Thousands Of Ancient Copies
Month 1: Why We Trust the Bible · Why We Believe
Today's Scripture
Read together: Isaiah 40:8
8 The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.”
Memory Verse
“The Law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is trustworthy, making wise the simple.”— Psalm 19:7 (BSB)
📖 Bible-in-a-Year (optional)
Today's reading: Luke 9-12
Reading the whole Bible in a year — do this when you have extra time. (Jesus sends out His followers and teaches them to pray.)The Heart of It
Imagine a game of telephone. A message gets whispered down a line and comes out silly at the end. People sometimes worry the Bible is like that, passed along until it changed. But the Bible is not like one whisper down one line. For the New Testament alone, we have thousands of ancient hand-copied Greek manuscripts. We have thousands more in other languages too. When you have that many copies from so many different places and times, you can lay them side by side and see exactly what the originals said. No other ancient book even comes close to that many copies.
Compare that to other famous old writings. We trust the words of ancient leaders and poets even though only a handful of copies survive. And those copies were made a thousand years or more after the originals. The New Testament has far more copies, made far closer to the time it was written. So when Isaiah says, "The word of our God stands forever" (), that is not just a hope. It is what the evidence shows. Grass dries up and flowers fall. But God made sure His Word would last, and He used faithful copyists all over the world to do it.
Around the Table
There are SO many old copies of the Bible. Way too many to count! That helps us know nobody could change God's words in secret.
Let's do it: Try to count to 5,000. Just kidding! Then giggle and say, "That's how many old Bible copies God kept safe!"
The Bible is not like a game of telephone, because we have thousands of old copies to compare. They all line up, so we know what it really said.
Let's talk: Why does having more copies make us more sure, not less?
The New Testament has thousands of copies, far more and far earlier than any other ancient writing. That's why historians can piece the text back together with great confidence.
Let's go deeper: If a friend trusts a history book based on a few late copies, what should they think about the Bible's thousands of early copies?
💬 Conversation Starter
Have you ever played "telephone" and had the message come out funny? Why is the Bible different from that game?
🛡️ Defending the Faith
When someone says, "The Bible has been copied so many times it must have changed," kindly turn it around. The many copies are exactly why we can be confident. With thousands of copies from different places, scholars compare them and recover what the originals said. If even one copyist slipped, the others reveal it. So more copies means more certainty, not less. Say it gently and with a smile, the way teaches us to give an answer "with gentleness and respect." We're helping a friend toward the truth, not winning a fight.
For Dad · Go Deeper
The popular slogan "it's been translated and copied so many times" is one of the most common objections your children will face. And it rests on a misunderstanding your family can clear up in two minutes. Our English Bibles are not copies of copies of copies in a long chain. They are fresh translations made directly from ancient manuscripts in the original languages. And the manuscript evidence for the New Testament is unmatched in the ancient world. There are far more copies, dated much closer to the originals, than for writings everyone accepts without question. Teach your kids to ask a kind follow-up question: "Compared to what?" That single question exposes a double standard and opens a real conversation, all without arrogance.
Draws on: Frank Turek, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.
Let's Pray Together
"Father, thank You that Your Word stands forever. Thank You for keeping it safe all these years. Give us confidence in Your truth. And help us share it with kindness. In Jesus' name, amen."
The grass withers and flowers fall, but the Word of our God stands forever.