Short answer: The Bible has not been rewritten in the sense of having its message changed. It has been copied by hand for centuries, translated into many languages, and revised in English many times to keep the wording clear, but the manuscript evidence shows the text has been transmitted with remarkable care. There is no single number, because "rewritten" can mean copied, translated or revised, and those are different things. The core teaching has remained the same.
In This Article
The question "how many times has the Bible been rewritten?" usually comes from one of two places. A skeptic may have heard that the Bible is a game of telephone, changed so often that no one can know what the originals said. A believer may have heard that claim and felt a pang of doubt. Both deserve a straight answer. People in the pews asked me versions of this question again and again, and I always wanted to answer it from the evidence rather than from slogans.
I hold, as I always have, that Scripture is God's Word and that we can trust it. But trust is stronger when it understands how the Bible reached us. So let us sort out the terms, look at the manuscripts, and face the disputed verses honestly.
Are Copying, Translating And Rewriting The Same Thing?
No, and mixing them up is where most of the confusion starts. Three different things have happened to the Bible over time.
| Process | What It Means | Does It Change The Message? |
|---|---|---|
| Copying | Scribes made new hand-written copies of existing manuscripts | Introduced small slips, which comparison across many copies reveals |
| Translating | Carrying the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek into other languages | Wording differs by language, the meaning is carried over |
| Revising | Updating a translation's language or correcting it against better manuscripts | Improves clarity and accuracy, not the doctrine |
The Old Testament was written mostly in Hebrew, with some portions in Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Greek. Nobody reads the original manuscripts, which were written on materials that did not last. We read faithful copies and faithful translations of them.
So when someone says the Bible has been "rewritten," ask what they mean. If they mean translated, then yes, many times, into many languages, and that is a good thing: it puts God's Word in the language of the reader. If they mean copied, then yes, countless times by hand before printing. If they mean that someone changed the story to say something different, the evidence does not support that.
The Bible itself claims that Scripture is breathed out by God:
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
2 Timothy 3:16 (NIV)
Christians have long understood that this applies in its fullest sense to the original writings, and that God has preserved his word through the church so that we can know it. That is why the work of comparing manuscripts matters, and why the story is encouraging.
How Many Manuscripts Survive?
Here I want to be careful, because online claims often attach precise numbers to this. I will stay with what I am sure of: far more ancient copies of the New Testament survive than of any other writing from the ancient world, in Greek and in early translations such as Latin, Syriac and Coptic. The same is true to a lesser degree for the Old Testament. The sheer number is what makes the text so well tested.
Why does that matter? When you have a handful of copies, you cannot tell which reading is original. When you have a great many copies from different regions and centuries, an error in one will stand out against the others. A scribe in one place making a slip does not change the copies made somewhere else. Scholars compare them in a discipline called textual criticism and, in the vast majority of cases, can identify the original wording with confidence.
The kinds of differences between manuscripts are mostly small:
- Spelling variations, much like "neighbor" and "neighbour."
- Word order, such as "Christ Jesus" versus "Jesus Christ."
- An accidentally skipped or repeated word or line.
None of these touches a major teaching of the faith. No doctrine, whether the deity of Christ, the resurrection, salvation by grace or the nature of sin, rests on a disputed reading. For more on what sin is according to Scripture, see What Is Sin?.
The canon, meaning which books belong, is a related question. The church recognized the twenty-seven books of the New Testament over time, and the fourth-century church leader Athanasius listed those same twenty-seven books in a letter in the year 367. The Catholic and Orthodox churches include additional Old Testament books, often called the deuterocanonical books, that Protestant Bibles do not. I explain that difference in What Bible Do Catholics Use?.
What Did The Dead Sea Scrolls Show?
This is one of the best answers to the telephone-game objection. Before the middle of the twentieth century, the oldest complete Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament dated from roughly the tenth century AD, copied by Jewish scribes known as the Masoretes. Skeptics could ask: how do we know the text was the same a thousand years earlier?
Then, beginning in the late 1940s, scrolls were found in caves near the Dead Sea. They include portions of nearly every Old Testament book and some complete scrolls, such as the famous Isaiah scroll. They date from the last centuries before Christ, roughly a thousand years earlier than the Masoretic manuscripts scholars had relied upon.
When scholars compared them, they found that the text of Isaiah, and the other books, was remarkably close to what Bible readers already had. There are differences in spelling and some small variations, and a few places where the scrolls preserve readings that help clarify a difficult passage. But the message and teaching are the same. That is a strong testimony to how carefully the text was handed down.
The Dead Sea Scrolls also showed that the Hebrew text circulated in more than one form in that period, and some scrolls agree more with the Greek translation than with the later Hebrew text. Honest scholars report this, and it does not threaten the faith; it gives us more evidence to work with.
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.
Isaiah 40:8 (NIV)
Which Verses Are Disputed?
