Why the Bible is true... (Revised June 2015)
Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2015 6:11 pm
It does ultimately come down to faith. If God is a loving God, he would want to communicate with mankind who bear his image. So he sent his Holy Spirit that inspired the human authors to write God's message to humanity. God is a perfect being therefore his message is perfect. The Bible is His Word therefore it is perfect. To say that the Bible is true because it is the Word of God might sound like a circular argument so here are some of the reasons why we can trust it.
1. Fulfilled prophecy: Jesus fulfilled several Old Testament prophecies. A scroll of Isaiah was found with the Dead Sea Scrolls that dated from 250-350 B.C. (even if you were to assume a late date for the writings of the prophets they were not altered afterwards to match Jesus' life) http://christianity.about.com/od/biblef ... -Jesus.htm
http://carm.org/does-isaiah-53-predict-jesus-messiah http://www.goodnewsdispatch.org/math.html The probability that Jesus could have fulfilled just 8 prophecies by random chance is the same as the probability a blind man could on his first try pick out a special marked coin out of a pile of coins stacked two feet tall and covering the area of Texas. http://coldcasechristianity.com/2014/is ... the-bible/ http://www.bethinking.org/jesus/ancient ... an-sources
The book of Daniel gives an accurate prediction of world events. Including the rise of the Greek empire followed by the Rome Empire which split into several pieces after its collapse. http://ncbible.org/resources/Danielcomm02.html http://www.ushistory.org/civ/6f.asp The split of the Greek empire into 4 pieces by the 4 sons of Alexander the Great. https://www.thisisyourbible.com/index.p ... diaid=1067 The Hanukkah uprising. (Daniel 8:9-14 ; 11:21-35) http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/daniel.html
Any time there is a beast in Biblical prophetic vision it refers to an empire. Daniel 7:17 “These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth.” In his dream Daniel he sees 4 beasts. The four beasts are the Babylon Empire, which was defeated by Persian Empire, followed by the Greek Empire under Alexander the Great, followed by the Roman Empire. The first beast was like a lion then is given a human mind (Daniel 7:4). Nebuchadnezzar went insane for several years (Daniel 4:33) before he was restored. Second beast was devouring three ribs (Daniel 7:5). Historians note that the Persian Empire had 3 major victories: 1. Against Lydia (kingdom in Asia Minor). 2. Against Babylon. 3. Against Egypt. The third beast had four heads and four wings. After Alexander the Great died his empire was divided by his four sons. The fourth beast had iron teeth. The Roman Empire was noted by their usage of unstoppable iron weapons.
In Daniel 9, Daniel had read the prophecies of Jeremiah and realized that the time of exile was coming near the end. He fasted and prayed on behalf on him and his people.
Now while I was speaking and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God in behalf of the holy mountain of my God, while I was still speaking in prayer, then the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision previously, came to me in my extreme weariness about the time of the evening offering. He gave me instruction and talked with me and said, “O Daniel, I have now come forth to give you insight with understanding. At the beginning of your supplications the command was issued, and I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed; so give heed to the message and gain understanding of the vision.
“Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place. So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined. And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.” (Daniel 9:20-27)
So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty two weeks (69 weeks):
The word for weeks in the Hebrew is shabuwa` which refers to sets of sevens. Throughout the Old Testament the word is used in reference to a set of seven days, weeks, and years. An alternative translation to seventy weeks could be seventy sevens. Hebrew Lexicon:http://lexiconcordance.com/hebrew/7620.html Hebrew/English interlinear text:http://www.qbible.com/hebrew-old-testam ... iel/9.html
King Artaxerxes of Persia gives Nehemiah, his cupbearer, the decree allowing Nehemiah to return to rebuild the walls and the Temple of Jerusalem in the year 444 B.C. (Nehemiah 2:1-8). The Messiah, Jesus, was cut off and was reduced to nothing in the year 33 A.D. (Isaiah 53) This is a gap of 476 years (1 .B.C. to 1 A.D. is 1 year). However when accounting for the difference between the length of an ancient Persian calendar and the prophetic Hebrew calendar (360 days) with our modern-day calendar (365.25 days), 476 years becomes 483 ancient Persian/Hebrew prophetic years. 483 is 69 sets of 7 (69*7).
