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FOUNDATIONAL STUDY
EVIDENCE UPON EVIDENCE:
THE BIBLE IS THE WORD OF GOD
Norman Manzon
Dear Reader,
Just a quick note before we embark on our
study:
This is a relatively new website, and there are
three studies that appears on it, thus far. All of them are packed with
Scripture, and two of them are quite extensive! In due time, there will be a
multitude of studies covering all areas of systematic theology, the goal
of which is to address and arrange all Bible subjects topically in a
formal, systematic arrangement. You might care to bookmark this site in
your browser.
The reason that the "Evidence"
study on this page has been given such prominence is this: That the Bible
can be
believed is the very bedrock of faith in its contents, not the least
advantage of which is a blessed eternity in loving fellowship with the
triune God by virtue of the death and bodily resurrection of the God-Man
Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins, a love gift from God for all who would but take it.
If you are blessed by this study and would
like to be informed of additional studies
as they are added to this site,
please email me at
YeshuasTouch@hawaii.rr.com.
Blessings to you in God's Word,
Norman Manzon
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EVIDENCE UPON EVIDENCE:
THE BIBLE IS THE WORD OF GOD
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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EVIDENCE UPON EVIDENCE:
THE BIBLE IS THE WORD OF GOD
FORWARD
Dear Friends,
The study you are about to read is an extremely important study, one that
is foundational to all considerations of Bible content: “Evidence Upon Evidence: The Bible is the Word of God.”
Among you are many who believe that the Bible is from God, and some who do
not. I cannot express, to those of you who believe, how I long for the
church to love the Word of God more than it does, to the point of loving
to study it and meditate on it and apply it as an ongoing life project.
Many of you will discover, for the first time, a wealth of biblical
understanding in the study. Please! Study it and ponder it until it
becomes a part of your life and understanding. I cannot ask the same of
those of you who do not (yet) believe. I implore you, however, to consider
its declarations with an open mind.
You will all find that much detailed evidence from the sciences will be
presented in support of the Bible's claim to being the Word of God.
Christians, learn them well. You are living in an age of great unbelief.
You need to strengthen yourselves with facts so that you will stand strong
in the face of doubt and be able to share what you have learned with
others. If you are not a believer in the Bible's divine origin, then I
implore you to consider the evidence presented. Believing or disbelieving
the Bible's contents is the most critical issue you will ever be asked to
consider. However, you won't believe that unless you believe that
the Bible is true and understand what's at stake both here and in the
hereafter - but how can you even begin to consider whether it's true
unless you ponder its contents and, perhaps, the evidence
presented in
this study?
This study is extensive, but I dare say it will be well worth the
investment of your time. It’s a lengthy study, but -
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!
Happy dining!
Norman Manzon
INTRODUCTION
If there is no authoritative word from God, then we are all flotsam and
jetsam cast about without known purpose or direction on a vast, turbulent
and shoreless sea.
But if there is an authoritative word from God,
then it stands to reason that, by listening to it, we will gain insight
into the nature and reason for our existence and how we stand in
relationship to God and all else. We might
even come to know and love the very Creator and Sovereign of our lives.
In this study, I present evidence far beyond the threshold of proof that
the Bible is
the Word of God. If you are not (yet) convinced that it is, I
implore you to give these evidences very serious consideration as the
consequences for believing or disbelieving the Bible could not possibly be
more profound. If you do know that the Bible is the Word of God, then I
ask you to consider these evidences for the purposes of strengthening your
faith, being able to launch a strong defense against attacks on your
faith, and being able to present, in an intelligent manner,
a defense to everyone who asks you to give an
account for the hope that is in you (1
Peter 3:15). They are in need of that hope.
It is because the authorship of the Bible is such a critical and
fundamental issue that I have decided to pile evidence on top of evidence
that the Bible is the Word of God. I will present evidence from within the
Bible itself and from the natural and sociological sciences.
The Christian may wonder if I push faith aside by appealing to evidences,
an intellectual consideration. That is not the case. God Himself appealed
to evidences to convince Job to trust Him (Job 38-40). Yes,
Faith comes
from hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ (Romans 10:17), but many
won’t read the Bible or listen to a biblical teaching because they do not
believe that it is the Word of God. I appeal to evidences for the sake of
increasing eagerness to read the Bible, enjoy it and study it from cover
to cover, for whoever will read the Bible with an open mind will be in a
position for God to fill him or her with faith in its contents.
Furthermore, to the intellectual we must be as the intellectual. Paul
said, And to the Jews I became as a Jew,
that I might win Jews; ...to those who are without law, as without
law... that I might win those who are without law. To the weak I became
weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, that
I may by all means save some (1
Corinthians 9:20-22); and in Colossians 4:5-6,
Conduct
yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of every
opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned, as it were,
with salt, so that you may know how you should respond to each person.
DEFINING TERMS
If I am to prove that the Bible is the Word of God, I must first define
what I mean by “the Bible,” “God” and “the Word of God.”
The Bible. I define “the Bible” as that compilation of sixty-six books
that comprises the Protestant Bible, is included in the Eastern Orthodox
and Roman Catholic Bibles, and includes all of the thirty-nine books held
sacred by Jews.
God. I define “God” as the one true God of the Bible who eternally exists
as three divine Persons in one Supreme Being. He is a spirit, is
everywhere present (omnipresent), knows all things past, present, and
future (omniscient), and is all powerful (omnipotent). God has other
attributes, but the ones I have noted include all of the attributes
necessary for Him to have authored the Bible.
The Word of God. One of the biblical uses of “the Word of God” is in
reference to the total content of the Bible itself. As such, “the Word of
God” is the total message that God spoke to chosen men who, under His
initiative, power and superintendence, wrote that message in the sixty-six
books of the Bible infallibly (with unfailing accuracy) and inerrantly (without
error).
I. THE TESTIMONY OF THE BIBLE ITSELF
Dr. Charles Ryrie said, "The Bible,... like any other witness, has the
right to testify on its own behalf."1 If the Bible declared that it was not
the Word of God, then the matter would be settled out of hand. If it made
no declaration at all, then its lack of testimony would lend no strength
to any claim that it is the Word of God. But the Bible repeatedly and
emphatically claims that it is the Word of God and that it contains, in
its narrative, actual statements made by God. It even goes so far as to
tell us how God conveyed the biblical narrative to us. These claims are
repeated strongly and unwaveringly and need to be examined and reckoned
with. If you believe that the Bible has been authored by God, the
scriptures that declare God’s authorship will serve as affirmation to you.
If you do not (yet) believe that the Bible has been authored by God, you
can be sure that I will not say to you, “Believe that the Bible is the
Word of God because it says that it is, and the Word of God can be
trusted.” To do so would be a begging of the question as the matter in
question is presented as a presupposition. If you are in the latter
category, then accept these scriptures as the testimony of the defendant
in your court of judgment. Then consider the evidence that will follow.
Here’s the Bible’s affirmation to believers and testimony to all:
A. The Bible Claims it is the Word of God
1. The Bible Refers to Various of its Sections as the Word of God
Some examples are as follows:
a. Sections of the Old Testament
1) The Law of Moses
In Deuteronomy 1:6, Moses said, The LORD
our God spoke to us at Horeb,
saying, "You have stayed long enough at this mountain [Sinai].”
The words
spoken to Moses by God at Horeb, which were concluded by the this declaration,
constitute the Law of Moses, which comprises a major portion of the books
of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Jesus referred to the Law
of Moses as the commandment of God
and
the word of God
(Matthew 15:3
and 6, respectively). He also quoted the Law of Moses three times when the
devil tempted Him: In Matthew 4:4, He quoted Deuteronomy 8:3; in 4:7, He
quoted Deuteronomy 6:16; and in 4:10, He quoted Deuteronomy 6:13.
2) The Entire Old Testament
Jesus held the entire Old Testament to be the Word of God. He spoke of
all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of Abel to the
blood of Zechariah the son of Berechiah
[not the prophet Zechariah]
(Matthew 23:35, comment added ). Abel was killed in Genesis (4:8), the
first book of the Old Testament, and Zechariah was killed in 2 Chronicles
(24:20-22), the last book of the Old Testament according to the Jewish
arrangement. Thus, by this declaration, Jesus declared the entire Old
Testament to be the Word of God.
b. Sections of the New Testament
1) All of Paul’s Letters
In 2 Peter 3:15-16, Peter referred to all of Paul’s letters as Scripture:
...just as also our beloved brother Paul,
according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his
letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard
to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also
the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.
Paul wrote thirteen of the twenty-seven books of the New
Testament. Peter called them Scripture.
2) The Book of Revelation
John declared that Book of Revelation to be the Word of God:
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave
Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must shortly take
place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant
John (Revelation 1:1).
2. The Bible Claims that it is, in its Entirety, the Word of God
In light of all the Old Testament scriptures quoted in the Book of
Hebrews, and all the New Testament teachings alluded to in it (Hebrews
4:2, for example), it is clear that the phrase,
the word of God
in Hebrews 4:12 (For the word of God is living and active....)
refers to the entire Bible. Paul wrote Timothy, All
Scripture is inspired by God (2
Tim. 3:16). Peter referred to the Bible as the
Word of the Lord
in 1
Peter 1:23-25:
You have been born again not of seed which
is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding
word of God. For, "All flesh is as grass, and all its glory like the
flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls off, but the word
of our God abides forever."
(Isa. 40:6, 8).
