I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Matt. 5:18
1. Survival through time. Being written on material that perishes and having been copied and recopied for hundreds of years before the invention of the printing press did not diminish the style, correctness, or existence of the Bible. Compared with other ancient writings, it has more manuscript evidence than any ten pieces of classical literature combined.
2. Survival through persecution. The bible has withstood vicious attacks of its enemies as no other book has. Many have tried to burn it, ban it, and outlaw it, from the days of the Roman emperors to present day communist-dominated countries.
Acting on a decree by the mad tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes in 167 BC, his henchmen tried to destroy all copies of Jewish Scripture. The books of the law (i.e. Jewish Scripture) that they found they tore to pieces and burned with fire. Anyone found possessing the book of the covenant, or anyone who adhered to the law, was condemned to death.
{cke_protected_1} {cke_protected_2} In A.D. 300 the Roman emperor Diocletian ordered every Bible burned because he thought that by destroying the Scriptures he could destroy Christianity. Anyone caught with a Bible would be executed. But just 25 years later, the Roman emperor Constantine ordered that 50 perfect copies of the Bible be made at government expense.
The French philosopher Voltaire, a skeptic who destroyed the faith of many people, boasted that within 100 years of his death, the Bible would disappear from the face of the earth. Voltaire died in 1728, but the Bible lives on. The irony of history is that 50 years after his death, the Geneva Bible Society moved into his former house and used his printing presses to print thousands of Bibles.
3. Survival through criticism. Critics for eighteen hundred years have been refuting and overthrowing this book, and yet it stands today solid as a rock. Its circulation increases, and it is more loved and cherished and read today than ever before.