Prophet year: http://www.biblestudytools.com/commenta ... -year.html Ancient Persian calendar:http://www.iranchamber.com/calendar/art ... rigins.php Calculations using prophetic years: http://www.jesusonmymind.com/facts
http://www.jewsforjesus.org/publication ... /timetable
http://www.jewsforjesus.org/publication ... /fourfacts
http://www.reasons.org/articles/article ... -the-bible http://www.100prophecies.org/page6.htm
2. Archaelogical evidence: People have claimed that the Bible is not a historical document because many of the places listed in the Bible there was no evidence that they existed, many events listed in the Bible had no non-Biblical historical writings referring to those events. However with recent archaelogical findings many of the historical claims of the Bible as well as the places listed in the Bible are being found. One example was the Pool of Siloam. After Jesus heals a blind man (John 9:1-6). He tells the man to go to the Pool of Siloam (9:7). Bible critics claimed that the Gospel accounts were inaccurate because places like Pool of Siloam did not exist. (There was a Pool of Siloam constructed by a Byzantine emperor in AD 400). In 2005 archaelogists uncovered the original Pool. http://articles.latimes.com/2005/aug/09 ... ci-siloam9 In 2013, the original city of Gezer was found buried beneath the city of Gezer built above it during the reign of Solomon (1 Kings 20:15-19). http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/2 ... lp00000009 There have been several recent discoveries. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/201 ... -2013.html http://www.godandscience.org/apologetic ... ology.html
http://www.provethebible.net/T2-Verac/C-0401.htm
3. Changed lives. The Word of the God is living and active. "For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Hebrews 4:12
I know someone whose life was transformed when he was in prison. He had been a hopeless drug addict and had dropped out of college. In prison he would spend several hours reading the Bible especially the Psalms. Through the Holy Spirit and absorbing the Word of God, his life started to change. Today he is a Sunday teacher active in the church, he has a stable job, and is doing well in college. Countless lives have been transformed through the reading of the Bible.
4. Unmatched books of Wisdom. King Solomon had all the world had to offer: several wives and concubines, great riches, glory, fame, great reputation, and a genius mind. Yet in midst of having it all, he had turned away from God. Late in his life he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes talking about the vanity of the riches of the world. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... esiastes+1 There is a void without God that riches cannot fill. Having what the world has to offer causes your body to make adrenaline however eventually the chemical feelings in the brain fade out. This why is in the last fifty years we have more than double the material goods but not more happiness(I am assumming that most of the readers are Americans). The void can only be filled by being alive in the Spirit. Read the book and see if your life is like his (this also applies if you are "poor").
Also read the book of Proverbs and see for yourself the wisdom contained in it. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... rsion=NKJV
5. Written by people willing to suffer and die for their beliefs. When someone lies usually they are doing it for 4 reasons: material gain (money), social gain (popularity, better chance with romantic relationships), avoiding punishment, and avoiding embarassment. The Bible writers told the truth and suffered for it. Several of the Old Testament prophets like Jeremiah and Isaiah were rejected by the Jews during their lifetime (their books were accepted only after the Babylonian exile of the Jews). Isaiah was sawed in half by King Manessah. Jeremiah lived a lonely life as a single man. Ten of the twelve disciples of Jesus were beaten, tortured, and killed. Judas Iscariot committed suicide after betraying Jesus, John was sent to exile to the island of Patmos. http://www.everystudent.com/wires/apostles.html
The Old Testament is filled with embarassing details about Israel, Judah, the Israelites' failure to follow God despite being chosen, kings committing adultery and other evil acts. http://townhall.com/columnists/franktur ... /page/full The Gospel accounts are also filled with embarrassing details such as saying that the first people to see Jesus resurrected from the dead are women (eyewitness testimony of women was useless in a Jewish court at that time) because all of the followers of Jesus who were male were hiding and had deserted Jesus. http://townhall.com/columnists/franktur ... _true_pt_2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76zrdnvkmtc
6. Scientific accuracies: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetic ... bible.html The Bible states many things that were scientifically proven later on. Life is in the blood. 'For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.’ Leviticus 17:11 Before the importance of blood was discovered medically, physicians used to drain people's blood to make them feel better. Of course such treatment was ineffective. http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/brought ... tting.aspx
Scientifically speaking there is only one human race. "And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings," Acts 17:26 https://answersingenesis.org/racism/are ... ent-races/ This goes against what the Social Darwinists, the racial supremacists, and the majority of society thought before the 1960s.
