Keystone Christian Reading Room

Facts About The Bible

General info on the Bible

The Bible consists of 66 books: 39 in the OT and 27 in the new. The Bible took about 1600 years to write. It was written in three languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek) by about 40 authors and is internally consistent throughout.

Reliability of the Bible

The Bible is 98 percent textually pure. Through all the copying of the Biblical manuscripts of the entire Bible, only 1% has any question about it. Nothing in all of the ancient writings of the entire world approaches the accuracy of the biblical documents. The 1 percent that is in question does not affect doctrine. The areas of interest are called variants and they consist mainly in variations of wording and spelling. The NT has over 5000 supporting Greek manuscripts existing today with another 20,000 manuscripts in other languages. Some of the manuscript evidence dates to within 100 years of the original writing. There is less than a 1% textual variation in the NT manuscripts. Some of the supporting manuscripts of the NT are:

• John Rylands MS written around 130 A.D., the oldest existing fragment of the gospel of John.
• Bodmer Papyrus II (150-200 A.D.).
• Chester Beatty Papyri (200 A.D.), contains major portions of the NT.
• Codex Vaticanus (325-350 A.D.), contains nearly all the Bible.
• Codex Sinaiticus (350 A.D.), contains almost all the NT and over half of the OT.

When were the gospels written?

None of the gospels mention the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70 A.D. This is significant because Jesus had prophesied its destruction when He said, "As for these things which you are looking at, the days will come in which there will not be left one stone upon another which will not be torn down," (Luke 21:5, see also Matt. 24:1; Mark 13:1). If they were written after the 70AD destruction don't you think they would have included the event?

Matthew: The various dates most widely held as possible writing dates of the Gospel are between A.D. 40 - 140. But Ignatius died around 115 A.D. and he quoted Matthew. Therefore Matthew had to be written before he died. Nevertheless, it is generally believed that Matthew was written before A.D. 70 and as early as A.D. 50.

Mark: Mark (the disciple of Peter received his information from Peter) is said to be the earliest gospel with an authorship of between A.D. 55 to A.D. 70.

Luke: Luke was written before the book of Acts and Acts does not mention "Nero's persecution of the Christians in A.D. 64 or the deaths of James (A.D. 62), Paul (A.D. 64), and Peter (A.D. 65)."8 Therefore, we can conclude that Luke was written before A.D. 62.

John: The John Rylands papyrus fragment 52 of John's gospel dated in the year 125-135 contains portions of John 18, verses 31-33,37-38. This fragment was found in Egypt. It is the last of the gospels and appears to have been written in the 80's to 90's.

An important note is the lack of mention of the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70 A.D. But this is understandable since John was not focusing on historical events and was most probably written 20 or so years after the destruction of the Temple. John focused on the theological aspect of the person of Christ and listed His miracles and words that affirmed Christ's deity.

Book of Acts

Similarly, the book of Acts which was written after the gospel of Luke by Luke himself. Acts is a history of the Christian church right after Jesus' ascension. Acts also fails to mention the incredibly significant events of 70 A.D. which would have been extremely relevant and prophetically important yet it is not mentioned in Acts. Why? Because it was written pre-70 AD. Acts does not include the accounts of "Nero's persecution of the Christians in A.D. 64 or the deaths of James (A.D. 62), Paul (A.D. 64), and Peter (A.D. 65),"1 and we have further evidence that it was written very early and not long after Jesus' ascension into heaven. "At the earliest, Acts cannot have been written prior to the latest firm chronological marker recorded in the book Festus' appointment as procurator (Acts 24:27), which, on the basis of independent sources, appears to have occurred between A.D. 55 and 59."3 "It is increasingly admitted that the Logia [Q] was very early, before 50 A.D., and Mark likewise if Luke wrote the Acts while Paul was still alive. Luke's Gospel comes before the Acts (Acts 1:1). The date of Acts is still in dispute, but the early date (about A.D. 63) is gaining support constantly."4 If what is said of Acts is true, this would mean that Luke was written at least before A.D. 63 and possibly before 55 - 59 since Acts is the second in the series of writings by Luke. This means that the gospel of Luke was written within 30 years of Jesus' death.