Bible Studies

Additional Resources for Bible On Trial: Beyond A Reasonable Doubt

Use these additional resources to supplement your study on this topic. Because of the Internet's changing nature, a link may modify or get deleted. If you discover a bad link in the list below, please contact us!

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SESSION ONE:

• Codex Sinaiticus
  Codex Sinaiticus
• Codex Vaticanus
  Codex Vaticanus - Catholic Encyclopedia article
• Codex Alexandrinus
  Codex Alexandrinus
• More on Codex Alexandrinus
  Catholic Encyclopedia article on the same
• Early Papyri
  Partial New Testament papyri which predate these three
• Modern Greek Editions
  The history of modern Greek editions
• The Evolution of Writing
  A history of human writing from counting systems to modern alphabets
• How the Sumerians Started Writing
  About cuneiform
• Writing Before the Alphabet
  More on early writing
• Uncial Text
  A thorough discussion of the evolution of uncial text in Greek. Uncial is a writing style used in many important manscripts.
• Variants in Manuscripts
  This Web site describes how there came to be differences and variations between the hand-copied manuscripts.
• Detecting Errors
  More than you ever wanted to know about the kinds of errors that can occur in hand-copied texts and how scholars detect them so they can be remedied
• What Is Textual Criticism?
  A simple description of textual criticism
• The End of Mark's Gospel
  Textual criticism considers the end of the Gospel of Mark.
• John 8 and Textual Criticism
  Textual criticism considers the account of the adulterous woman in John 8.

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SESSION TWO:

• Tacitus on the Burning of Rome
  Tacitus writes about an event of 64 A.D.
• Tacitus on Nero's Persecution
  Tacitus describes how Nero persecuted the Christians.
• Pliny the Younger Asks What to Do with the Christians
  A letter to Emperor Trajan.
• The Sopherim
  How were the scribes able to safeguard their copying from typical transmission errors? The Sopherim ("counters of letters") were scribes who numbered the words and letters in each Old Testament book. They left lists with these statistics at the end of each book to insure the accuracy of future copies. To get some idea of what these rules and regulations looked like, click here.
• More on the Sopherim
  The Sopherim began with Ezra the priest and completed their counting of letters in the first century BC. See the beginning of this article for more on the Sopherim.
• The Dead Sea Scrolls
  An examination of the Essenes who are believed to have written the Dead Sea Scrolls
• Essenes and Scrolls
  More on the Essenes and their scrolls
• The Difference Between Paper, Parchment and Vellum
  Know the difference.
• Video Demonstration of Papyrus
  A video demonstration
• Making Vellum and Parchment
  Video demonstration
• An Early Fragment
  A fragment of John's Gospel found in the John Rylands' collection
• The Date of Daniel
  Evidence for Daniel being written before 155 BC
• Prophetic or Historic?
  A convincing argument that Daniel is prophetic and not historic
• DNA and Reconstructing Scrolls
  Using DNA to ensure the proper placement of scroll fragments
• The Synchrotron
  The Synchrotron - a new tool to read damaged, fragile manuscripts
• Learn Greek and Hebrew
  Learn Greek and Hebrew at home through iTunes U Greek and Hebrew classes at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Mo.

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SESSION THREE:

• Archaeology and the Bible
  Top Ten Biblical Archaeological Finds
• More on Biblical Archaeology
  Archaeology and the Bible

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SESSION FOUR:

• Bible Museum
  The history of the Bible museum