This article was published in The Stream (September 13, 2022) and is republished with permission.
Can
we trust the authenticity of the New Testament scriptures? Trust is
foundational in the acceptance of scripture. There’s an interesting
lesson to learn from a very modern system of trust: money. Even Bitcoin,
believe it or not.
We’ll start with old-fashioned familiar money.
Why is a twenty dollar bill worth $20? It’s just a small sheet of paper,
after all. The answer is trust. We trust the piece of paper has value
because its worth is backed by the United States government.
We also
trust that Walmart will give us $20 worth of Doritos if we give them a
twenty dollar bill. The cashier might look at us funny, but there’s an
exchange of trust regardless of that.
The cryptocurrency Bitcoin
doesn’t have any government backing it, but people still use it to buy
and sell. They wouldn’t do that unless they had good reason to trust it.
Here’s where we find the interesting parallel with the New Testament
Scriptures. Bitcoin and the Bible both establish trust in similar ways.
Bitcoin
is still new, so I’ll explain how it works. It’s a digital form of
currency. Trust in Bitcoin value is maintained through computer software
called blockchain. Imagine a large number of short
encrypted computer program blocks linked together. Since a large number
of links are connected together, the long program is called a chain — a
blockchain.
You access your Bitcoin through a password that opens up
your account and yours only. Be careful with that password!
Californian Stefan Thomas forgot his, and it cost him $220 million dollars.
So
why should we trust Bitcoin? Why can’t some hacker come in and add a
few links saying they own the coin when they don’t? The answer is the
Bitcoin ledger. Many users keep copies of all of the links in the
blockchain in a single ledger. They continue to update this ledger as
more and more Bitcoins are created and traded.
The number of copies being kept of that ledger is hard to estimate, but some estimate it’s in the tens to hundreds of thousands. Every up-to-date copy is the same at any point in time.
Here’s
where the trust comes in. No one individual can make an unauthorized
change in the Bitcoin blockchain without every ledger owner knowing
about it. Those who maintain ledgers own Bitcoin. They have an interest
in guarding Bitcoin’s reputation.
Bitcoin can be trusted because
there are thousands of dedicated Bitcoin owners patrolling the ledger to
guarantee its integrity. The piggybank is well guarded. Because it can
be trusted, even in the absence of any central controlling authority,
blockchains have been used in a myriad of other applications
including smart contracts, non-fungible tokens and peer-to-peer transactions.
It’s
very contemporary, and it’s also very technical, so what does it have
to do with the authenticity of scripture? It turns out there’s a
striking parallel between the historical record of scripture and the
blockchain ledger. There exists an (unencrypted) blockchain of
historical evidence for scripture that establishes its integrity and is
next to impossible to hack. Wikipedia gives a good summary:
The
New Testament has been preserved in more manuscripts than any other
ancient work of literature, with over 5,800 complete or fragmented Greek
manuscripts catalogued, 10,000 Latin manuscripts and 9,300 manuscripts
in various other ancient languages including Syriac, Slavic, Gothic,
Ethiopic, Coptic and Armenian. The dates of these manuscripts range from
c. 125 … to the introduction of printing in Germany in the 15th
century.
This large number of historical documents corresponds to a
blockchain ledger. Its thousands and thousands of links can lead us to
trust in the authenticity of scripture, because just like Bitcoin’s
blockchain, new fragments could not be easily added, and none could be
altered or removed. It would never have made it past of the scrutiny of
historians and others guarding the integrity of these records.
Minor
differences in the record are of little consequence. The vast majority
are on the order of variations in spelling. Others get ironed out by
biblical scholars who like arguing about such things.
Other
differences are noted in most Bibles so everyone can see them. Many
Bible translations, for example, have a footnote in the latter part of
Mark 16 stating that it’s not found in all ancient manuscripts. Overall,
though, there is a remarkably high consistency of scripture content in
the historical record.
The result is that we have a solid record of
the life and teachings of the Savior, Jesus Christ, and His early
followers. The integrity of New Testament content is untarnished. The
message comes through with crystal clarity. It’s not the only way we
know Scripture is trustworthy, but it’s an important one.
Blockchain
can be trusted due to widespread ledger duplication and watchful eyes.
The authenticity and accuracy of scripture can likewise be trusted
because of widespread manuscript duplication and watchful eyes.
Mind Matters
features original news and analysis at the intersection of artificial
and natural intelligence. Through articles and podcasts, it explores
issues, challenges, and controversies relating to human and artificial
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human beings. Mind Matters is published by the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence.
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