Reliability of the Old Testament

The Old Testament is a massive collection of historical narrative, law, poetry and prophecy. Can we trust it and what it claims to be about itself?

Abisha Scroll (12-11th Century AD)
The Abisha Scroll is the earliest extant manuscript of the Samaritan Pentateuch.


 * "Although the scroll gives the appearance of “great antiquity” and the scribal notation dates the scroll to 1065 C.E., a significant portion of modern research dates the scroll to no earlier than the middle of the twelfth century C.E. Even if it cannot be attributed to the great-grandson of Aaron, the scroll’s great age and its special place within the Samaritan community make the scroll worthy of high regard.”

- Giles Anderson

Genziah Fragments (8th-7th Century AD)
This collection of manuscripts has been expanding since 1981, with a whopping 400,000 fragments discovered from thousands of different ancient writings. The best Biblical fragments are that of the Old Testament that date to the 7th or 8th centuries.

Targum Onkelos (5th Century)
Targums are Jewish translations of the scriptures that became increasingly common as the Aramaic Language began to die off The Targum was originally thought to have been written in the 2nd century, however, recent study has shown it was more likely to have been written around the 5th century.

Codex Ephraemi (5th Century AD)
This codex dates to around 450 AD and is the latest of the Big Four - the four earliest codices of the Bible.

Codex Alexandrinus (5th - 4th Century AD)
Alexandrinus is the third of the Big Four. It dates from about the late 4th century to the mid 5th century.

Codex Sinaiticus (4th Century AD)
This codex is the second of the Big Four and was composed by the Alexandrian school of Christians around 360 AD, the same group that produced Alexandrinus.

In 1844, Count von Tishchendorf was at St. Catherines monastery, at Mt. Sinai, in the Library, when he noticed the monks using manuscripts leaves to keep a fire burning. He later saw they were Septuagint Greek manuscripts. He was able to secure the remaining leaves, he was informed two baskets had already been burned.

Codex Vaticanus (4th Century AD)
Vaticanus is the first of the Big Four and is considered the earliest complete copy of the Bible, dating to about 350 AD.

Napoleon carried off this codex to Paris as war booty, but was returned after his death in 1815. Tischendorf viewed the document for a few hours in 1867.

Masada Manuscripts (1st Century AD)
In 1955 and 56, two surveys were done at the site of Masada, the infamous site of the final defeat of the Jewish forces which saw the end of the Jewish Revolt. A whole variety of Old Testament manuscripts were discovered, the earliest of which date back to the first century AD.

Nahal Hever Scrolls (1st Century AD - 1st Century BC)
The Nahal Hever cave was one of the caves of the Dead Sea Scrolls, found several years after the initial discovery of the first Scrolls. At least 6 of the manuscripts date to the Herodian Era (55 BC - 94 AD)

Palaeo-Genesis (1st Century BC)
Palaeo-Genesis (technically called Plate 275/1) is a fragment of Genesis found in Cave 4 of the Dead Sea Scrolls collection.

Palaeo-Leviticus (2nd-1st Century BC)
These are a collection of fragments also found in Cave 4 of the Dead Sea Scrolls collection. They are numerous and are from the Book of Leviticus They date back to the Herodian Period.

Phylacteries (2nd-1st Century)
The Phylacteries (also known as the Tefillin) are leather capsules containing scrolls with excerpts of biblical texts. They too were found in Cave 4 of the Dead Sea Scrolls and are amongst the oldest of the fragments found at those caves.

Nash Papyrus (2nd Century BC)
The Nash Papyrus was discovered in 1898 by Walter Nash and contains the Ten Commandments, and the Shema of Israel. The papyrus is dated to the 2nd century BC an was the oldest Hebrew manuscript discovered at the time until the recovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Great Isaiah Scroll (3rd-2nd Century BC)
The Great Isaiah Scroll is a massive scroll found in Cave 1 of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It contains the words of the prophet Isaiah and, as you will see down below, is one of the most significant Biblical discoveries ever made. It is dated older than most other scrolls found in the Dead Sea collections, dating back more than 1000 years from it's oldest counterpart, the Ben Asher Codex, which dates to around 895 AD.

