Was The Bible Tampered With?

As I wrote in my previous post, it would have been an impossible task to round up every copy of the New Testament books. Lectionaries written by the church fathers show that our New Testament books are indeed the ones used as the church spread across Asia Minor as well as Europe.

Bible scholars have thousands of manuscript fragments from which they constructed the entirety of the New Testament. Like putting many puzzle pieces from several sets together, they chose those fragments which were the same as what the Latin Vulgate Bible contained. Where scribal insertions were found in later texts, such as Mark 16:9-20, those were noted in newer translations as not being present in early manuscripts.

I've heard from various sources that the earliest fragment discovered so far was from thirty years after Christ's death and resurrection. But books purporting to be gospels were written two hundred years or later. Just from statistical probability alone, the earliest fragments were more likely to be accurate than those found later.

Jesus also said that his words would remain. Luke 21:33 (KJV) says, "Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away."

Christ also promised that the scriptures would never be changed. Matthew 5:18 (KJV) says, "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one title shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."

We can therefore rest assured that what we have in our Bibles is the God-breathed truth. Paul told us in 2 Timothy 3:16 (KJV) that, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:"

I'll be writing more about the reliability of our scriptures in my next book called You Think You're Going to Heaven? People have been questioning the veracity of Holy Scripture but nobody has been able to find any outright lies in its claims. It truly is the Word of God.

On Saturday, I'll be dealing with the controversial topic of marijuana and featuring a song which tells the real story about drugs.