The Lord took about 1,600 years to write the Bible, with Moses picking up the pen about 1500 B.C. to begin Genesis and the apostle John laying it down near A.D. 100 after writing Revelation. Though the Old Testament (OT) was written over a period of about 1,100 years, the New Testament (NT) was recorded within a 50 year span. The OT contains 39 books written by about 32 inspired men. The NT has 27 books written by about eight inspired men. How do we know the Bible we have today is essentially unchanged from what they had back then? The text of the OT has been preserved in thousands of Hebrew manuscripts and fragments, the legacy of scribes who copied with meticulous reverence and an eye for detail. The comparatively recent discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls pushed the OT text back a thousand years and only confirmed its trustworthiness. Evidence for the genuineness of the NT is even more overwhelming, being attested by over 5,700 whole or partial Greek manuscripts, some of which date to within 200 years or less of the original documents. In point of fact, the NT is the most well-attested book in all of history. But, what else would we expect from its Author? No book has captured minds like the Bible. No book has sparked such effort on the part of men to study it, preserve it, translate it, write about it. You and I are hopelessly in the dark without God’s word to guide. Now is the time to learn it, live it, love it, lean on it. One day the gospel of Christ will be the basis by which we all are judged and sentenced either to heaven or hell for eternity (John 12:48). It would be tragic to learn that too late.
-Weylan Deaver
