For the person who wants to know that there is reason to believe a holy book--that there is evidence to back it up--different areas of apologetics have those answers. In fact, there is more evidence for the truthfulness of the Bible today than ever before, excepting when the events actually occurred. This particular exercise assumes the person searching for a legitimate holy book already believes that there is a deity of some sort. For part one of this series, we will look at the Old Testament, how it was written and copied and what historical and archaeological evidences there are for it. Other parts will cover the New Testament in like fashion, prophecies fulfilled in both testaments, and Judeo-Christian miracles (including the resurrection) compared to other miracle claims. All of these necessarily concise essays will attempt to cover only the most useful and relevant facets.
How was the Old Testament written and copied? What we Christians refer to as the Old Testament is the same as the Jewish Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, called the Tanakh. The content of the Tanakh and the Septuagint is the same, though they are formatted differently. The Old Testament follows the same formatting as the Septuagint. The Septuagint was translated from about 250 BC to 150 or 100 BC and was used by the scattered Jews of the diaspora.
The Tanakh itself was written from about 1400-400 BC. Moses and other prophets were believed to carry the word of God because of the signs (miracles) they did, coupled with their openness (“transparency”). Moses was obviously literate, and because of his high upbringing, may have been literate in three languages. He no doubt, along with the people in general, knew the stories of other cultures and had copies of various source documents. Moses’ telling and retelling of events was considered God inspired.
At the time of Christ, the books of the Tanakh were well established and accepted as canon. Those who copied the Tanakh beginning AD 70 (after the destruction of the temple) were called Talmudists. They had very specific rules for transmitting the Tanakh. Because damaged copies of the Tanakh were purposefully destroyed, very old copies do not exist. The Massoretes (or Masoretes) were the copyists for the Tanakh from AD 500 – 900. They, too, had very specific rules for copying, and any imperfect copies were destroyed. They are noted for adding marks to the text that represent vowels, as Hebrew did not have vowels and concern was growing over the continued pronunciation of the language. Whoever the copyists were through time, they all took God’s command in Deuteronomy 12:32 very seriously: “See that you do all I command you; do not add to it or take away from it.”
There have been archaeological finds in recent centuries to confirm the historicity of the Old Testament, and the Dead Sea scrolls also confirm accurate copy transmission. With the 200+ scrolls that date from approximately 250 BC to AD 125, we have the oldest copies of scripture. With these we now know that the accuracy of transmission is nearly 100%. A Qumran copy of Isaiah 53 has only three truly variant letters (not words!) from the more recent Massoretic text, and these three letters do not change the text meaning in any real way. There are many archaeological finds that corroborate the OT of which these represent only a sample:
- The Moabite Stone. Mentions “Yahweh” and events in 2 Kings 3.
- The Taylor Prism. From Nineveh, it describes the siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib and corresponds to 2 Kings 18-19, 2 Chronicles 37, and Isaiah 36-37.
- The Cyrus Cylinder. After Cyrus began ruling Babylon (539 BC), he ordered that Babylonian captives could return home. This is told of in Ezra 1:1-3 and 6:3 (see also 2 Chronicles 36:23 and Isaiah 44:28).
- The Tel Dan Stele. This is an Aramaic inscription found in Israel. It is about Hazael’s victory over Ramoth Gilead, as in 2 Kings 8:28-29, and conveys that David’s dynasty ruled in Jerusalem.
- The Gilgamesh Epic. Found in the great library of Nineveh, it in part describes a flood not unlike that in Genesis 7-8.
Continue in this series with New Testament reliability. This article was edited slightly on July 11, 2011.
Sources: Doug Powell, Holman QuickSource Guide to Christian Apologetics (2006), and Gary E. Yates, “Bible, Transmission of,” in The Popular Encyclopedia of Apologetics (2008, pp. 107-110). Photo: HenrikB, Image 346089 at Stock.xchng
Comments
I find it interesting that you cite the Epic of Gilgamesh as evidence in favor of the biblical flood.
Do you ascribe to the view that it was a local event only?
I am surprised that you mentioned the local flood thing. Most people I have met do not even think that. I am a local flood believer myself, and it is interesting that she mentioned that about the Epic of Gilgamesh.
there were many accounts pertaining to that time frame for a flood event in the middle east, though scholars say the Epic of Gilgamesh came first, but who knows if we will find even early recording of it.
I have not made up my mind about that, KM. I haven't looked into the arguments for a local flood lately because it's not a burning issue with me. From what I remember, however, there is evidence in different parts of the world for a massive flood. But like I said, I'm not up on that, so . . .
I was just curious.
Given that the Epic is traditionally dated to be older than Genesis and the similarities between the two, I typically see it showing up when people are trying to argue that Genesis has a more mundane origin. Something more like the documentary hypothesis.
I think it interesting that you start with the assumption that the reader is a theist. Of course, once you've "gotten over" the hurdle of believing things for which there no good grounds to suppose true, adding particular mythologies is much easier.
That there is some historic and archeologic confirmation of some parts of the Bible isn't surprising. Part of it is chronicle, some presentation of ancient political propaganda, and its likely that events that were known to the authors would be included. None of it demonstrates any of the supernatural element overlaid on the stories. A good historical basis for the Exodus is one interesting mystery, for example. Something happened. We just don't know what, to whom, when etc.
A lot of my articles do not assume that a person is a theist first. It depends on what I'm writing. At least I spelled it out at the beginning. Can I not choose to write an article for theists if I want? Can I not choose to write an article directed toward atheists if I want?
This is why there is not much use listening to anti-theists. They make all kinds of statements and arguments that try to redirect from the point.
As for the rest of your comments: there is evidence for the Exodus, yes, but if you want to think that the Israelites just made everything up - including all the stuff that actually makes them look BAD - then that's up to you. If you don't want to seek God, that's up to you. No one is twisting your arm. Christians used to get put down for over-zealous proselytizing (which, in reality, few people did), but now, even if we direct an article at theists, we STILL get accused of something along those lines. LOL.
Maybe this one is best not left open for discussion. You draw too many trolls! Sigh. Keep up the good work!
I turned the commenting off and came back to check the article out, and all the comments were still here. The old system is not synched with the new system. I remember now that I had to ask our manager to take a certain comment off by someone since it is messed up now. I thought by now that this would be fixed.
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