THE BIBLE’S PRESERVATION
A ninth reason for believing the Bible to be the Word of God is its extraordinary preservation down through the centuries of Old Testament and church history. Today, after the Bible has been translated in part or whole into hundreds of languages, some with multiple versions, and after millions of copies of the sacred text have been printed and distributed, it would be a nearly impossible feat to destroy the Bible. But these conditions did not always prevail.
Until the time of the Reformation, the biblical text was preserved by the laborious and time-consuming process of copying it over and over again by hand, at first onto papyrus sheets and then onto parchments. Throughout much of this time the Bible was an object of extreme hatred by many in authority. They tried to stamp it out. In the early days of the church, Celsus, Porphyry, and Lucian tried to destroy it by arguments. Later the emperors Diocletian and Julian tried to destroy it by force. At several points it was actually a capital offense to possess a copy of parts of Holy Writ. Yet the text survived.
If the Bible had been only the thoughts and work of human beings, it would have been eliminated long ago in the face of such opposition, as other books have been. But it has endured, fulfilling the words of Jesus, who said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Mt 24:35). (Boice, James Montgomery. 2019. Foundations of the Christian Faith: A Comprehensive & Readable Theology. Revised & Expanded. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press.)
Reflection:
The Textus Receptus (TR), the Greek text underlying the King James Version (KJV), is not considered a perfect replica of the original autographs. Scholars generally agree that it is not an exact replica of the original autographs.
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