7. The Bible tells the truth about human nature. http://www.goodpersontest.com/ People from all civilizations, with or without the Bible, know that the moral code exists. The Moral Law points to a Moral Law giver. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOJeseNJneg The great writer C.S. Lewis points out that the moral code is not always the standard which we follow but it is the standard that we want others to follow when treating us. http://www.truthaccordingtoscripture.co ... CqMaPldWJk When we mistreat others, we want mercy. When someone mistreats us, we want justice. However all of us have at one point or another violated the Moral Law. "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," Romans 3:23 Humanity is fallen. http://www.gotquestions.org/sin-nature.html We see the evidence all over us in war, corruption, murder, stealing, and mistreatment of people. This is why many of the revolutions did not improve the situation and caused an increase in violence. The new guy in charge gets corrupted and becomes just like the bad guy they replaced (Chinese Communist Revolution, Russian Revolution, French Revolution, etc.) We need a Jesus Revolution. http://www.cru.org/how-to-know-god/woul ... nally.html
8. The Bible has been preserved through out the years. http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/ ... iants.html (Textual criticism)
http://carm.org/manuscript-evidence (Manuscript evidence)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miS4jBln4JU (This video is 1 hour 46 minutes but is worth seeing if you have time. Dr. Daniel Wallace, a Greek scholar, has traveled around the world taking high tech photos of early New Testament manuscripts. If you are lacking in time skip to 1:05:00 where he talks about where he talks about how 99.75% variants in the text involve spelling differences and word order differences which do not affect meaning ,in Koine Greek, the subject and the object are not determined by word order but by verb ending rendering most variants having no difference in meaning at all. At the 1:18:00 he talks about the early church's position on the divinity of Jesus and the Da Vinci Code then he talks about Bart Ehrman.)
The Bible was copied by hand countless times before the printing press with 99.5% accuracy in the New Testament. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were found that had portions of every book in the Old Testament including most of Isaiah and was compared with manuscripts copied 1,000 years later there were only 13 textual variations found. http://carm.org/old-testament-corrupted Although significally less than any other ancient document there are variants in manuscripts due to copyist errors (most of them spelling variations). However with comparing the manuscripts, we have a high degree of certainity of what the original manuscript says. Bart Ehrman, the agnostic author of a book called "Misquoting Jesus", admits that "the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants." http://crossexamined.org/is-the-new-tes ... es-ehrman/ We know what the variants are, check the footnotes in your Bible. They do not put any doctrine in danger. One example of a variant is the number of the Beast which the majority of manuscripts says is 666 but some early manuscripts says it is 616 (Rev. 13:18). http://www.rightreason.org/2009/616-tha ... the-beast/ However either way the number is a trilingual code name for Emperor Nero and it is a bad idea to take the Mark.
1. Fulfilled prophecy: Jesus fulfilled several Old Testament prophecies. A scroll of Isaiah was found with the Dead Sea Scrolls that dated from 250-350 B.C. (even if you were to assume a late date for the writings of the prophets they were not altered afterwards to match Jesus' life) http://christianity.about.com/od/biblef ... -Jesus.htm
http://carm.org/does-isaiah-53-predict-jesus-messiah http://www.goodnewsdispatch.org/math.html The probability that Jesus could have fulfilled just 8 prophecies by random chance is the same as the probability a blind man could on his first try pick out a special marked coin out of a pile of coins stacked two feet tall and covering the area of Texas. http://coldcasechristianity.com/2014/is ... the-bible/ http://www.bethinking.org/jesus/ancient ... an-sources
The book of Daniel gives an accurate prediction of world events. Including the rise of the Greek empire followed by the Rome Empire which split into several pieces after its collapse. http://ncbible.org/resources/Danielcomm02.html http://www.ushistory.org/civ/6f.asp The split of the Greek empire into 4 pieces by the 4 sons of Alexander the Great. https://www.thisisyourbible.com/index.p ... diaid=1067 The Hanukkah uprising. (Daniel 8:9-14 ; 11:21-35) http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/daniel.html
Any time there is a beast in Biblical prophetic vision it refers to an empire. Daniel 7:17 “These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth.” In his dream Daniel he sees 4 beasts. The four beasts are the Babylon Empire, which was defeated by Persian Empire, followed by the Greek Empire under Alexander the Great, followed by the Roman Empire. The first beast was like a lion then is given a human mind (Daniel 7:4). Nebuchadnezzar went insane for several years (Daniel 4:33) before he was restored. Second beast was devouring three ribs (Daniel 7:5). Historians note that the Persian Empire had 3 major victories: 1. Against Lydia (kingdom in Asia Minor). 2. Against Babylon. 3. Against Egypt. The third beast had four heads and four wings. After Alexander the Great died his empire was divided by his four sons. The fourth beast had iron teeth. The Roman Empire was noted by their usage of unstoppable iron weapons.
