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✦ Question 002 ✦

Can I trust the Bible — wasn't it changed over time?

The Dead Sea Scrolls — Qumran, discovered 1947
5 refs
Scripture
25,000+
Manuscripts
1,000 yrs
The scroll test
Yes
How sure?
⧖ See on Timeline
1

The Honest Answer

This one has been put to the test — and passed. In 1947, a shepherd found the Dead Sea Scrolls: Bible manuscripts a thousand years older than any copy we had. When scholars compared them, the text was almost word-for-word identical — after ten centuries of hand-copying. No ancient book on earth comes close to the Bible's paper trail: thousands of copies, from many lands, all telling the same story.

How sure are we? Very — this is one of the best-documented facts in the field
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Key Scripture

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Isaiah 40:8 — the claim the scrolls tested
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“The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God stands forever.”
Luke 1:3
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“It seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write to you in order, most excellent Theophilus.”
3

Watch

Council of Nicaea — did the church change the Bible?
Wes Huff
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The Scroll Test

Before 1947 — the doubt
our oldest copies were from around AD 900
  • ✓Skeptics argued a thousand years of copying must have changed the text
After 1947 — the receipts
the scrolls date to before Jesus was born
  • ✓The great Isaiah scroll matched our text almost letter for letter
  • ✓The copyists were that careful, for that long
  • ⚠Small spelling differences exist — none change a single teaching
5

From the Collection

Dead Sea Scrolls — the artifact
artifact room · Qumran, 1947
→
Canon of Scripture Established
see it on the timeline
→
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Why It Matters

“If the text had drifted, faith would stand on sand. It didn't. The Bible you hold says what the scrolls in the caves say — you can build on that.”

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