The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. (Isaiah 1:1)
The fourth proof is the miraculous preservation of the manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments. Though we have yet to find the original Bible, every additional manuscript copy predating the earliest thus far only affirms the near perfect accuracy of our present Bible.
Prior to the discovery of the Qumran manuscripts, the earliest extant Old Testament texts were those known as the Masoretic Text (MT), which dated from about A.D. 980. Critical scholars questioned the accuracy of the MT, since there was such a large chronological gap between it and the autographs (or originals). Because of this uncertainty, scholars often “corrected” the text with considerable freedom. Qumran, however, has provided remains of an early Masoretic edition predating the Christian era on which the traditional MT is based.
Since about 1700 years separated Isaiah in the MT from its original source, textual critics assumed that centuries of copying and recopying this book must have introduced scribal errors into the document that obscured the original message of the author. The Isaiah scrolls found at Qumran closed that gap to within 500 years of the original manuscript. Interestingly, when scholars compared the MT of Isaiah to the Isaiah scroll of Qumran, the correspondence was astounding. The texts from Qumran proved to be word-for-word identical to our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The 5 percent of variation consisted primarily of obvious slips of the pen and spelling alterations (Archer, 1974, p. 25). Importantly, there were no major doctrinal differences between the accepted and Qumran texts.
What does this mean for us? If God has so intentionally preserved his Word for us with such outstanding accuracy, we must pay attention to it.
Prayer
Ask God to give you a heart to preserve your memory and understanding of scripture with a zeal similar to that which he has preserved it.
For opportunities to serve in our church and our city, please visit https://www.2pc.org/covid-19-ministry-partner-needs/.