Is the original Bible still in existence?

But, someone may ask, What about the original manuscripts of the inspired writings? Where are they? The answer is, They have tracelessly disappeared. It is perhaps as well that it should be so. If they had been in existence, there might have been two likely reactions. The ritualist might make them objects of idolatrous worship, as the children of Israel did with the serpent of brass (see, 2 Kings 18:4). On the other hand the infidel might deny outright that they were the original Scriptures of God. But when many hundreds of manuscripts are found, evidently copies of the originals, men cannot dispute the existence of the originals, nor that they were held in such high esteem, as to be most carefully copied by hand with patient, meticulous care. And that, many, many times over and in hundreds of places, and spread over centuries. No other manuscripts have received such high honour. In this we can plainly see God’s hand preserving to us the Holy Scriptures.

It is true that the servants of the Lord have written with ink, and the documents they wrote have all perished. Even the documents of the inspired Scriptures of Truth do not exist to-day; but the Word of God that was written in their documents still abides, and will abide.

All scripture was given by inspiration of God, and it was written; but the original has been lost. There are many copies in existence; but they all more or less differ.

This at first sight may seem to be a great calamity, throwing a doubt upon the blessed word of God, but on a closer investigation this will be seen not to be so. Of course, God could have preserved for us a faultless manuscript, but He has allowed it to be otherwise; the New Testament has gone through the various perils that any other old writing has been subject to, though with this difference, that it has been watched over by its living Author. God, of course, could by a continued miracle have preserved to us the very copies that were written by the inspired penmen; but He has not done so. Who could have held them, and what would other Christians have done without them? As it is, all, scattered over the known world, had copies of the original from the first.

Lachmann published a manual edition of the New Testament professedly based on Bentley's idea of exhibiting the text as read in the fourth century … at one fell swoop sentenced the mass of the surviving witnesses to an ignominious death, and presented us with a text formed on absolute principles of singular narrowness … .14 The neglect of internal evidence is a fatal objection. But the grand fallacy involved is that a manuscript of the fourth or fifth century must give better readings than one of the seventh or eighth. Now this is in no way certain. There is a presumption in favour of the more ancient manuscript, because each successive transcription tends to introduce new errors in addition to those it repeats. On the other hand, a copy of the ninth century may have been made from one older than any now extant, and certainly some old documents are more corrupt than many of the more recent witnesses. Every ingenuous scholar must own, to say the least, that the oldest manuscripts have some bad readings, and that the modern manuscripts have some that are good.15 Hence the distinction is not between the united evidence of the most ancient documents (Manuscripts, Versions, Fathers), and the common herd of those more recent; for rarely, if ever, is there such unanimous ancient testimony without considerable support from witnesses of a later day. The truth is that almost always, where the old documents really agree, there is large confirmation elsewhere, and where the ancients differ, so do the moderns. It is quite unfounded, therefore, to treat it as a question pure and simple between old and new. Nor is it the important point of research what particular readings existed in the days of Jerome. For notoriously errors of various kinds had then crept into both Greek and Latin copies, and no antiquity can sanctify an error. The true question is: What, using every available means to form a judgment, was the primitive text? It is often forgotten that our oldest documents are but copies. Several centuries elapsed between the original issue of the New Testament Scriptures and any manuscripts now existing. All, therefore, are on the ground of copyists differing only in degree. It is not, then, a comparison between a single eye-witness and many hearsay reporters, unless we have the original autographs. And, in fact, we know that an historian's account, three centuries after alleged facts, may be, and often is, corrected, five hundred or a thousand years after, by recurrence to sources more trustworthy, or by a more patient, comprehensive, and skilful sifting of neglected evidence.

Lachmann published a manual edition of the New Testament professedly based on Bentley's idea of exhibiting the text as read in the fourth century … at one fell swoop sentenced the mass of the surviving witnesses to an ignominious death, and presented us with a text formed on absolute principles of singular narrowness. … The neglect of internal evidence is a fatal objection. But the grand fallacy involved is that a manuscript of the fourth or fifth century must give better readings than one of the seventh or eighth. Now this is in no way certain. There is a presumption in favour of the more ancient manuscript, because each successive transcription tends to introduce new errors in addition to those it repeats. On the other hand, a copy of the ninth century may have been made from one older than any now extant, and certainly some old documents are more corrupt than many of the more recent witnesses. Every ingenuous scholar must own, to say the least, that the oldest manuscripts have some bad readings, and that the modern manuscripts have some that are good. Hence the distinction is not between the united evidence of the most ancient documents (Manuscripts, Versions, Fathers) and the common herd of those more recent; for rarely, or never, is there such unanimous ancient testimony without considerable support from witnesses of a later day. The truth is that almost always, where the old documents really agree, there is large confirmation elsewhere, and where the ancients differ, so do the moderns. It is quite unfounded, therefore, to treat it as a question pure and simple between old and new. Nor is it the important point of research what particular readings existed in the days of Jerome. For notoriously errors of various kinds had then crept into both Greek and Latin copies, and no antiquity can sanctify an error. The true question is: What, using every available means to form a judgment, was the primitive text? It is often forgotten that our oldest documents are but copies. Several centuries elapsed between the original issue of the New Testament Scriptures and any manuscripts now existing. All, therefore, are on the ground of copyists differing only in degree. It is not, then, a comparison between a single eye-witness and many hearsay reporters, unless we had the original autographs. And, in fact, we know that an historian's account, three centuries after alleged facts, may be, and often is, corrected, five hundred or a thousand years after, by recurrence to sources more trustworthy, or by a more patient, comprehensive, and skilful sifting of neglected evidence.

What we do maintain is as follows: — That the Scriptures, as written in their original tongues, were given by inspiration of God, that inspiration extending to the words employed. That by means of the large number of ancient manuscript copies of the Scriptures preserved to us in the providence of God, we possess a very accurate knowledge of the Scriptures as originally written, the words or passages as to which any doubt exists being very few and unimportant. That the Authorized translation is on the whole very good and faithful in its rendering of the inspired original, but that it may be usefully compared with the Revised Version, and more especially with the New Translation by the late Mr. J. N. Darby, to ensure even greater accuracy. Substantially, however, it gives us the inspired Word of God in trustworthy form.

Remember that the Bible is the Word of God from cover to cover. "Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21). "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God" (2 Tim. 3:16). This only applies to the original "autographs" in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. Therefore, one thing we need for a good study of prophecy (or anything else) is an accurate, readable English translation of the inspired Hebrew and Greek manuscripts.

But the survival of hundreds and thousands of manuscript copies of the Scriptures, either in part or in whole, proves absolutely the existence of the original Scriptures, and the very high esteem in which they were held. These manuscripts are unanimous in giving to us the great fundamental doctrines of Christianity unimpaired in the slightest degree. The variations in the manuscripts are so minute in the main, that they are happily likened to a handful of grain as compared with a field of many acres of ripening corn.

To proceed. The multiplicity of copies of the Scriptures running into many hundreds, laboriously engrossed by hand in many a place and during many centuries, first of all proves the existence of the original. There can be no possible doubt of the existence of the sixty-six books that compose the Bible. Second, it proves the high regard in which they were held, a regard extended to no other writings, this attitude towards the Holy Writings being quite unique. Third, the effect of these writings in the spread of Christianity proves them to be living and powerful.