In Daniel 9, Daniel had read the prophecies of Jeremiah and realized that the time of exile was coming near the end. He fasted and prayed on behalf on him and his people.
Now while I was speaking and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God in behalf of the holy mountain of my God, while I was still speaking in prayer, then the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision previously, came to me in my extreme weariness about the time of the evening offering. He gave me instruction and talked with me and said, “O Daniel, I have now come forth to give you insight with understanding. At the beginning of your supplications the command was issued, and I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed; so give heed to the message and gain understanding of the vision.
“Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place. So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined. And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.” (Daniel 9:20-27)
So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty two weeks (69 weeks):
The word for weeks in the Hebrew is shabuwa` which refers to sets of sevens. Throughout the Old Testament the word is used in reference to a set of seven days, weeks, and years. An alternative translation to seventy weeks could be seventy sevens. Hebrew Lexicon:http://lexiconcordance.com/hebrew/7620.html Hebrew/English interlinear text:http://www.qbible.com/hebrew-old-testam ... iel/9.html
King Artaxerxes of Persia gives Nehemiah, his cupbearer, the decree allowing Nehemiah to return to rebuild the walls and the Temple of Jerusalem in the year 444 B.C. (Nehemiah 2:1-8). The Messiah, Jesus, was cut off and was reduced to nothing in the year 33 A.D. (Isaiah 53) This is a gap of 476 years (1 .B.C. to 1 A.D. is 1 year). However when accounting for the difference between the length of an ancient Persian calendar and the prophetic Hebrew calendar (360 days) with our modern-day calendar (365.25 days), 476 years becomes 483 ancient Persian/Hebrew prophetic years. 483 is 69 sets of 7 (69*7).
Prophet year: http://www.biblestudytools.com/commenta ... -year.html Ancient Persian calendar:http://www.iranchamber.com/calendar/art ... rigins.php Calculations using prophetic years: http://www.jesusonmymind.com/facts
http://www.jewsforjesus.org/publication ... /timetable
http://www.jewsforjesus.org/publication ... /fourfacts
http://www.reasons.org/articles/article ... -the-bible http://www.100prophecies.org/page6.htm
2. Archaelogical evidence: People have claimed that the Bible is not a historical document because many of the places listed in the Bible there was no evidence that they existed, many events listed in the Bible had no non-Biblical historical writings referring to those events. However with recent archaelogical findings many of the historical claims of the Bible as well as the places listed in the Bible are being found. One example was the Pool of Siloam. After Jesus heals a blind man (John 9:1-6). He tells the man to go to the Pool of Siloam (9:7). Bible critics claimed that the Gospel accounts were inaccurate because places like Pool of Siloam did not exist. (There was a Pool of Siloam constructed by a Byzantine emperor in AD 400). In 2005 archaelogists uncovered the original Pool. http://articles.latimes.com/2005/aug/09 ... ci-siloam9 In 2013, the original city of Gezer was found buried beneath the city of Gezer built above it during the reign of Solomon (1 Kings 20:15-19). http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/2 ... lp00000009 There have been several recent discoveries. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/201 ... -2013.html http://www.godandscience.org/apologetic ... ology.html
http://www.provethebible.net/T2-Verac/C-0401.htm
3. Changed lives. The Word of the God is living and active. "For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Hebrews 4:12
I know someone whose life was transformed when he was in prison. He had been a hopeless drug addict and had dropped out of college. In prison he would spend several hours reading the Bible especially the Psalms. Through the Holy Spirit and absorbing the Word of God, his life started to change. Today he is a Sunday teacher active in the church, he has a stable job, and is doing well in college. Countless lives have been transformed through the reading of the Bible.
4. Unmatched books of Wisdom. King Solomon had all the world had to offer: several wives and concubines, great riches, glory, fame, great reputation, and a genius mind. Yet in midst of having it all, he had turned away from God. Late in his life he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes talking about the vanity of the riches of the world. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... esiastes+1 There is a void without God that riches cannot fill. Having what the world has to offer causes your body to make adrenaline however eventually the chemical feelings in the brain fade out. This why is in the last fifty years we have more than double the material goods but not more happiness(I am assumming that most of the readers are Americans). The void can only be filled by being alive in the Spirit. Read the book and see if your life is like his (this also applies if you are "poor").
