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collection of literary works found
in a cave in Wadi Qumran on the
north side of the Dead Sea, a 23-
foot leather scroll was found to
contain the complete text of the
book of Isaiah in Hebrew. Expert
examination of the document
revealed beyond doubt that this
Isaiah text dated from about 100
B.C.
This copy of Isaiah, now about
2,000 years old, is unique evi–
dence of the reliability of the text
of the Holy Scriptures that have
been handed down to us. The text
in all fundamentals agrees with
what we have in our present-day
Bibles. The only differences are
minar spelling changes and mis–
placed words, changes that repre–
sent the carelessness of unofficial
sectarian scribes who copied that
particular text of the book of
Isaiah.
In other words, the present
Masoretic Hebrew text, which is a
continuation of the official He–
brew Bible, is far superior in pres–
ervation to the unofficial copy of
Isaiah made 2,000 years ago. Fur–
thermore, the ancient scroll of
Isaiah, just like the printed copies
of lsaiah in any modern-day Bible,
whether Hebrew, Greek, English
or German, has the same 66 chap–
ters of our present-day text.
Until this find , the oldest and
fullest manuscript in Hebrew was
the
C~ex
Petropolitanus, dating
from about A.D. 916. All this
makes clear how accurate the
Jews have been in copying, gener–
ation after generation, the books
of the Hebrew Bible. God has
indeed given divine protection to
the Book which contains his com–
mands and revelations to man!
Between 1949 and 1951 addi–
tional manuscripts were located in
other caves near the Dead Sea. In
these scrolls were 19 books of the
Bible- all telling the same textual
story as the Isaiah manuscript!
True, minar and on occasion sig–
nificant variations occur. But
remember, the Dead Sea Scrolls
were not copied by the official
scribes of the Jewish community.
Jesus never recognized the Dead
Sea sects as having any authority
over the true Hebrew text, com–
monly called the Masoretic . He–
brew text.
42
The Dead Sea Scrolls plainly
show Samaritan and other · in–
fluences. Between the time of
Alexander the Great and the sec–
ond century B.C. the Samaritans
tried their best to inftuence the
Jewish community and alter the
inspired scriptures. They failed.
The minar variations that do
occur in the sectarian Dead Sea
Scrolls are added proof that the
standard Hebrew Masoretic text
is the official Bible text God has
preserved.
What Jesus Revealed
Through whom has God preserved
his authoritative written word accu–
rately?
Jesus said: "Till heaven and
earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall
in no wise pass from the law, till all
be fulfilled" (Matt. 5:18).
Has this happened? Was Jesus
right? Or has the Law- the
Hebrew Bible- been hopelessly
lost and corrupted?
Luke quotes Jesus as saying, "It
is easier for heaven and earth to
pass, than one tittle of the law to
fail" (Luke 16: 17). Modern critics
assume Jesus was wrong. They
think the Old Testament has not
been accurately preserved. But
they are wrong!
Jesus also announced, "Heaven
and earth shall pass away, but my
words shall not pass away." (See
Matt. 24:35, Mark 13:31 and Luke
21:33.)
Jesus' words-the very words
recorded by the apostles in the
New Testament- shall not pass
away!
•Of course the modern critics pre–
fer to quote Jesus as saying, "Heav–
en and earth cannot pass away, but
my words shall pass away!" But
these critics are wrong! Jesus is
right. His words have not passed
away. The critics have merely been
unwilling to look for his words
where he said they could be found!
They have, instead, looked else–
where so that they would not find
Jesus' words.
Notice where we ought to look
for the authoritative text of the
Bible. Read it from the Revised
Standard Version which the mod–
ern critics have themselves trans–
lated: "Then what advantage has
the Jew?"
Yes, what special duty did God
give to the Jews? Notice:
"Much in every way. To begin
with, the Jews are entrusted with
the oracles of God. What if sorne
were unfaithful? Does their faith–
lessness nullify the faithfulness of
God? By no means! Let God be
true though every man be false, as
it is written, 'That thou mayest be
justified in thy words ...' " (Rom.
3:1-4, RSV).
~
To whom were the oracles of
God, the written record' of God's
revelation delivered through Mases
and the prophets-the Hebrew
Bible--committed? To the Jews!
But what if the Jews did not
believe and dió not practice the
things written in the law, the
prophets and the psalms? What if
the Jews have become divided into
Orthodox, Reformed and other
schools of thought? Does their
rejection of sorne of the truth nul–
lify the faithfulness of the written
word of God, which they are
required to preserve from genera–
tion to generation?
"God forbid," declared the King
James Version. "By no means," re–
iterates the Revised Standard Ver–
sion:
So the Jews-by these very
words of the theologian translators
of the Bible into English- are seen
to have preserved the Hebrew Bible
faithfully!
Now consider the New Testa–
ment.
It
was offered first to the
Jews. But the Jews, as a nation,
rejected the New Testament–
though many individual Jews did
accept it in the first century.
What did God, in his wise
foreknowledge, do? He revealed
his word to the gentiles, specifi–
cally the Greeks, for a very great
purpose.
Greeks Preserve New Testament
Notice Paul's statement. The Jews
originally had the advantage over
the Greeks because the Jews
received the oracles of God (Rom.
3:1-4). Now, however, declares
Paul, "there is no difference
between the Jew and the Greek:
for the same Lord over all is rich
unto all that call upon him"
(Rom. 10:12) . No difference?
Why?
The answer is found in verses 14
The
PLAIN TRUTH