JESUS CHRIST: GOD-MAN - Vital Christianity

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The following charts illustrate the huge contrast between several ancient works and
the New Testament as to the time interval---the date of writing of the original and date of
the discovery of its copies.
The New Testament towers far above all other ancient writings in manuscript evidence
and brief time span. There was virtually a continuous chain of copies from the originals to its
mass production. If the text was not essentially accurate in its likeness to its original autographs,
when would they have become corrupted since there are copies in every century which date back
to the beginning of its writing? Thus biblical scholar F. F. Bruce justly concludes:
"The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the
evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no-one
dreams of questioning. And if the New Testament were a collection of secular
writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt."44
The Accuracy of the New Testament Manuscripts Copied
Bruce Metzger, former professor of New Testament language and literature at Princeton
University, has published his research concerning this question of textual credibility. His study
involved the comparison of the many manuscripts of three ancient works: Homer's Iliad of the
Greeks, the Mahabharata of the Hindus, and the New Testament of the Christian religion. To
simplify the comparison the copies of these three works were divided into lines of ten words
each. The writings varied in length from 15,600 lines for the Iliad, to 20,000 for the New
Testament, and 250,000 for the Mahabharata.Variations that did not affect the meaning of the
text were ignored, such as spelling differences, word order, etc. But all differences in the
manuscripts affecting the reader's understanding were counted.
The finding of distortion is telling as professor Metzger reported that 764 lines of the
Iliad were corrupted—a distortion rate of around 5%, the Mahabharata was found to have at
least 26,000 lines corrupted—slightly more than a 10% distortion rate, whereas only 40 lines, or
1/5 of 1% (o.2%) of the New Testament were found to be distorted. This means that the New
Testament is 25 times more accurately copied than the Iliad, which in comparison to other
ancient works, is considered "good." Furthermore, textual expert F. F. Bruce contends:
". . . the variant readings about which any doubt remains among textual critics of
the New Testament affect no material question of historical fact or of Christian
faith and practice."45
The rate of distortion of manuscripts due to errors in copying is miniscule
In his book, The Text of the New Testament, professor Metzger states: