Many critics of the Bible claim that there are thousands of errors in the Biblical Canon.  Even though there are those who know this is not really the case, they still claim otherwise to intimidate those who are ignorant of this fact.  There is so much information around to prove the purity and integrity of the Canon that no-one should doubt its authenticity.

The Inspired Word of God

The bible is the inspired Word of God.  Even though it was literally written by human hands, it is through the Holy Spirit the writers obtained the words to write.  

“knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.”  2 Peter 1:20-21 

Given this fact, even though some historical events recorded in the bible are not yet verified, we can accept it to be true because it is the divine Word of God.  It should be noted also that because the bible records the wrongs committed by both individuals and nations, God does not condone these actions.  They were recorded for us to learn from so we won’t repeat the same mistakes they made.

Scribes - Preservers of the Law               

The Word of God is to be handled carefully and respectfully, and the early Jews recognized this.  In so doing, to preserve the sacred text from generation to generation, highly trained Scribes were given the job of copying and transmission.  Scribes were preservers and defenders of the Law and they had strict rules and regulations on how the biblical manuscripts were to be handled. When the Jews were scattered abroad, Hebrew was no longer spoken.  This became a problem as the Old Testament text could be easily misinterpreted.  To understand this, the Hebrew language was written in all capitals with no spacing and no vowels.  The vowels were placed by the reader while reading.  If a person was not very knowledgeable in the Hebrew language, mistakes were liable to be made.

Then Came the Masoretes

Then came a group of experts called Masoretes.  The Masoretes copied the Old Testament texts and provided the vowels so identification of words became easier.  They even developed a code for the copyists and the copies to ensure that the texts were as close as possible to the original.  These texts became known as the Masoretic Text (MT).  Those who claimed that the MT contained errors based on copying were stopped in their tracks with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.  When the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were approximately 1200 years older than the MT, were compared with it, it showed unusual accuracy.  The purity of the Old Testament was proven.  In the case of the New Testament, since it is a more recent work, discoveries of numerous manuscripts abound, so there is no doubt about its authenticity.