by Mark H. Creech,

The Vine and Branches, Spring 2009

The exhibition included fragments from Old Testament books of the Bible such as Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Isaiah. More than a hundred artifacts including inkwells, coins and sandals, stone clay jars and plates fround in Qumran were also displayed.

DEAD SEA SCROLLS PROVE ACCURACY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

The significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls should never be underestimated. They answer two of the most critical questions of life: How do we know the Bible we have today has been passed down to us accurately--and is its message trustworthy?

Until these texts became available, the oldest Hebrew Old Testament text in existence dated to A.D. 800. No original manuscripts of the Bible exist today, so the next best thing is to go back to the oldest copies that would be closest to the originals. The Dead Sea Scrolls allow for that because they ae 800 to 1,000 years older than previously known manuscripts.

What the Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts clearly demonstrate is that through about a thousand years there was essentially no significant alteration in the text [we should not be swayed, then, by writers and critics who claim the Bible is "full of errors," due to mistranslation, for they simply are not reporting the facts but rather prejudices and biases and possibly their own faulty educations and research on the subject. I have read some critics who claim there are something like over 100,000 scribal errors or mistakes or slips of the pen, though admitting that no major or fundamental Biblical truths were affected or cast in doubt by these "typos"; but what does a scribal error or mistake consist of? It can be a critic's own definition or subjective interpretation, not an actual mistake. Compared, the hundreds and thousands of text we have in the copies and also the quotations by early church fathers and theologians of the first texts which were then still available, point rather to the extreme accuracy and trustworthiness of our Bible, not the opposite as some critics would like us to believe.--Ed.]

The scribes who transcribed the text of the Bible were so meticulous--they had such high standards of accuracy, counting every word and every letter of every word, dotting each "i" and crossing each "t," soto speak--that one may be absoluely certain the Old Testament text available to scholars today is in essence the same as the originals. The Dead Sea Scrolls are an incontrovertible archeological confirmation that this is the case.

ACCURACY OF NEW TESTAMENT PROVEN

The evidence for the reliability of the New Testament is equally strong with only approximately a 250-year gap between the original manuscripts and the copies currently available. "if you are stillconcerned about the gap of, say, 250 years," writes Erwin Lutzer of the Moody Bible Church of Chicago, "remember we can independently confirm the test of the New Testament by (1) papyri manuscripts that were discovered in Eguypt, dated as early as A.D. 125, containing fragments of the New Testament. Also (2) extensive quotation of the New Testament occur in the writings of the early Church Fathers, as further proof that the New Testament writings were known to them, possessing the same content as we have today."

A GREATER DEMONSTRATION OF THE BIBLE'S ACCURACY IS CHANGED LIVES

Interestingly, the oldest manuscripts available of Plato and Aristotle onl,y date back to 1600 A.D. and there is no great debate or question over their reliability--proving that sometimes the skepticism over the Bible is more an issue of the heart than an issue of the evidence. Although archeology has borne out the accuracy of the Holy Scriptures again and again, the Bible still has its critics and detractors. yet there is another and even greater form of evidence that testifies to its impeccability--its power to change lives for the better.

The late evangelist Dr. Harry Ironside in RANDOM REMINISCENCES tells the story of how once he was asked to share his personal testimony of faith with a group of Salvation Army workers in San Francisco. Ironside accommodated the request and listening that day was one of the early socialists who had made a name for himself by lecturing not only for socialism, but also against Christianity. After Ironside had given his testimony,t he man politely handed him a card that read: "Sir, I challenge you to debate with me the question: 'Agnosticism versus Christianity' in the Academy of Scince Hall next Sunday afternoon at four o'clock. I will pay all the expenses."

Ironside agreed to the debate on the condition the man woujld bring to the meeting at least wo persons with certain qualificatioins who could prove skepticism in the Bible and Christianity had real value in changing a life and building true character. He must bring a man and woman, persons who had been in the grip of some powerfully destructive habit and were a threat or menace to their family and community but were forever changed--rehabilitated as a credit to society,living a clean, virtuous, happy life--all because they had become an agnostic. Naturallyt, the man who made the challenge declined...because of his inability to meet Dr. Ironside's conditions.

In a day when Americans are looking for "change they can believe in," both the written Word of God and the Living Word of God, Jesus Christ, proved that change. What's disconcerting, however, is the nation seems to be looking everywhere for change except for where it really can and always has been found--in these teachings from the Bible that have been tested and tried in every generation and always found more than sufficient for life's challenges.

John Adams, who became the nation's second president, once wrote: "Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be obliged in conscience, to temperance, frugality, and industry; to jutice, kindness, and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love and reverence toward Almighty God...What a Utopia, what a paradise would this region be."

In sum, the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit, recently in North Carolina, which now moves to Toronto, Canada, is just another one of the many witnesses that the Bible and its message is reliable and worthy of adherence. (This article first appeared in January 25, 2009 issue THE CHRISTIAN POST; reprinted in THE VINE AND THE BRANCHES, Spring Issue, 2009)