{"id":154,"date":"2017-06-28T17:32:57","date_gmt":"2017-06-28T17:32:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crosstownservices.co.uk\/crossintown\/?page_id=154"},"modified":"2026-02-09T09:29:47","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T09:29:47","slug":"the-new-testament-has-not-been-altered","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/crosstownservices.co.uk\/crossintown\/the-new-testament-has-not-been-altered\/","title":{"rendered":"Has the New Testament been altered?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So many people today have <strong>swallowed the lie<\/strong> that the New Testament was <strong>written long after Christ<\/strong> and is a series of <strong>unreliable<\/strong> fables. Nothing could be further from the <strong>truth<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is a regular argument rolled out by <strong>Muslims <\/strong>that the Bible has been altered <strong>since <\/strong>the time of Mohammad. This is nonsense. Even a quick look at <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_New_Testament_papyri#Papyrus_1\u201350\">Wikipedia <\/a><\/strong>will show that<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_New_Testament_papyri#Papyrus_1\u201350\"> the vast number of New Testament documents<\/a><\/strong> in existence at the time of <strong>Mohammad <\/strong>would make the rewriting of the New Testament a miracle in itself!! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is interesting to compare the number of  &#8220;copies&#8221; of books and fragments exist of other ancient writings and when were they written?  There can be no doubt that the New Testament we have today is based on the genuine books and letters written by the Apostles themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-size: 1rem;\">Read the full article <\/span><a style=\"font-size: 1rem;\" href=\"http:\/\/irr.org\/todays-bible-real-bible\">here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table class=\"has-fixed-layout\"><tbody><tr><td><strong>Name<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>Number of years between original and earliest surviving manuscript<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>Number of existing manuscripts<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Caesar\u2019s Gallic Wars<\/td><td>900<\/td><td>10 good ones<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Tacitus\u2019 Annals<\/td><td>1,000<\/td><td>2<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Thucydides\u2019 History<\/td><td>1,300<\/td><td>8<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>History of Herodotus<\/td><td>1,300<\/td><td>8<\/td><\/tr><tr><td rowspan=\"4\">New Testament<\/td><td>150-200<\/td><td>1 (entire book of John)<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>250<\/td><td>1 (almost entire New Testament)<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Less than 300<\/td><td>2 (complete New Testament)<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Within first few centuries<\/td><td>Over 5,000 Greek fragments;<p><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;\">24,000 in other languages<\/span><\/p><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We have as many as <strong>eighteen<\/strong> New Testament <strong>manuscripts<\/strong> from the <strong>second<\/strong> <strong>century<\/strong> and <strong>one<\/strong> from the <strong>first<\/strong>. Altogether, more than <strong>43%<\/strong> of all New Testament verses are found in these manuscripts. But the most interesting thing is the <strong>first-century<\/strong> fragment. &nbsp; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dts.edu\/read\/wallace-new-testament-manscript-first-century\/\"><strong>Link<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"197\" height=\"300\" src=\"http:\/\/crosstownservices.co.uk\/crossintown\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/06\/P52-197x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-162\" srcset=\"http:\/\/crosstownservices.co.uk\/crossintown\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/06\/P52-197x300.jpg 197w, http:\/\/crosstownservices.co.uk\/crossintown\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/06\/P52.jpg 296w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 197px) 100vw, 197px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was dated by one of the world\u2019s leading&nbsp;paleographers. He said he was \u2018certain\u2019 that it was from the first century. If this is true, it would be the oldest fragment of the New Testament known to exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not only this, but the first-century fragment is from <strong>Mark\u2019s<\/strong><strong>Gospel<\/strong>. Before the discovery of this fragment, the oldest manuscript that had Mark in it was P45, from the early third century (c. AD 200\u2013250). This new fragment would predate that by 100 to 150 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If even this one fragment agrees with the equivalent portion of the Gospel as we know it, that strongly suggests that the rest is accurate too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is as if God constantly does want to be <strong><em>too<\/em> <em>obvious<\/em><\/strong>, but gives us clues and evidence if we hunt for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So many people today have swallowed the lie that the New Testament was written long after Christ and is a series of unreliable fables. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is a regular argument rolled out by Muslims that the Bible has been altered since the time of Mohammad. This is nonsense. Even &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/crosstownservices.co.uk\/crossintown\/the-new-testament-has-not-been-altered\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Has the New Testament been altered?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-154","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/crosstownservices.co.uk\/crossintown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/crosstownservices.co.uk\/crossintown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/crosstownservices.co.uk\/crossintown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/crosstownservices.co.uk\/crossintown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/crosstownservices.co.uk\/crossintown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/crosstownservices.co.uk\/crossintown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":497,"href":"http:\/\/crosstownservices.co.uk\/crossintown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/154\/revisions\/497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/crosstownservices.co.uk\/crossintown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}