Honesty requires me to say that there are a few passages where the manuscripts disagree in a way that matters to readers, and your Bible probably has a footnote on them. The best known are these:
- Mark 16:9-20. Many of the earliest manuscripts end the Gospel of Mark at verse 8. Later manuscripts add the longer ending. Most modern translations include it with a note.
- John 7:53 to 8:11. The story of the woman caught in adultery is missing from many early manuscripts, and appears in different places in some later ones. Many teachers accept it as a true event that belongs in the Gospels. I discuss the story in What Does "He Who Is Without Sin Cast The First Stone" Mean?
- 1 John 5:7-8. The longer wording found in the older King James tradition, sometimes called the Johannine Comma, is absent from the early Greek manuscripts. Modern translations leave it out of the main text.
Notice what this shows. We know about these disputes because the manuscripts are openly compared and the footnotes are printed in the Bible you hold. That is the opposite of a cover-up. And the doctrines in question, such as the resurrection or the Trinity, are taught clearly in many other passages that are not in dispute.
It is also fair to mention that translators sometimes disagree about how best to render a Greek or Hebrew phrase. That is why reading more than one version is wise. See Which Bible Should You Read? Choosing The Right Bible for how to choose.
How Many English Translations Are There?
Many, and I will not give you a number, because the count depends on what you include: full Bibles or New Testaments, new translations or revisions, paraphrases or word-for-word versions. Anyone who gives a confident exact figure is probably counting in a particular way. For a practical guide, see How Many Bible Versions Are There?.
What I can give you is the path the English Bible took:
- Early translations came from the Latin Vulgate, a translation Jerome completed in the late fourth century. Wycliffe's English Bible in the fourteenth century followed it.
- In the sixteenth century, scholars turned to the Greek and Hebrew themselves. Erasmus published a Greek New Testament in 1516, and William Tyndale translated into English directly from the original languages, at great personal cost.
- The King James Version appeared in 1611 and shaped English-speaking Christianity for centuries.
- In modern times, translations such as the NIV, ESV, NRSV, NASB and others have been produced by teams of scholars working from the oldest and best manuscripts available, including those found after the King James era.
Printing made a difference too. After the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century, copies could be produced without scribal slips, so the text became fixed in a way it never had been before.
Different translations exist for different reasons. Some aim for close, word-for-word accuracy, and others for smooth readability. A newer translation is not a "new Bible." It is the same Scripture, put into the language of today and checked against better manuscript evidence. A study Bible can help you see these notes, as I discuss in What Is A Study Bible?
Can We Trust Today's Bible?
Yes. I say this as someone who has spent decades preaching from it. The evidence points in one direction.
- The text has been preserved in an unusually large number of ancient copies, which lets scholars cross-check one against another.
- The Dead Sea Scrolls show that the Old Testament was carefully handed down across about a thousand years.
- The places where manuscripts disagree are few in proportion to the whole, they are openly noted in modern Bibles, and none overturns a major teaching.
- Modern translations are made by comparing the oldest manuscripts, so they are closer to the original wording than many people realize.
Jesus himself spoke about the staying power of God's word:
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
Matthew 24:35 (NIV)
And in the Sermon on the Mount he said that the Law would not lose even its smallest detail (Matthew 5:18). Our confidence rests on both the promise of God and the evidence of history, and the two agree.
I would add that trust is not the same as never asking questions. Ask them. Read the footnotes. Compare versions. The Bible has stood up to scrutiny for centuries, and it will stand up to yours. If you are not sure where to begin, try Where To Start Reading The Bible or How To Read The Bible And What Is The Best Order.
Key Bible Verses About God's Word Enduring
- 2 Timothy 3:16-17: All Scripture is God-breathed and equips for every good work.
- Isaiah 40:8: The word of our God endures forever.
- Matthew 24:35: Jesus' words will never pass away.
- Matthew 5:18: Not the smallest letter of the Law will disappear.
- 1 Peter 1:25: The word of the Lord endures forever.
- John 17:17: God's word is truth.
Frequently Asked Questions
Has the Bible been changed or tampered with?
Not in a way that changes its message. Scribes made small copying slips over centuries, but comparing a very large number of ancient manuscripts lets scholars identify them. No doctrine rests on a disputed reading.
How many times has the Bible been translated?
There is no exact count, because it depends on whether you include full Bibles, New Testaments, revisions or paraphrases. It has been translated into a great many languages, and the English Bible alone has been translated and revised repeatedly.
When was the last time the Bible was changed?
Translations are revised from time to time to update language and reflect newer manuscript study, but the underlying text is not rewritten. A new edition of a translation is not a new Bible. See How Many Bible Versions Are There?
Is there proof the Bible has been changed?
There is proof of small variations between manuscripts, which are noted openly in modern Bibles, such as the ending of Mark. There is no evidence of a systematic effort to alter its teaching.
What did the Dead Sea Scrolls prove about the Bible?
They showed that the Old Testament text was carefully handed down, since scrolls roughly a thousand years older than the previously known Hebrew manuscripts matched them closely in message and teaching.
