Documentary
'Just Stories?' #22
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Many people think that the words in the Bible that we have today have been changed and corrupted over time, so that they are not what the original writers wrote. Before printing was invented, all ancient documents had to be copied by hand. So the more handwritten copies there are, the better - and there are many more copies of some parts of the Bible than of any other ancient writing:
- Nearly 6000 hand-written copies of parts of the New Testament in Greek
- Another 15,000 copies in other ancient languages
- More than 2.5 million pages of hand written copies of the Greek New Testament
- 61 copies of the complete New Testament in Greek. (For most other ancient documents, there are only a handful of copies)
So in terms of the number of copies, the Gospels are far and away the best documented texts from the ancient world.
It is also important that there are early hand written copies, and there are copies of the Bible that go back much closer in time to when they were written, compared to other ancient documents:
- Copies of the whole Bible that go back to the fourth century
- Parts of individual books of the Bible that go back even closer to when they were written
More hand written copies, and older copies, are being discovered all the time. Each new discovery confirms that these documents have been copied accurately for hundreds or even thousands of years.
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