Reliability of Old Testament Documents.

1. Christian Apologetics
Reliability of Old Testament
Documents

2. The copying quality of the
Hebrew manuscripts is
simply astonishing
compared to any other
document of that time.

3. Comparing the Isaiah scrolls found
at Qumran (dated 200BC) with the
oldest copy one had so far (980AD)
revealed that 95% of the text were
word-by-word accurate, while the
5% differences were accounted for
mostly by spelling differences and
slips of a pen. There were no
changes in meaning at all .

4. Given that there were 1200 years
between these documents this is
more than amazing.
Even today, people would modify a
document over the decades,
probably even in its meaning,
unless they believe it is absolutely
mandatory to be completely
accurate (and
even then errors would happen).

5. Historical names of non-Jewish
kings over a 1600 year span are
preserved phonetically
accurate in correct
chronological order. You can’t
get this right by chance (odds
are
7.5*1023) – only by meticulous
accuracy.

6. There are more than 700
manuscripts and ten
thousands of fragments
(many of them
found in Qumran and Cairo),
dating from 300BC to the
14th century.

7. If one dives into the subject it
becomes quite fascinating to see
how good the material
is that we have today – one sees
how well God preserved his
Word. Just reading about
Qumran alone is fascinating

8. Early translations
confirm the meaning
of the Hebrew text
we have.

9. External Evidence Test of the
Old Testament

10. Archaeological and historical
evidence for the Old Testament is
more scarce than for the New
Testament, but this is the case for all
of history older than 2000 years.
As with the New Testament we can
only hope to find confirmation
through direct evidence and lack of
evidence to the contrary.

11. One should, however, be
aware that ancient
archaeological evidence is
fragmentary and subject to
the interpretation of the
individual archaeologist and
to acceptance of the
archaeological community.

12. Archeaology confirms
many specific historical
accounts, e.g. of Sodom &
Gomorrah ,
Jericho, Saul’s and
David’s wars, etc.

13. Although archeology is not in
complete harmony with the
Bible (there are still seeming
contradictions, i.e. things that
appear very unlikely) No
historical account in the Old
Testament has ever been proven
wrong by findings.

14. Historical documents
confirm much of what the
Bible writes. The often “use” the
Biblical accounts, which points
to the fact that people knew
about what had happened.
This testifies to the truth of the
earliest chapters of Genesis

15. The flood is found in
1. The Gilgamesh Epic,
2. The tower of Babel in the
Ur-Nammu monument,
All of the Patriarchs are
mentioned.

16. Conclusion
All available historical evidence
shows that the Old Testament
accounts are
truthful. This makes it plausible
that even the issues that we
can’t check are accurately
described.