There are a few major objections that people use to attack the Bible. I don't believe these objections or any objection are valid. I'm not intending to cover all objections but two that I consider major. One objection is that the Bible contains no eyewitness accounts, especially the New Testament, and were written down so long after the events that one cannot trust what is written without thinking that myth and legend had crept into it. Another objection is the translation and transmission of the Bible. They ask that if the Bible has been copied and recopied, translated and re-translated over and over again how can we be sure that the message has not been corrupted?
The thing to remember about time lines concerning the dates the books of the bible were written is that scholars and historians disagree. Some date them very early and some of them date them very late, many times depending on whether or not they are believers. Scholars even use different rules for deciding how to date the book. Some use use the earliest fragment and others use the oldest complete version. When it comes to the Old Testament I hardly ever hear this objection but it's sometimes the first objection raised against the New Testament. For example, if the Gospel according to John was not written before 100 AD, then detractors could argue that there would be no way the author could be one of the original disciples let alone an eyewitness to Jesus' life and works, thereby casting doubt on the veracity of the whole book of John. Even if you argue a second century dating for any book of the Bible there is not sufficient time for myth and legend to crop into the early church's teachings about Jesus. No one has been able to prove that the second century Christians beliefs differed all that greatly from the first. Even the most liberal and/or Christian-hating scholar will grant you that Paul most likely wrote his epistles (letters) like 1st Corinthians in the 60's AD. This means that 1st Corinthians 15:3-8 which says:
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
must have been written within 30 years of Jesus' crucifixion. This means that the early church did believe in Jesus' resurrection and all of Christianity is based on that truth. Further that this was something Paul inherited and not originated. More could be said and few have done it better that Lee Strobel in the his book The Case for Christ.
As for the second objection, the numerous copies are a good thing. We have so many copies from various times and places we can compare them and see that the variations are slight. From these copies, through comparing them against one another, we can figure out w
hat the originals actually did say. This is what our modern translations are based on. The majority of the variations include misspelled words or phrases with words in different order. The new testament was written in kione Greek and I have found out that in Greek you can have nouns and verbs switched in order and not change the meaning of a sentence. Not so in English. As for the Old Testament, written in Hebrew and Aramaic, the text doesn't seem to be much in dispute. The oldest copy of any book from the Old Testament we have is a copy of Isaiah from the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is more than 99% the same as the text from which our Bibles are translated from. For more information on this I think one should read The King James Only Controversy by James White for a wonderful treatment on Biblical translation and transmission. Here is a video about the reliability of the Bible:
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