Can we be sure that we hold in our hands a book which can convey to us the mind of the Almighty? We will look at just one criticism of the reliability of the Bible in English. It has been said that if you look at the early history of the Bible – not just in the centuries immediately before the invention of printing – but in the hundreds of years that followed the writing of the original manuscripts, because those manuscripts were copied and copied and copied, mistakes must have been made. Once printing was invented, the translations and versions were ‘static’ in a sense, but before that…? There are two main arguments (among others), which refute this criticism.

The Samaritan Pentateuch
When the Assyrians invaded and destroyed the Kingdom of Israel, they completely evacuated the centre of the land and brought in remnants of other nations they had conquered. They were allowed to occupy the land and take over the deserted farms, but this block of foreigners would prevent the southern kingdom of Judah uniting with the remains of Israel and causing trouble for Assyria. This worked well as a political strategy. The foreigners became a separate entity with Samaria as their capital and centuries after, at the time of Christ, it was still said that the ‘Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans’ [John 4.9].

However, when the foreigners first came into the land they felt that they would only prosper if they adopted the gods of the land. They obtained copies of the first five books of the Jewish Scriptures called the Pentateuch. For hundreds of years, with no contact with the Jews, they preserved and copied and recopied these manuscripts, and adopted many of the religious practices of the Jews.

If the copies of the copies of the copies of the Jewish Pentateuch had gradually included mistakes (and presumably the Samaritans might even be expected to have been less careful!), then, after a long period of time the Samaritan and Jewish Pentateuchs would have a number of significant differences. A number of important Jewish and Samaritan manuscripts have been discovered. They can be compared, and such was the carefulness of the copyists (under divine providence), that the critics cannot argue that the early documents are unreliable.

The Dead Sea Scrolls
The story of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is well known. Among the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1947 at Qumran are parts of most of the Old Testament scrolls as well as some complete scrolls. The complete roll of Isaiah is probably the most famous and received the greatest publicity.

The Scrolls from Qumran date from well before the time of Christ and as far as Isaiah is concerned it jumps back a thousand years earlier than the oldest Hebrew manuscript of the prophecy then available. It suddenly became possible to compare copies of Isaiah a thousand years apart. If there were errors of copying it would immediately be apparent.

This is why the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was so important (as well as being fascinating and faith stimulating). There can be no doubt that when we open our copies of the Bible and read what Isaiah has written – in our English language – we are reading, as closely as we can get, the thoughts and ideas that Isaiah wrote when he first penned them, words inspired by God. It was Isaiah who wrote,

‘To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them’
[Isaiah 8. 2].

It was Isaiah who describes so vividly the kingdom that Jesus will establish when he returns. It is the inspired prophet Isaiah who foretold the first coming of Jesus as the Saviour [Isaiah 53] . It is Isaiah who reminds us that when man was unable to save, God’s arm brought salvation [Isaiah 59.15–16, 20].

Preface by the Translators to the King James Version AD 1611:

‘How shall men meditate in that which they cannot understand? How shall they understand that which is kept close in an unknown tongue? Translation it is that openeth the windows and letteth in the light, that breaketh the shell that we may eat the kernel, that pulleth aside the curtain that we may look into the Holy Place, that removeth the cover of the well that we may come by water’

More information
The arrangement of the books in the Bible
Divine inspiration of the Bible
How the Bible was written and first translated
The scriptures of Jesus and the apostles
Further translations of the Bible
The Authorised Version and more recent translations of the Bible