities for the Text of the Chief Classical Writers," Companion to Classical Text (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1913).

When compared to the books listed above, we see that the Bible has overwhelming documentary evidence. For example, look at Tacitus' Annals, 4th down on the list. There is a 1,000-year gap between the earliest copy and the original. Among other things, he reports that Pontius Pilate crucified Jesus during the reign of Tiberius, and gives details of Nero's persecution of Christians. Is it true? Has this report been distorted over time? How could we check it? These questions apply to all ancient books.

No other ancient book, however, comes close to the Biblical documentary evidence. Yet the Bible is constantly questioned, while these other books get a pass. Many so-called scholars are actually using a double standard. The Bible, especially the New Testament, is so well documented that it could be used as evidence to show that parts of Tacitus' Annals are correct and not distorted over time. As it is, the best account of sailing the Mediterranean during Roman times is in The Acts of the Apostles.

In light of this, and what we saw earlier, continued Biblical criticism has to be considered as ideologically based. Eta Linnemann argues this in her book, Historical Criticism of the Bible, Methodology or Ideology? (pictured on the right). She points out that the scholars who criticize the Bible assume that there is nothing supernatural. That is, they presume that there is no God and that miracles are impossible. She states that they late date the Gospel of Mark on the basis of Jesus' prediction that the Temple "will be thrown down" and "Not one stone here will be left on another." This happened in 70 A.D.

Since the critics operate on an anti-supernatural presupposition, they say Mark had to have been composed after 70 A.D. and then written made to look like Jesus had predicted the Temple's destruction. But what is the basis for their presupposition? If we define a miracle or a supernatural event as something that violates known laws of nature, then the Big Bang is a miracle. It claims that everything came from nothing. The Big Bang cannot be duplicated by any scientist and it violates known laws of nature. Of course, scientists don't call the Big Bang a miracle, but that is what it is. They just give it another name, calling it a singularity. Since the singularity of the Big Bang cannot be duplicated in a lab and violates known laws of nature, it is not science.

The Bible is not the stuff of legend in which miracles are the figments of imagination. It is a report of singularities, including the singularity that God created the Universe. It is better documented than any ancient book. It turns out that the Christian faith has a firm foundation.

References

1. 1.J. Anderson, The Bible the Word of God, Brighton.

2. 2.N.L. Geisler and W.E. Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible, Moody Press.

3. 3.Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, Oxford University Press.

4. 4.D.H. Edgar, Treasuring the Word, An Introduction to Biblical Manuscripts in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin: Town House, 2003.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. 7.R. Pollock, Director, Director Discovery Communications, 1998. Available on videotape at www.discovery.com.

8. 8.Taken from F.W. Hall, "MS Authorities for the Text of the Chief Classical Writers," Companion to Classical Text (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1913).