Transmission of the Holy Bible
nOriginals have
been lost or destroyed
nOnly “extant” copies of the books of the
Bible exist today
nHow do we know that the copies mirror the
originals?
nDetermined through a process called “textual
criticism”
nInvolves two
major steps:
nAll existing
copies are analyzed and compared with each other for contextual consistency
nTime between
compilation of the original and the extant is considered. The shorter the time span, the
greater the reliability of
the extant text
nNo other literary work in history compares
with the Bible
nEarliest NT manuscripts go back to 125 AD