Table of Contents
Understanding God's word is of great importance to all who call on God's name. Study of the Bible is one of the primary ways that we learn to communicate with God.
The Bible stands alone in many ways. It is unique in:
popularity. Bible sales in North America: more than $500 million per year. The Bible is both the the all-time and year-to-year best seller!
authorship. It was written over a period of 1600 years by 40 different authors from different backgrounds, yet reads as if written by one.
preservation. F. F. Bruce in Are New Testament Documents Reliable? compares New Testament manuscripts with other ancient texts:
Table 1.1. Paragone di manoscritti del nuovo testamento con altri testi antichi.
| Opera | Epoca di scrittura | Copia più antica | Differnza di tempo | Numero delle copie |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Erodoto | 448-428 A.C. | 900 D.C. | 1300 anni | 8 |
| Tacito | 100 D.C. | 1100 D.C. | 1000 anni | 20 |
| De bello gallico di Giulio Cesare | 50-58 A.C. | 900 D.C. | 950 anni | 10 |
| Ab urbe condita di Livio | 59 A.C. - 17 D.C. | 900 D.C. | 900 anni | 20 |
| Nuovo testamento | 40 D.C. - 100 D.C. | 130 D.C. manoscritti parziali 350 D.C. manoscritti integrali | 30 - 310 anni | 5.00 greci & 10.000 latini |
Ten copies of Caesar's Gallic War exist, the earliest of which was copied 900 years after Caesar wrote the original, etc. For the New Testament we have full manuscripts dating to 350 A. D., papyri containing most of the New Testament from the 200s, and a fragment of John's gospel from 130 A. D. How many manuscripts do we have to compare to each other? 5,000 in Greek and 10,000 in Latin!
"Per quanto riguarda l'esattezza e la completezza il testo del nuovo testamento è unico e irraggiungibile tra tutti gli altri testi di prosa dell'Anitichità." | ||
| --Textual critic F. J. A. Hort, "The New Testament in the Original Greek", vol. 1 p561, Macmillan Co., quoted in Questions of Life p. 25-26 | ||