For many centuries, the leaders of Israel passed on their people's legends, laws, history, stories, songs and traditions. I learned that the Masorites, Jewish scholars who flourished between the time of the destruction of Jerusalem and the 10th century, transcribed the Old Testament. They exercised great care in copying. Every letter of their copy was counted and meticulously compared with the text before them. The detection of a single mistake was held to be a reason for destroying the entire copy and starting over.
The New Testament scriptures were probably written on papyrus rolls, which grows near the Sea of Galilee and Lake Morom. The work of Bible translation began at a very early time. The Jews who returned from the Babylonian exile no longer spoke Hebrew but Aramaic. Hence, the Hebrew passage read in the synagogue service had to be translated into Aramaic.
Greek was becoming a world language; the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into that tongue.
The man who first translated the entire Bible into English in 1382 was Wycliffe, Religious conditions in his days were, indeed, very bad. Bishops and priest were worldly. Popes cared more material wealth that for the spiritual welfare of their people. Believers were kept in ignorance; he boldly proclaimed that every one should read it.
One hundred years after Wycliffe's death Tyndale was born, men began to demand a Bible translated directly from the original. On October 6, 1536, he was strangled and burned as a heretic. His last words were: "Lord open the king of England eyes."
The King James or Authorized Version, which appeared in the year 1611, was prepared by the best Hebrew and Greek scholars of the day.
The need for more modern versions began to assert itself. So the English Revised Version appeared in 1885, the American revised in 1901.
When Jesus was on this earth He said, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy but to fulfill" (Matthew 5:17). Jesus often quoted from the writings of the Old Testament. In the New Testament the realism and authority found in the first three gospels, including consistencies of the portrait sketched by all authors is evident on every page. If the accounts had been invented, contradictions would surely have been corrected. Seeming inconsistencies in the reports of the resurrection, for example, make these accounts far more convincing than if they were in perfect agreement.
The Dead Sea scrolls, which were found in 1947, contain portions of all the Old Testament books except Esther and the complete text of Isaiah. These scrolls are the oldest surviving manuscripts of the Hebrew Scriptures and can be used for checking the accuracy of later transcriptions. But even more important to the born-again Christian is that his proof of God's existence comes when he invites Jesus and the Holy Spirit into him. As he matures in the image of Christ, the supernatural experience and personal relationship with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are our certain proof.