ACCURATE TRANSLATION
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Careful copies

Very old copies

Section: The Bible > No Mistakes >Accurate Science > Translation 3

GOATS AND SCROLLS

A group of Essenes were living near the community of Qumran, in the region of the Dead Sea. It was at a time when the Roman army was searching for, and destroying, Jewish settlements and writings. 
Afraid that their library of precious scripture scrolls would be destroyed, they stored them in pots and hid them in caves.

It was hundreds of years later that a goat-herd passed by. 
His goats had wandered off. He looked up at a ledge in the rock face, but could not tell if the goats were there or not. So he threw a stone to startle the goat into appearing.

To his surprise the stone disappeared without making a noise. It had gone right into a cave.
Clambering up, the goat-herd found rows of clay pots, containing the scrolls.
Archaeologists agree these were the oldest copies of the book of Isaiah that they had ever seen.


Now they could check if later copies were any different from these. They would learn if the new versions had all the mistakes they expected!
In all the 66 chapters of Isaiah there were only 13 differences, mostly simple spelling mistakes.
So translations of the Old Testament taken from even later copies have been very accurate.

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In another settlement, situated on Mount Sinai, some years earlier, New Testament scrolls were found. They were so old that it is thought that they were the first copies made from the originals. Once again, they matched the later copies exactly!

These, and other ancient manuscripts have proved that more recent versions are accurate translations of the Bible originals.

All the evidence points to the accuracy of the whole Bible.
There may still be parts which, to some people, appear to be mistakes. They may also see what they think are contradictions (that means, when one part of the Bible says one thing and another part seems to say something different). But as our understanding of past history, and science, and ancient languages improves, we 
become able to explain these seeming difficulties.
We can trust the Bible to be telling the truth.

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