Earlier this year the movie “The Book of Eli” began being shot in New Mexico; is due to be released on January 15, 2010 AD. It is a little difficult to get much info on this movie and some descriptions seem to conflict but: the movie is set in the post-apocalyptic year 2043 AD. It appears to be set circa 30 years after a final war which caused a hole in the ozone layer and humanity is left in a bit of a mess. The movie stars Denzel Washington as “Eli,” Malcolm McDowell as “Lombardi,” Gary Oldman as “Carnegie,” Mila Kunis as “Solara,” et al.
The premise is that Eli guards The Book of Eli (do not if he wrote it or why his name is also that of the book) that is said to hold the knowledge which could redeem the world. Carnegie and his posse are out to get The Book of Eli and the shenanigans ensue. Carnegie’s adopted daughter, Solara, ends up becoming Eli’s guide. The official Warner Brothers film description states that Eli is “Driven by this commitment and guided by his belief in something greater than himself.”
Actually, judging by more recent commercials; it appears that “the book” is the Bible and The Book of Eli is his story. Although, knowing Hollywood if the book is, indeed, the Bible it will turn out to be hollowed out and contain Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth—think about it: a hole in the ozone layer and the Earth is in bad shape! Also, all that it takes to go from “Eli” to “Al” is a copyist error! Perhaps Bart Ehrman will write “Misquoting Eli.”
Denzel Washington stated:
there’s the classic battle of good and evil in this. God and the devil, if you will, and I found that interesting […] We all at some point are in search of something and higher power, whatever you want to call it, the meaning of life, you know? […] I know I was, especially at even my son’s age, in my 20s, and … dabbling in Eastern philosophies and yoga and Buddhism and Christianity and Islam. I kind of touched them all, you know, just trying to figure out the meaning of life or, if nothing else, figure myself out. So I think there’s that. There is a thirst for that. … As a classic battle between God and the devil, or even more specifically for the character of [Eli], I mean, he’s five days’ walk from the Promised Land, if you will, for taking this book where it belongs, and literally all hell breaks loose.1
An interesting thought experiment is to juxtapose the premise behind The Book of Eli and the Bible and consider them in more ways that just a redemptive message being guarded by some, though not kept secret, while others failingly attempt to discredit it.
Let us imagine that in such a post-apocalyptic world the internet is dead and gone (NO!!!!!!!) as well as all other electronic devices thus; no electronic Bibles, no eBooks, no MP3 audio books, no hand/palm devices, etc. (my nephew predicts that someday YouTube, Twitter and Facebook will merge into one ginormous site called YouTwitFace).
So, we are left with printed texts alone. Still, there are millions upon millions of Bibles in print but let us imagine that somehow they have all (and in the original Greek “all” means “all”—that is a little apologetics humor) have been destroyed. What now?
Well, for the Old Testament we have some 10,000 manuscripts dated from 250 BC to 1100 AD.
What we learn about the Old Testament when we consider the manuscript evidence, roughly considering our modern version versus the oldest manuscripts is that with the passage of over 1,000 years we find only minor changes and no change to the message. The bottom line is that the Old Testament has more manuscripts, earlier manuscripts, better copied manuscripts, and more reliably recorded history than any other book of its time. If you cannot trust the Old Testament, then you would have to throw out all of ancient history.
As for the New Testament we have more manuscripts and earlier manuscripts which have been more accurately copied than any other book from antiquity. We have circa 5,700 Greek manuscripts with a total of circa 24,000 when we include other languages while most other books of that time have 10-20 manuscripts. The one that comes second to the New Testament is Homer’s Iliad for which we have 643 manuscripts. The New Testament is far and away even from the one that comes in second—it is not a close second as the difference is some 23,357 manuscripts.
Now, let us further consider that the over 34,000 manuscripts for the Bible have all been destroyed. What now?
We could take the writings of the Early Church Fathers—their books, commentaries, sermons and correspondence—in which they quote the New Testament and we could reconstruct the New Testament with the exception of 11 verses (verses that do not affect any doctrine). The writings of the early church fathers are from within 250-300 years of the original writings (which is one fifth less than almost all secular literature). We have 36,289 quotations of the New Testament from the early church fathers, some are 2 or 3 chapters long.
If Eli is protecting the Bible, those who are after it would cease chasing him and would be able to reconstruct it.