Mon Sep 15 12:32:31 2003
From: john 

statement:
>Thats the thing for me.  The bible has been translated thousands of times 
>and there is little "real" evidence tracing it all the way back to its 
>origin.


Basically there are 643 copies of Homer's Illiad, with 400 years gap between
         the original and the copies... but it's number 2 in copies...

The New Testament has over 5,366 copies, some of them dated within 50 years of
         their being written...

We don't disbelieve that Homer wrote the Illiad, despite a 400 year gap and
less then a thousand copies... Yet skeptics and critics will deny the Bible
even though it has more manuscripts than any other document of antiquity, and
copies much closer in time to the time it was written!


"There are over 5,686 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament.  Add over
10,000 Latin Vulgate and at least 9,300 other early versions (MSS), and we
have close to, if not more than, 25,000 manuscript copies of portions of the
New Testament in existence today.  No other document of antiquity even bigs to
approach such numbers and attestation.  In comparison, Homer's Illiad is 
second,
with only 643 manuscripts that survive.  The first complete preserved
text of Homer dates from the thirteeth century. (Leach, OB, 145)"  Pg 34
The New Evidence that demands a verdict, chapter: Is the New Testament
Historically Reliable?

On pg 38 of the same book (Josh McDowell isbn 0-7852-4219-8) there is the
following chart:

Author, Book, Date Written, Earliest Copies, Time Gap, No. of Copies
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homer, Illiad, 800 BC, c.(circa) 400BC, c. 400 yrs, 643
Herodutus, History, 480-425 BC, c.AD900, c. 1350 years, 8
Thucydides, History, 460-400 BC, c. AD900, c. 1350 years, 8
Plato,  , 400BC, c. AD900, c. 1300 yrs, 7
Demosthenes, , 300BC, c. AD 1100, c. 1400 yrs, 200
Caesar, Gallic Wars, 100-44 BC, c. AD 900, c. 1000yrs, 10
Livy, History of Rome, 59BC-AD17, 4thcen.-partial(1)-mostly 10th century, 
c.400-1000yrs, 19 copies
Tacitus, Annals, AD 100, c. AD 1100, c.1000yrs, 20
Pliny Secundus, Natural History, AD 61-113, c. AD 850, c. 750 yrs, 7

NEW TESTAMENT, , AD 500-100, c. 114 (fragment), c 200(books) c.250(most of 
NT) c.325(complete NT),
         +50yr/100yrs/150yrs/225yrs,   5,366 copies

john
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