other religious books, page-3

Although the Bible is a very old book, it is noteworthy that many ancient Bible manuscripts verify it. There are literally thousands of these ancient manuscripts in libraries and private collections throughout the world. They prove that today’s Bible has withstood the ravages of time and has been accurately copied and transmitted down to our day.
This can be checked out. For instance, the long-existing Institute for New Testament Textual Studies in Germany has made about 95 percent of its approximately 5,300 handwritten copies of the Christian Greek Scriptures available for scientific study, either on microfilm or in picture form. Thus the interested visitor, whether layman or scientific expert, can be shown, under expert guidance, just how exact the transmission of the Bible text down to our 20th century has been. The interval between the time the Christian Greek Scriptures were originally written and the writing of the oldest extant papyrus manuscripts is very short, not more than 25 years.
The Bible thus has a far greater claim for the reliability of its transmission than other writings of ancient times. In his book Das Buch der Bücher (The Book of Books), page 3, Karl Ringshausen writes:
“Julius Caesar wrote his Commentaries on the Gallic War in the year 52 before Christ. The oldest extant copies, however, written by a later hand, are from the ninth century after Christ. The Greek philosopher Plato lived from 427 to 347 before Christ; the oldest copy we have of his philosophical works is dated 895 after Christ. Almost a thousand years and more generally lie between the first writing, the original writing of ancient books, and their oldest extant copies.”
And concerning the number of extant copies from that era, the book The Bible From the Beginning states: “Altogether classical MSS. are but a handful compared with Biblical. No ancient book is so well attested as the Bible.”
The Bible Versus Modern Writings
How does the Bible compare to more modern writings? Interestingly, uncertainties over the actual contents of original texts exist even with respect to works in more recent times of authors now deceased. There are so-called critical editions, or work editions, of the works of such German writers as Goethe, Schiller, Hölderlin, and many others. These are attempts to reconstruct the original text scientifically. The experts often differ as to which version bears the marks of being the author’s original words.
Even politics are oftentimes involved. After Mao Tse-tung died, people waited long for the fifth volume of his collected works. China experts were of the opinion that this delay was due to the inner political instability of the country’s leadership, which could not agree on the words that should finally be accepted as being products of Mao’s pen. When the fifth volume finally did appear, many experts expressed doubts as to its authenticity.

How different the Bible is from these works of men written much more recently! Though older, its textual accuracy puts it in a class by itself. How did this come about? How was it possible to transmit the Bible over a much longer period of time and yet with such accuracy that we can be certain of the authenticity of its present form?
First, most of those who copied, or assisted in copying, the Bible had great respect for it and its Divine Author. The Masoretes (a group of Jewish Bible scholars who lived between the sixth and tenth centuries C.E.) are known to have painstakingly counted every individual letter of the Bible text so as to avoid making any mistake or even omitting a single letter from the Holy Writings. This reliable method may have been used even long before their time to avoid making mistakes in copying the Bible. It was possibly in reference to this habit of copyists that Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount: “Sooner would heaven and earth pass away than for one smallest letter or one particle of a letter to pass away from the Law by any means and not all things take place.”—Matthew 5:18.
This endeavor by copyists to maintain the purity and accuracy of the Bible text explains why the Dead Sea Scrolls of the first and second centuries B.C.E., containing among other things the entire book of Isaiah, match almost exactly the text we have at present.
Second, the majority of these scholars and copyists were only interested in what was involved—transmitting the sacred text—not in getting any credit for themselves. In fact, these men often sacrificed personal honor, possessions, health, and even life itself, to make sure that the manuscripts were correctly copied or were placed in the hands of scholars who would use them to help preserve the Bible text.
Konstantin von Tischendorf, for example, was willing to risk the dangers of the wilderness and of a trip through the desert, in the mid-19th century, in order to secure one of the 4th century’s most reliable Bible manuscripts. He had previously discovered it in a wastepaper basket in the monastery of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai.
Third, many of the individuals who were so intensely interested in transmitting the Bible text accurately had great love for God’s Word. Like a writer of the Psalms, they took delight in God’s Word and rejoiced in making the Bible text available to others.—Psalm 1:1, 2.
Fourth, and most important, it should not be forgotten that the Divine Author of the Bible inspired the original writing of the Holy Scriptures. He gave the men who worked on the Bible the decisive help they needed to write down things that have aroused in man his deepest emotions and have helped in “setting things straight” for him. (2 Timothy 3:16, 17) It is logical that he would oversee a faithful transmittal of his Word down to our present day.