Watch the video above and talk about it with a friend or mentor.

How the books of the New Testament were put together and made it around the world.

How did the first copies of the New Testament make it around the world and how were these books put together?   Obviously there were not any digital copies, there was no email or even copy machines during that time.  They only had pens, reeds, papyri, or animal skins.

Original Manuscripts

Around the year 200, a really important church leader named Tertullian told of how the churches in Rome, Corinth, Thessalonica, Philippi, and Ephesus still had the original letters that had been sent to them.   These churches  would keep their letter in the home of a church member in special book chests. However, no matter how well these churches took care of the letters, there was no way they would last forever.  That is why the early churches made copies of these letters.  If a nearby church did not have their own copy, another church would loan it to them so that they could make a copy for themselves.  Scribes had to do all the copying by hand.  When a writing was passed on, the sending church would also pass on an oral tradition.   This oral history would include where the writing came from and would trace it back to an eyewitness account of Jesus.   This way they would know whose authority this text represented.

Today

Today scholars have more than 5600 ancient pieces of the New Testament. That is more than any other text in the entire ancient world.  That is more than exist of Homer, Aristotle or Plato.  The earliest of these manuscripts are from 100 AD when eyewitnesses of the risen Jesus were still alive.  Even though the scribes were so careful in their work, they did make some mistakes.  However, because there are so many copies of the New Testament, scholars can compare the texts and figure out what words the authors originally wrote.  God preserved his word in such a way that the message that we have today is the same message he inspired so long ago.

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Key Points:

  • Original Manuscripts
  • Today

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Talk About It
  1. Watch the video together or invite someone to summarize the topic.
  2. What is your initial reaction to this video? Do you disagree with any of it? What jumped out at you?
  3. Think back to your school days, what is the longest document you have written by hand?
  4. Consider the incredible amount of time and effort it would take to copy one of these ancient manuscripts. What does that tell you about the value the early church placed on these writings? How does your life demonstrate a similar value of the Bible?
  5. What do you think is significant about the early manuscripts dating back to a time when eye witnesses of Jesus were still alive?
  6. How does the fact that there are so many fragments of scripture validate their accuracy?
  7. What comfort do you find in the statement, “ God preserved his word in such a way that the message that we have today is the same message he inspired so long ago”.
  8. Write a personal action step based on this conversation.