Silver Bible
The Bible was translated into many languages other than the original Hebrew and Greek. Latin was the major secondary translation language as the official language of the Roman Empire. But there were many other tongues as well. One of the more interesting manuscripts, housed in Uppsala, Sweden, is the Codex Argenteus, or the Silver Codex. (Originally the letters were written in silver paint on vellum (calfskin), but they have long since oxidized to black.) I had the chance to see this amazing manuscript in 1980 on a visit to Uppsala to trace my ancestors.
This marvelous Gothic manuscript dates to the 5th century, and is the principal source for our knowledge of the ancient Gothic language! Gothic was the language of the warlike Goths. Curiously, the translator deliberately omitted 1-2 Kings from his translation project because he was afraid these books would encourage the Goths to bloodshed!
Reconstruction
No other book has been as widely copied, as widely read, as widely cherished (and hated!) as the Bible. The evidence for its accurate transmission is overwhelming! In fact, even if all the Bibles in the world were collected and burned, most of the Scriptures could be reconstructed through quotations alone! For example, there are some 86,000 verse quotations from the NT in the early Christian writers alone (the so-called Patristics). This should give us enormous confidence that our Bible corresponds with the original!
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