< STRONG Yes. There are very few errors compared to all the other ancient documents.
Inspiration comes from God, and when He inspired the Bible it was perfect. Our copies of the original documents are not perfect, but they are very close to being so. The critics often erringly assume that even the copies are supposed to be perfect. But when we point out that God never said the copies would be perfect, they then ask how can the Bible be trusted at all? Quite simply, it is redundant in its facts and information and the amount of material that has any variation at all is so minute compared to the whole Bible that the Bible is considered to be almost 100% accurately copied. Furthermore, the copyist errors present no problems doctrinally.
Still, some will say that since there are, for example, copyist errors then we must throw out the entire Bible. But this argument is very weak. Are we to throw out a science textbook because there is a misspelled word or two in it? Does this mean that the whole book cannot be trusted? Of course not. Furthermore, compared to other ancient documents, the New Testament, for example, has far more textual evidence in its favor than any other ancient writing. Please consider the chart below.1
Author When Written Earliest Copy Time Span No. of Copies Homer (Iliad) 900 BC 400 BC 500 years 643 Ceasar (The Gallic Wars) 100 - 44 BC 900 AD 1,000 years 10 Plato (Tetralogies) 427 - 347 BC 900 AD 1,200 years 7 Aristotle 384 - 322 BC 1,100 AD 1,400 years 49 Herodotus (History) 480 - 425 BC 900 AD 1,300 years 8 Euripedes 480 - 406 BC 1,100 AD 1,500 years 9 New Testament 50 - 90 A.D. 130 AD 30 years 24,000
If the Bible cannot be trusted as being reliable because it has only a small percentage of copyist errors, then neither can the above documents that have far less textual support be trusted. In other words, the critics (to be consistent) would have to reject the Iliad, The Gallic Wars, Plato's Tetralogies, Aristotle's works, Hoerodetus' history, and Euripedes' writings. Are the critics willing to disregard all those writings -- which are far less well preserved -- if they throw out the Bible as being reliable? They should if they are fair in how they apply their criticism. Since basically no one discards those writings as being so bad that they can't be trusted, why would anyone apply the double standard to the Bible . . . unless they have an agenda.
We can see that the Bible is an ancient document that has withstood thousands of years of transmission with remarkable accuracy and clarity, far more so than the great works of old listed in the chart above. We can trust it to be what it says it is: the word of God.
1 This chart was adapted from charts in Josh McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, 1979, p. 42 and 43.
- http://www.carm.org/bible-difficulties/genesis-deuteronomy/introduction-bible-difficulties-and-bible-contradictions
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