THE THREAT: Papyrus and parchment were the primary writing materials used by Bible writers and copyists.a (2 Timothy 4:13) How did those materials put the Bible’s survival in jeopardy?

Papyrus tears, discolors, and weakens easily. “A sheet can eventually decay into a skeleton of fibres and a handful of dust,” say Egyptologists Richard Parkinson and Stephen Quirke. “When in storage, a roll can grow mould or rot with the damp and can be eaten by rodents or insects, particularly by white ants, when it is buried.” Some papyri, after their discovery, were exposed to excessive light or humidity, accelerating their deterioration.

Parchment is more durable than papyrus, but it too degrades if mishandled or exposed to extreme temperatures, humidity, or light.b Parchment is also a target of insects. Consequently, for ancient records, states the book Everyday Writing in the Graeco-Roman East, “survival is the exception rather than the rule.” If the Bible had thus decayed, its message would have died with it.

HOW THE BIBLE SURVIVED: Jewish law compelled every king to “write for himself in a book a copy of this Law,” the first five books of the Bible. (Deuteronomy 17:18) Moreover, professional copyists produced so many manuscripts that by the first century C.E., the Scriptures could be found in synagogues throughout Israel and even in distant Macedonia! (Luke 4:16, 17; Acts 17:11) How did some very old manuscripts survive until today?

“Jews were known to put scrolls containing Scripture in pitchers or jars in order to preserve them,” says New Testament scholar Philip W. Comfort. Christians evidently continued that tradition. Consequently, some early Bible manuscripts have been discovered in clay jars, as well as in dark closets and caves and in exceptionally dry regions.

THE RESULT: Thousands of portions of Bible manuscripts​—some over 2,000 years old—​survive to this day. No other ancient text has so many manuscripts from so long ago.

THE THREAT: Many political and religious leaders pursued an agenda contrary to the Bible’s message. Often, they used their authority to stop people from owning, producing, or translating the Bible. Consider two examples:

• About 167 B.C.E.: Seleucid King Antiochus Epiphanes, who sought to force Greek religion on the Jews, ordered all copies of the Hebrew Scriptures to be destroyed. His officials “tore and burnt the rolls of the Law whenever they found them,” wrote historian Heinrich Graetz, “and killed those who were found to seek strength and consolation in their perusal.”

• Middle Ages: Some Catholic leaders, upset that the laity were preaching what the Bible teaches rather than Catholic dogma, branded as heretics any laymen who possessed Bible books other than the Psalms in Latin. One church council enforced the command by directing that their men “diligently, faithfully, and frequently seek out the heretics . . . by searching all houses and subterranean chambers which lie under any suspicion. . . . The house in which any heretic shall be found shall be destroyed.”

If the Bible’s enemies had succeeded in stamping it out, its message would have disappeared.

HOW THE BIBLE SURVIVED: King Antiochus focused his campaign on Israel, but the Jews had formed communities in numerous other lands. In fact, scholars estimate that by the first century C.E., over 60 percent of Jews lived outside Israel. In their synagogues, the Jews kept copies of the Scriptures​—the same Scriptures that were used by future generations, including Christians.​—Acts 15:21.

During the Middle Ages, lovers of the Bible braved persecution and continued to translate and copy the Scriptures. Even before the movable-type printing press was invented in the middle of the 15th century, portions of the Bible may have been available in as many as 33 languages. Thereafter, the Bible was translated and produced at an unprecedented pace.

THE RESULT: Despite threats from powerful kings and misguided clergymen, the Bible is the most widely distributed and most translated book in history. It has shaped the laws and languages of some countries, as well as the lives of millions.

THE THREAT: External threats such as decay and opposition have not destroyed the Bible. Yet, some copyists and translators have attempted to alter the Bible’s message. At times, they have tried to make the Bible conform to their doctrines rather than conform their doctrines to the Bible. Consider some examples:

• Place of worship: Between the fourth and second centuries B.C.E., the writers of the Samaritan Pentateuch inserted after Exodus 20:17 the words “in Aargaareezem. And there you shall build an altar.” The Samaritans thus hoped to make the Scriptures support their construction of a temple on “Aargaareezem,” or Mount Gerizim.

• Trinity doctrine: Less than 300 years after the Bible was completed, a Trinitarian writer added to 1 John 5:7 the words “in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” That statement did not appear in the original text. “From the sixth century onwards,” notes Bible scholar Bruce Metzger, those words were “found more and more frequently in manuscripts of the Old Latin and of the [Latin] Vulgate.”

• Divine name: Citing a Jewish superstition as their authority, many Bible translators decided to remove the divine name from the Scriptures. They replaced that name with titles such as “God” or “Lord,” expressions applied in the Bible not only to the Creator but also to men, objects of false worship, and even the Devil.​—John 10:34, 35; 1 Corinthians 8:5, 6; 2 Corinthians 4:4.a

HOW THE BIBLE SURVIVED: First, although some Bible copyists were careless or even deceitful, many others were highly skilled and meticulous. Between the sixth and tenth centuries C.E., the Masoretes copied the Hebrew Scriptures and produced what is known as the Masoretic text. They reportedly counted the words and the letters to verify that no mistakes crept in. Where they suspected errors in the master text they were using, they noted these in the margin. The Masoretes refused to tamper with the Bible text. “Interfering with it purposely,” wrote Professor Moshe Goshen-Gottstein, “would have been for them the worst crime possible.”

Second, the sheer volume of manuscripts today actually helps Bible scholars to spot errors. For example, religious leaders taught for centuries that their Latin versions contained the authentic Bible text. Yet, at 1 John 5:7, they had inserted the spurious words referred to earlier in this article. The error even crept into the influential English King James Version! But when other manuscripts were discovered, what did they reveal? Bruce Metzger wrote: “The passage [at 1 John 5:7] is absent from the manuscripts of all ancient versions (Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Arabic, Slavonic), except the Latin.” As a result, revised editions of the King James Version and other Bibles have removed the erroneous phrase.

Do older manuscripts prove that the Bible’s message has been preserved? When the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947, scholars could at last compare the Hebrew Masoretic text to what appeared in Bible scrolls that had been written more than a thousand years earlier. A member of the editorial team of the Dead Sea Scrolls concluded that one scroll “provides irrefutable proof that the transmission of the biblical text through a period of more than one thousand years by the hands of Jewish copyists has been extremely faithful and careful.”

The Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, Ireland, features a collection of papyri that represents nearly every book of the Christian Greek Scriptures, including manuscripts dating from the second century C.E.​—only about 100 years after the Bible was completed. “Although the Papyri supply a wealth of new information on textual detail,” The Anchor Bible Dictionary observes, “they also demonstrate remarkable stability in the transmission history of the biblical text.”

THE RESULT: Rather than corrupting the Bible text, the age and multitude of Bible manuscripts have actually improved it. “No other ancient book has anything like such early and plentiful testimony to its text,” wrote Sir Frederic Kenyon about the Christian Greek Scriptures, “and no unbiased scholar would deny that the text that has come down to us is substantially sound.” And regarding the Hebrew Scriptures, scholar William Henry Green stated: “It may be safely said that no other work of antiquity has been so accurately transmitted.”