Biblical Books
There is much evidence to prove that we have the right books in our Bible, not just because the Scriptures show it (which was shown in previous article), but there is also historical evidences. In other words, we can rely on the books of the Bible that Christianity has to be true, not only because the Scriptures show it, but also because of purely historical and manuscript evidences, which is what this article is going to show. Even secularly speaking, we’ve got good evidence that we have the right books in our Bible as well. We are going to look at several of the cases here.
The Dead Sea Scrolls
Firstly, one of the biggest evidence that we got the right books in our Bible is the ancient manuscripts called ‘the Dead Sea Scrolls’. A lot of manuscript scholars dated these scrolls to go all the way back from the BCs. They contain all the Old Testament books that the King James Bible has, with the only exception being the Book of Esther. One can look up the book ‘the Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls’ by James Vanderkam which shows the evidences thereof.
Jews as keepers of the Scripture
We have another evidence, which is the Jews as a group of people. If one looks at historical evidences and uses some common sense, one would know that Jews were the people to whom the words of God was given to at the beginning, and they are the ones who took care of the words of God ever since the BCs. From the history of the Jews, we know that they took copies and writings of the Scripture, every single word of it seriously.
Let’s look at Deuteronomy 31:24-26
Deuteronomy 31:24-26
“And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, That Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee.”
The first books of the Bible that Moses wrote since the beginning were carried on by the Jews. Ever since the beginning, they were in charge of holding the Scriptures. Moses told them to take care of this book so that it can be a witness for you.
Ever since the beginning of the Jewish nation, to the time period when they lost their nation after the Babylonian captivity, they still have Scriptures. The Levites kept them all that time.
Let’s also look at Nehemiah 8:7-9
Nehemiah 8:7-9
“Also Jeshua, and Bani, and Sherebian, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodijah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, and the Levites, caused the people to understand the law: and the people stood in their place. So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading. And Nehemiah, which is the Tirshatha, and Ezra, the priest the scribe, and the Levites that taught the people, said unto all the people, This day is holy unto the LORD your God; mourn not, nor weep. For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law.”
Therefore, the Jewish people had it all that time, this is recognized not only by the Old Testament, but also the New Testament.
Romans 3:2
“Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.”
What do the ‘oracles of God’ mean? ‘Oracle’ means something divine, or a word from the divine God. The ‘oracles of God’ were given to the Jews
Early Scholarly Evidence
Another evidence is from Edward F. Hills, a Harvard scholar even before Dr. Ruckman’s time period, a man who not only defended the right books in the Bible, but also defended the KJV itself. Dr. Ruckman referred to him quite often as evidence.
In his book ‘Believing Bible Study’ pages 5 through 9, he gives detailed historical explanations for all the books in the King James Bible, while talking about Masoretus Text and going through the Textus Receptus manuscripts. He shows from beginning to end that we have all the right books in our Bible. Because of these historical manuscript evidence from the scholars, we ended up with the books of the Bible in the KJV.
Early Christians’ Recognition
Although there are some church fathers and early Christians who recognized some books outside of our King James Bible, for example, the Book of Enoch, the Book of Abraham, Gospel of Barnabas, Epistle of Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermas etc., the majority of early churches and early Christians recognized the books in our Bible today as the right words of God.
Why else did we have these books in the Bible for the past nearly two thousand years, if we didn’t have the majority of early churches who took these books as part of the Bible? Why did we lose these other epistles or books? Because the majority of early churches did not think these books were important or were the words of God. The books that we have in our hand is evidence itself, that majority of, not only early churches but also today’s, Christian churches recognize which books are the right books in our Bible. This argument can be found in Dr. Lee Martin McDonald’s book ‘the Biblical Canon’.
The Bible also supports this view in Acts 13:49. How do we know that we got the right words of God is because of early Christians back then. They had it. One needs to use some common sense here. Who are the ones who had the words of God during the early centuries? Was it Gnostics who talked about strange foreign books in the Bible or would you trust the early Christians? Who’s more reliable? Obviously the early Christians, to whom the word of the Lord is given at that time throughout that area.
Acts 13:49
“And the word of the Lord was published throughout all the region.”
Acts 11: 22, 26:
“Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church which was in Jerusalem: and they sent forth Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch. And when he had found him, he brought hi unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.”
These people in Antioch were first called Christians. These people were very dependable people.
Acts 11:24
“For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith: and much people was added unto the Lord.”
Acts 11:20
“And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which, when they were come to Antioch……”
Acts 11:19
……and Antioch, preaching the word ……
In the area of Antioch, they were first called Christians. Everyone is imperfect and these people in Antioch were no exceptions. But can’t God use imperfect people for His glory?
These people during the early centuries of church history don’t have the luxury like we do with concordances, technology, and the past more than one thousand years of knowledge where we could accumulate all the right doctrines. These early Christians were facing persecution as well so they don’t have the luxury of much time.
There is no doubt that this is a group of people in early church history. The Antioch churches were the ones that spread out the most; they were the ones who had zeal that would evangelize the most. They are the people where the manuscript evidence of the New Testament came from. Majority of Greek manuscripts support the manuscripts of this area, that’s where the Textus Receptus, Byzantine manuscripts came from, the Syrian area, Antioch Syria. There’s a wealth of evidence here and the above is just part of it.
Other manuscript evidence
One can also find evidence in the Ambrosiana Library in Milan in Italy. They discovered in 1740, in the Ambrosiana library in Milan Italy, a second century list that contains the 27 books in the New Testament Bible.
Conclusion
We have historical manuscript evidence as well for the books of the Bible. In the previous video, I showed you that the Scriptures show we got the right books in our Bible, but also historical and manuscript evidence as well in this article.