Roman Catholics believe that the Bible is not sufficient to be the source of the Christian's doctrine by itself; instead, the Catholic position is that the "direct rule of faith is the teaching of the Church; the Church in turn takes her teaching from divine Revelation-both the written word... and the oral" (Peters 1). In his booklet "Scripture Alone?", Joel Peters defends this teaching by attempting to show that, although the original manuscripts were inspired, the copies we have today cannot be trusted as faithful reproductions, so we cannot use the Bible alone to determine doctrine (Peters 40). He reasons as follows: first, none of the original Biblical manuscripts are extant, therefore, one cannot know for sure if he has the real Bible in it's entirety (Peters 40). Second, The Biblical manuscripts contain thousands of variations; some have estimated over 200,000. How can one base beliefs solely on the Bible when he cannot be sure that the wording is that of the original author (Peters 41)? Since we do trust the Bible alone as our sole authority in spiritual matters, it is well worth the time and effort to study and discuss his assertions. For the purposes of this study, we will assume (as does Mr. Peters) that the original New Testament manuscripts are inspired, and try to determine simply whether or not we have accurate copies of the originals.
There are three factors that affect whether or not something is to be considered textually authentic, or true to the original: the number of existing copies, the gap in time between the writing of the original and the copy, and the textual agreement between copies.
First, we should consider a few comparable non-Biblical manuscripts. The Roman historian Tacitus wrote Annals of Imperial Rome about A.D. 116. Of the sixteen volume series, the first six books exist only in one manuscript today, dated to about A.D. 850; books seven through ten have been lost entirely; and books eleven through sixteen are in a second manuscript dating from the eleventh century. There is a gap, then, of seven hundred to one thousand years between the original and the only extant copies (Strobel 60). We may be more familiar with the works of the Jewish historian, Josephus, who wrote The Jewish War during the first century. Of this work, we have but nine copies, all dating from the tenth through the twelfth centuries; so, there is a gap of about nine hundred years, and only a few copies. There is in addition, however, a Latin translation from the fourth century, and some medieval Russian materials from the eleventh or twelfth century, that aid in validating the text (Strobel 60). Excluding the New Testament, the text with the greatest number of existing manuscripts is Homer's Iliad, which could be considered the Bible of the ancient Greeks. Originally written around 900 B.C., there now exist only 643 Greek manuscripts. The earliest of these was written around 400 B.C., giving a gap in time of around five hundred years (McDowell, 43)!
What of the New Testament, then? The earliest writings we have were written upon papyrus, a paper made from reeds first woven together, then beaten flat; we have ninety-nine of these, each containing one or more passages or books of the New Testament. Later New Testament manuscripts can be grouped by the style of writing used. Uncial manuscripts were written in all capital Greek letters; we currently have 306, some of which are dated from the third century. Later, a small cursive script called minuscule developed about A.D. 800; of these, we have 2,856 copies. We also have 2,403 lectionaries, which were copies of the New Testament which were broken up into a specific sequence, so as to be read publicly throughout the year. This would put the total number of existing Greek manuscripts at 5,664 (Strobel, 61-63). In addition, we have over 10,000 copies of the Latin Vulgate, and at least 9,300 other early translations making for over 24,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament in existence today (McDowell 39). This is far more than any other ancient document. Bruce Metzger, a well known Greek scholar, has said "even if we had no Greek manuscripts today, by piecing together the information from these translations from a relatively early date, we could actually reproduce the contents of the New Testament. In addition to that, even if we lost all the Greek manuscripts and the early translations, we could still reproduce the contents of the New Testament from the multiplicity of quotations in commentaries, sermons, letters, and so forth of the early church fathers." (Strobel 59) Sir David Dalrymple was once asked if this was true, and after his investigation, wrote: "That question roused my curiosity, and as I possessed all the existing works of the Fathers of the second and third centuries, I commenced to search, and up to this time I have found the entire New Testament, except eleven verses." (McDowell 50, 51) As F. F. Bruce, another Biblical scholar, has said, "There is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament." (McDowell 42)
Consider a few of the dates of the Biblical manuscripts: the John Rylands fragments, which contain a few verses of the eighteenth chapter of John, was copied around 130 A.D. If the book of John was written between 90 and 100 A.D. as is traditionally thought, this would indicate there were copies of it circulating within forty years of the original. The Bodmer Papyrus II contains most of John and was copied between 150 and 200 A.D. (McDowell, 46, 47). The Chester Beatty Papyri contain portions of the four gospels, and the book of the Acts; large portions of eight of Paul's epistles, and portions of the letter to the Hebrews, all dated to about 200 A.D. (Strobel 61). The Codex Vaticanus, copied around 325 to 350 A.D., contains most of the Bible. The Codex Sinaiticus, consists of almost all the New and more than half the Old Testaments, and was copied around 350 A.D. In addition, the Codex Alexandrinus, dated to about 400 A.D. contains most of the Bible (McDowell 46-48). Concerning the scriptures, we have a great deal of evidence to consider, much of which is dated very close to the originals. Bruce Metzger stated that age "favors the New Testament. We have copies commencing within a couple of generations from the writing of the originals, whereas in the case of other ancient texts, maybe five, eight, or ten centuries elapsed between the original and the earliest surviving copy." (Strobel 59)
To be sure, errors have crept in over time. Generally, differences between manuscripts deal with spelling, word order, or other inconsequential variations (Strobel 64). Scholars Geisler and Nix note that, "There is an ambiguity in saying there are some 200,000 variants in the existing manuscripts of the New Testament, since these represent only 10,000 places in the New Testament. If one single word is misspelled in 3,000 different manuscripts, this is counted as 3,000 variants or readings." (McDowell 44). They continue on to note that the New Testament consists of approximately 20,000 lines, of which, only 40 lines (or 400 words) are in doubt. Compare this with the Iliad: of it's 15,600 lines, 764 are in doubt (McDowell, 43). Sir Frederic Kenyon, an authority in the field of New Testament textual criticism, emphasizes that "One word of warning already referred to, must be emphasized in conclusion. No fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith rests on a disputed reading..." (McDowell 45) Consider the King James rendering of 1 John 5:7,8: the phrase "there are three who bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one" is found in only about seven or eight copies, all from the fifteenth or sixteenth century (Strobel 65). The lack of support certainly indicates that the phrase was not a part of the original text, yet the doctrine of the trinity is by no means brought to nothing; for no matter how much some twist the scriptures, it is clearly indicated throughout the remainder of the Bible. As a second example, it has been pointed out that there is some doubt concerning the length of the last chapter of the book of Mark (Peters 42, 43). Knowing that included in this passage is the text, "He that believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned", is there then any doubt as to whether one should believe or be baptized? Certainly not; Romans 10 discusses how one must believe, while Romans 6 illustrates the necessity of baptism that we would "be in the likeness of His resurrection". However, these are not the only passages that indicate the importance of belief and baptism; they are found throughout the New Testament.
What shall we say of the alleged corruption of the Bible? What of the Bible's trustworthiness as the word of God? Benjamin Warfield said, "If we compare the present state of the New Testament text with that of any other ancient writing, we must... declare it to be marvelously correct. Such has been the care with which the New Testament has been copied-a care which has doubtless grown out of true reverence for it's holy words-such has been the providence of God in preserving for His church in each and every age a competently exact text of the scriptures, that not only is the New Testament unrivaled among ancient writings in the purity of its text as actually transmitted and kept in use, but also in the abundance of testimony which has come down to us for castigating it's comparatively infrequent blemishes." (McDowell 45, 46) We can have confidence that if we put forth an honest effort, we can understand the will of God through the word which He Himself wrote through chosen men.
