I have posted notes from a class I took at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary on “The History of the Bible” on the headder of this blog. This was the most interesting and fun class I took at NOBTS. Dr. Carlton Winbury taught it and contained therein you will find several interesting nuggets about the Scripture. Here is an excerpt…
From the time of the original writing to the earliest complete and reliable manuscript for the New Testament, there is a time span of approximately 250 years. This may seem like a long time until it is compared with other ancient writings which are widely accepted. The following table compares other accepted ancient works with the New Testament to show how the New Testament has greater documented proof than any other ancient writing.
Caesar. Written 100-44 BC. Earliest Copy AD 900. Time span: 1,000 years. Number of copies: 10.
Plato, Tetraologies. Written 427-347 BC. Earliest copy 900 AD. Number of copies: 7.
Tacitus. Written 100 AD. Earliest copy 1,100 AD. Time span: 1,000 years. Number of copies: Less than 20.
Pliney: History. Written 61-113 AD. Earliest copy 850 AD. Time span: 750 years. Number of copies 7.
Aristotle. Written 384-322 BC. Earliest copy 1100 AD. Time span: 1,400 years. Number of copies 49.
Homer (Iliad). Written 900 BC. Earliest copy 400 BC. Time span: 500 years. Number of copies 643.
The New Testament (Various authors): Written 40-100 AD. Earliest copy 125 AD. Time span 25 years. Number of copies 24,000+ (Including portions of NT texts).
If you’d like to read the class notes, the link is in the headder above… or you can CLICK HERE.