Exod-Lev Fragments (4th-3rd Century BC)
These are the oldest of the Dead Sea Scrolls, dating back to the "early Hellenistic Period." They contain fragments of Exodus and Leviticus and were also found in Cave 4 of the Qumran Caves.

Ketef Hinnom Scrolls (7th-6th Century BC)
These incredible discoveries were made in 1979. They are two silver amulets that were found in the Valley of Hinnom (or Gehenna) and are inscribed with the priestly benediction found in Numbers 6:22-27 on them. The amulets date to around the 7th or 6th century, making them the earliest attestation of the Old Testament.

Isaiah 53
The Dead Sea scrolls (which consists of most of the pre-Christ manuscripts listed above) were initially discovered in 1946 by a group of shepherds at the Qumran caves in the Judean Desert. They were the earliest Old Testament manuscripts to date and still dominate the majority of the oldest copies of the Hebrew Bible to this day. Since the first manuscripts were uncovered, there have been hundreds of complete manuscripts recovered and thousands of fragments, 40% of which are from the Old Testament.

These discoveries are significant because they give us an insight into how the text of the Old Testament has been transmitted and whether or not we can trust it. The Old Testament dates back 3500 years. It seems logical that we need evidence to back up it's authenticity if we are going to defend the New Testament as well.

The study down below looks at the first 12 verses of Isaiah 53 and how well they have been transmitted over the last 2300 years. (1) The tetragrammaton (YHWH) is one of the names of the God of Israel used in the Hebrew Bible.

(2) There is a scribal thumb print over lines 10 to 12 in the Dead Sea “Isaiah” Scroll (lines 10–12 include verses 5–7 in modern Bibles). However, while this obscures some letters, all letters are “reconstructible with certainty” (see: http://www.ao.net/~fmoeller/qum-44.htm);

(3) a scribbled word probably accusative sign “eth”

Norman Geisler states on this passage:


 * "Of the 166 words in Isaiah 53, there are only 17 letters in question. Ten of these letters are simply a matter of spelling, which does not affect the sense. Four more letters are minor stylistic changes, such as conjunctions. The remaining three letters comprise the word “light” which is added in verse 11, and does not affect the meaning greatly. Furthermore, this word is supported by the Septuagint and IQ Is [first cave of Qumran, Isaiah scroll]. Thus, in one chapter of 166 words, there is only one word (three letters) in question after a thousand years of transmission—and this word does not significantly change the meaning of the passage."

Messianic Apocalypse Linked with Luke
A non-biblical manuscript found in Cave 4 of the Dead Sea Scrolls, known as 4Q521, or the Messianic Apocalypse, details similar aspects found in Luke 7 and various passages in Isaiah. The manuscript, composed prior to 37 BC, suggests the similarity of the theological traditions both Isaiah and Luke drew on. This strengthens the link between late Judaism and early Christianity. See: Hebrew Academy translation

Authorship of the Torah
Also, the authorship and dating of the rest of the Old Testament is irrelevant. The Torah is affirmed by Jesus and the apostles to be from Moses. This is the only one that we have to prove.

Archaeology of Language
To confirm that someone could even write the Torah at the time given in the genealogies (around 1500 BC), we would have to provide evidence for four categories for the language of the Hebrews:

It must be a language that was: The idea behind the Documentary Hypothesis, a theory from Julius Wellhausen in the late 19th century that states there were four independent authors of the Torah, is that there is somehow no archaeological evidence of written languages before the time of the Phoenicians, around the 11th century. However, even non-Biblical writings debunk this as we having writings such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, discovered only a few years before Wellhausen published his theory.
 * 1) In use at the time of the Exodus
 * 2) In the region of Egypt
 * 3) Using the power of an alphabet
 * 4) And in a form like Hebrew

There have been a number of other discoveries to back up the claim that the Hebrews would have been able to read and write. Flinders and Hilda Petrie made the discovery of "Proto-Sinaitic" inscriptions in the Sinai Peninsula in the early 20th century. Paul D. LeBlanc, professor of religion at Ottawa University, stated concerning the language of the inscriptions found be the Petries:


 * "... my conclusions place me in a Semitic-speaking world where Proto-Sinaitic scribes, likely working in the mines of Serabit el-Khadim, were writing about their travels plans by composing their messages in obscure dialects or wholesomely unknown lanuages... Nevertheless, whatever name be ascribed to the Semitic language in question, as has been shown indeed closely relates known ones and, as such, can still be deciphered and understood."

