Words of the Author

Why We Believe the Bible

Part 2
 

III. Do we have the biblical words of the authors

A. No original manuscripts

B. How are the manuscripts preserved?

1. 1st Printed Greek manuscript in 1516 by Erasmus

2. Over 5,000 manuscripts of the New Testament as of 1967

a. 266 unsealed text, written all capital letters in the Greek

b. 2,754 minuscule text, written in lower case letters

c. 2,135 lectionary portions of worship sections

d. 81 papery fragments of manuscripts

C. How does this amount of evidence compare with other ancient writings of the same era?

1. No original manuscripts of any other writers in this period

2. Textual writings cannot compare with New Testament manuscripts for the period

3. New Testament is unique in the large number of manuscripts from the period

D. Are manuscripts the only source of our knowledge of the wording of the New Testament?

E. Do all these manuscripts create problems or solutions for getting back to the original writing?

1. There are many variations in wording among the manuscripts because they were all copied by and subject to human error

2. There are so many manuscripts that these errors tend to be self correcting by the many manuscripts witnesses we have to compare

F. Is there a branch of biblical studies that focuses on this problem of getting back to the wording of the original writing?

G. Does the doctrine of inerrancy in the original manuscripts matter?

IV. What does the Bible claim for itself

A. Old Testament testimony to itself

B. The apostles self claim

C. Jesus view on the Old Testament scripture

1. Jesus believed the psalmist spoke by the Holy Spirit

2. Jesus believed that what Moses wrote in the Law, God Himself said

3. Jesus put the authority of scripture above Satan and above his own human preferences

4. Jesus believed that all scripture would be fulfilled

5. Jesus saw Moses and the prophets as speaking compelling truth on how to avoid hell

6. Jesus believed the small affirmations of scripture could not be broken

7. Jesus placed the authority of scripture over the distortions of the scribes

8. Jesus taught the Moses writings are to be believed

9. Jesus contrasted the condition of man to the Word of God in the Old Testament

10. Jesus believed that knowing the scriptures will keep you from doctrinal errors

11. Jesus devoted His life to the scriptures about the Messiah

a. Cleansing of the temple

b. Luke 4:16

c. Ministry of Jesus and John the Baptist are being played out according to scripture

d. Mark 14:21 – Jesus saw his betrayal as fulfilling of scripture

12. Jesus taught that we should not be slow to believe all that the Old Testament had spoken