Also read the book of Proverbs and see for yourself the wisdom contained in it. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... rsion=NKJV
5. Written by people willing to suffer and die for their beliefs. When someone lies usually they are doing it for 4 reasons: material gain (money), social gain (popularity, better chance with romantic relationships), avoiding punishment, and avoiding embarassment. The Bible writers told the truth and suffered for it. Several of the Old Testament prophets like Jeremiah and Isaiah were rejected by the Jews during their lifetime (their books were accepted only after the Babylonian exile of the Jews). Isaiah was sawed in half by King Manessah. Jeremiah lived a lonely life as a single man. Ten of the twelve disciples of Jesus were beaten, tortured, and killed. Judas Iscariot committed suicide after betraying Jesus, John was sent to exile to the island of Patmos. http://www.everystudent.com/wires/apostles.html
The Old Testament is filled with embarassing details about Israel, Judah, the Israelites' failure to follow God despite being chosen, kings committing adultery and other evil acts. http://townhall.com/columnists/franktur ... /page/full The Gospel accounts are also filled with embarrassing details such as saying that the first people to see Jesus resurrected from the dead are women (eyewitness testimony of women was useless in a Jewish court at that time) because all of the followers of Jesus who were male were hiding and had deserted Jesus. http://townhall.com/columnists/franktur ... _true_pt_2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76zrdnvkmtc
6. Scientific accuracies: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetic ... bible.html The Bible states many things that were scientifically proven later on. Life is in the blood. 'For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.’ Leviticus 17:11 Before the importance of blood was discovered medically, physicians used to drain people's blood to make them feel better. Of course such treatment was ineffective. http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/brought ... tting.aspx
Scientifically speaking there is only one human race. "And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings," Acts 17:26 https://answersingenesis.org/racism/are ... ent-races/ This goes against what the Social Darwinists, the racial supremacists, and the majority of society thought before the 1960s.
7. The Bible tells the truth about human nature. http://www.goodpersontest.com/ People from all civilizations, with or without the Bible, know that the moral code exists. The Moral Law points to a Moral Law giver. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOJeseNJneg The great writer C.S. Lewis points out that the moral code is not always the standard which we follow but it is the standard that we want others to follow when treating us. http://www.truthaccordingtoscripture.co ... CqMaPldWJk When we mistreat others, we want mercy. When someone mistreats us, we want justice. However all of us have at one point or another violated the Moral Law. "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," Romans 3:23 Humanity is fallen. http://www.gotquestions.org/sin-nature.html We see the evidence all over us in war, corruption, murder, stealing, and mistreatment of people. This is why many of the revolutions did not improve the situation and caused an increase in violence. The new guy in charge gets corrupted and becomes just like the bad guy they replaced (Chinese Communist Revolution, Russian Revolution, French Revolution, etc.) We need a Jesus Revolution. http://www.cru.org/how-to-know-god/woul ... nally.html
8. The Bible has been preserved through out the years. http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/ ... iants.html (Textual criticism)
http://carm.org/manuscript-evidence (Manuscript evidence)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miS4jBln4JU (This video is 1 hour 46 minutes but is worth seeing if you have time. Dr. Daniel Wallace, a Greek scholar, has traveled around the world taking high tech photos of early New Testament manuscripts. If you are lacking in time skip to 1:05:00 where he talks about where he talks about how 99.75% variants in the text involve spelling differences and word order differences which do not affect meaning ,in Koine Greek, the subject and the object are not determined by word order but by verb ending rendering most variants having no difference in meaning at all. At the 1:18:00 he talks about the early church's position on the divinity of Jesus and the Da Vinci Code then he talks about Bart Ehrman.)
The Bible was copied by hand countless times before the printing press with 99.5% accuracy in the New Testament. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were found that had portions of every book in the Old Testament including most of Isaiah and was compared with manuscripts copied 1,000 years later there were only 13 textual variations found. http://carm.org/old-testament-corrupted Although significally less than any other ancient document there are variants in manuscripts due to copyist errors (most of them spelling variations). However with comparing the manuscripts, we have a high degree of certainity of what the original manuscript says. Bart Ehrman, the agnostic author of a book called "Misquoting Jesus", admits that "the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants." http://crossexamined.org/is-the-new-tes ... es-ehrman/ We know what the variants are, check the footnotes in your Bible. They do not put any doctrine in danger. One example of a variant is the number of the Beast which the majority of manuscripts says is 666 but some early manuscripts says it is 616 (Rev. 13:18). http://www.rightreason.org/2009/616-tha ... the-beast/ However either way the number is a trilingual code name for Emperor Nero and it is a bad idea to take the Mark.