Orly Goldwasser affirms that these early inscriptions, dating as far back as the 17th century could have been written by early Israelites. So we know that the base language that led to Semitic subdivisions like Hebrew, originated in Egypt during or after the 17th century.

Fergus Sharman writes concerning the origin of the Semitic languages.


 * "The Semitic and Cushtic languages have Bantu roots in their vocabularies and their origins in Africa are related since they belong to a wider group of languages called Afro-Asiatic."

Sir Alan Gardiner, in 1961, wrote that the Egyptian language's relationship with Hamitic lanaguages. He also wrote that the relationship between Egyptian and Semitic dialects is "unmistakable, if indeed not greater" than that of Hamitic relationships.

With these, we can conclude that it is very plausible that the Hebrews would have not only been able to write, but did write.

Obviously, Moses was not around to witness Creation or the Flood or Sodom and Gomorrah, however, he would have recieved the information from the Toledots that were passed down to him from Adam, Noah, Shem, etc would have passed down the information to Moses. Moses would have then written the Torah down and then during the time of Josiah (around the mid 7th century) they would have been compiled in the form that we have them today.

Internal Affirmation
The Torah affirms Moses is the author.

Exodus 17:14 - "And the Lord said unto Moses, 'Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven."

Exodus 24:4 - "And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, and rose up early in the morning, and built an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel.

Exodus 34:27 - "And the Lord siad unto Moses, 'You will write these words: for according to the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel."

Numbers 33:2 - "And Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys by the commandment of the Lord: and these are their journeys according to their goings out."

Deuteronomy 31:9 - "And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto the priests the sons of Levi, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and unto all the elders of Israel

New Testament Affirmation
Even Jesus and the apostles affirm Mosaic authorship.

Luke 20:28 - "...Teacher, Moses wrote unto us, 'If any man's brother die, having a wife, and he die without children, that his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring unto his brother.'" (Paralleled by Mark 12:19)

John 5:46 - "For if you believed Moses, you would have believed me: for he wrote of me.

Acts 6:14 - "For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us."

2 Corinthians 3:15 - "But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their hearts.

Disagreement Between Manuscripts.
Having just given you plenty of manuscripts for the Old Testament, I would be a deceiver if I were to leave out the fact that those manuscripts and fragments do not 100% totally agree on everything. There are parts that are left out, parts that say different things and all sorts of other factors that sceptics love to pick at:
 * Firstly, we must be honest on the kind of variances in the text. As we saw in the Isaiah Scroll up above, apart from one word in question that does not severely affect the meaning of the passage, any other variances are minor and simple stylistic changes.

As I state in the Reliability of the New Testament, the vast majority of "variances" in the text are not meaningful or damaging to the text or fundamental Christian beliefs.
 * Secondly, scribal error is bound to happen. The people who wrote the originals down were inspired by the Holy Spirit, not the ones who copied them down for many centuries to come. People will come along and deliberately change things to suit their agendas. Now, we may ask, "Why would God let them do that?" To put it simply, I don't know. The Bible calls it the mystery of godliness for a reason. If he wishes to intervene to ensure his Word will survive then he will. I don't know why God will allow certain scribes to change his Word. But God never promised that his word would never be corrupted (Islam does however make such a claim). Jesus says that his word will never pass away, which means that it will be extant in some form or another.
 * Thirdly, there is no evidence that we have lost any part of the Old Testament. Sure, manuscripts disagree on stuff. So what? We have the extant versions based on the collections of literally thousands of manuscripts and fragments coming together and building the bigger picture. And the situation with the New Testament is even better, with 5800 Greek Manuscripts and around 25,000 manuscripts in total.

As Bart Ehrman even admits:


 * "...the essential Christian beliefs are not effected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament."

If this is true for the New Testament, for which we have much more copies of than the Old Testament, then we can be pretty sure it is true for the Old Testament as well.

Academic Sources
