Has the Bible Been Changed?
There is a prevailing belief that the Bible has been corrupted and altered over the millennia that it has existed. However, this belief has no merit. In order to prove that the Bible has not changed, archaeologists and theologians have sought the oldest pieces of the books of the Bible. While this is a lofty goal, given that textiles and parchments rarely survive for any extended period of time, there has been some success. It is also not logical for the Bible to have been changed, because there have been plenty of witnesses, who could disprove any changes, and copies, to compare with in order to ensure that new copies remained intact.
Old Testament
The Bible is structured into two distinct sections, The Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament contains stories of the Jewish people, their history and their prophets, while the New Testament contains stories and letters of Jesus and His followers. This distinction is important because the Old Testament is taught in the Jewish Faith and is called the “Tanakh”. This means that any alterations made to the Old Testament would require the collaboration of the Jews and the Christians, two groups who, historically, did not get along well. If any Christians tried to alter the Old Testament, the Jewish leaders would immediately know and be able to prove that the Christians were teaching falsehoods. Moreover, many of the Apostles were formerly Jewish. Some, such as Paul, were even well educated and knew the Tanakh extremely well, and would know if any changes had been made. The Jews, for their part, never would have made changes to the Tanakh because it was treated with such respect and reverence that even speaking the idea of changing it would be grounds for execution, since they had been commanded to maintain the book’s integrity.
“You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. (Torah, Deuteronomy 4:2)
So, it would have been impossible for Christians to make changes to the Old Testament, the changes would have been easily disproven by comparing the Old Testament’s words to those of the Tanakh, and if both groups had made changes then there would still be inconsistencies between the two books. However, this is not the case. The Old Testament and the Tanakh match, and do not differ.
But this raises another question, could the Tanakh have been changed before the rise of Christianity? To answer this question, we look at archaeological finds to help us. In this case, the most significant finds have been the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of scrolls found in caves in modern day West Bank. These scrolls contain fragments of every book of the Tanakh, except Ester, and are dated to be between the 3rd and 1st century BC. More amazingly, these scrolls show no significant difference from the writings of the Tanakh and, thus, The Old Testament. This is the most complete collection of ancient Old Testament texts that have been found so far, and it shows that the Old Testament has not changed since before the time of Jesus and the founding of the Christian faith.
New Testament
The Second part of the Bible, the New Testament, has also had its contents questioned. There are similar ways to know that these texts have also had no changes over the 2000 years that it has been around.
The first way we can know is because the events that are spoken of were well known to the people of the 1st century AD. If an apostle had changed the events, it would have been easy for anyone to point out the mistake and prove the apostle a liar. However, this did not happen. The events of the New Testament are never proven to be false. In fact, several historians write about similar events, proving their existence (see “Jesus according to Historians” page). Additionally, many copies were made of the letters and teachings of the Apostles to be distributed to as many churches as possible. This means that any changes would have been immediately identified by those who also had a copy of the texts.
The second way we can know that the New Testament has not changed is because of the archaeological evidence that shows that there has been no change. While these texts are mostly found in small fragments, those fragments show no changes from the modern Bible. Four papyrus fragments with New Testament writings have been securely dated to the 2nd century AD.
Additionally, the Codex Sinaiticus was discovered at St. Catherine’s monastary in Egypt in 1846. This codex is a complete copy of the entire New Testament and is dated to around AD 350. Most importantly, however, is that the Codex shows no significant deviations from the modern Bible nor from the fragments that were previously mentioned.
These examples show that we can confidently say that the New Testament has not changed since its creation. First because people of the 1st century AD could have verified the facts, then because copies were made and could be compared, and finally because we have a copy of the New Testament from AD 350. Together they give us confidence in the truth that we believe, and knowledge that in two thousand years, there have been no changes to the Word of God.