John recognized the entire Bible as the Word of God:
I testify to everyone who hears the words of the
prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God shall add to him the
plagues which are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the
words
of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away from his part in
the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book
(Revelation 22:18-19).
This book refers
to the Book of Revelation, if not the entire Bible, and its dire warnings
can only be predicated upon John’s belief that the Book of Revelation is
the Word of God (He declared that it is
prophecy.); but inasmuch as the
Book of Revelation alludes to hundreds of Old Testament prophecies and to
the core teachings and prophecies of the New Testament, it is clear that
John recognized the entire Bible to be the Word of God.
B. The Bible Claims to Contain Ver Batim Statements Made by God
It stands to reason that, if the Bible is the Word of God, it would likely
contain actual statements made by God. If all such statements were
compiled, they would fill a large volume, but here are some examples:
1. From the Old Testament
In Genesis 1, the words
God said appear eleven times and are followed by
the words that the writer claims God said (Genesis 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14-15,
20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 29-30). Exodus 9:1 declares,
The LORD said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh....” In Joshua 1:1,
The LORD spoke to
Joshua...saying,....
In 1 Chronicles 17:3,
[T]he word of God came to Nathan, saying,....
Exodus 24 refers to the Law of Moses as
All the words which the LORD has spoken,
(vv. 3, 7) and
all the words of the LORD (v. 4). In fact, God is said not only to have
spoken the Ten Commandments (Exodus 24:1), but to have written the Ten
Commandments (32:16),
which appear in Exodus 20:2-17.
In numerous instances the prophets professed to record actual declarations
made by God: Thus says the LORD...
(Isaiah 56:1).
Thus says the LORD
of hosts...
(Jeremiah 56: 9).
Then the word of the LORD came to me saying... (Ezekiel 12:1). Bible teacher Winkey Pratney writes, “‘The LORD
spoke’ appears 560 times in the first five books of the Bible and at least
3800 times in the whole of the Old Testament!”2
2. From the New Testament
The New Testament contains numerous statements purported to have been made
by God.
For example, the four Gospels are filled with the words of Jesus, which He
Himself recognized as divine: Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words shall
not pass away (Matthew 24:35). In Acts 9:11 we read,
...the Lord said to
[Ananias].... In 2 Corinthians 12:9, Paul testifies,
And He has said to me,....
In Revelation 1:8, John writes, as the oracle of God,
“I am the
Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to
come, the Almighty.”
C. The Bible Claims to Tell Us How God Conveyed His Word to Us
We are told in 2 Timothy 3:16, All Scripture is
inspired by God. The
Greek word translated
inspired
is
Theopneustos, which means
“God-breathed” and emphasizes the exhalation of God. Inspiration, then, is
really OUTspiration, the “outbreathing” of God. God “outbreathed” the
Bible through human writers.
2 Peter 1:20-21 makes the concept and process of inspiration even clearer:
[N]o prophecy of Scripture is a matter of
one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human
will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. Prophecy refers to the ability to receive direct
revelation. God inspired some of His prophets to write down their revelation(s) as Scripture. God also inspired some of His compilers of
records and researchers to write down the results of their labors as
Scripture (See Luke 1:1-4, for example). What Peter says about the
prophecy
of Scripture - that
men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God - applies, as well, to the compiled records and research results of
Scripture because God inspired the writing of them also.
But what does men moved by the Holy
Spirit spoke from God mean? The
Greek word for moved is the same word used in Acts 27:15 and 17 to refer
to a ship being borne along the water by powerful winds. A prophet was
one whom God moved upon in such a way that God’s Word was both heard and
delivered by that prophet infallibly and inerrantly. We can therefore
conclude that all who wrote the Scriptures - whether prophets, compilers
or researchers - were borne along
by the Holy Spirit of God as they wrote their revelations,
compilations or research results. God “outbreathed” the powerful
Word-bearing wind of His Spirit into the sails of His chosen vessels to
bear them along in the writing of His Word.
So we see that the Bible not only declares that it is the Word of God, but
explains how God delivered it to us.
Five more points need to be made about inspiration that serve the purpose
of this study:
1. Inspiration
applies only to the writing of Scripture, not the inerrant hearing of a
word from God. The biblical term for inerrant hearing from God is
revelation, though not
all uses of revelation in the Scriptures have this meaning.
Not all inspiration was preceded by revelation (Luke 1:1-4),
but most inspiration was. An example of Scripture writing that was
preceded by revelation is: Then the LORD
said to Moses, "Write down these words, for in accordance with these words
I have made a covenant with you and with Israel”
(Exodus 34:27). So under the inspiration of God, Moses wrote the entire
Law that God revealed to
him - a major part of the Old Testament.
So, whether the human author compiled materials through strictly human
means or whether he received revelation from God, God inspired him to
write down what he compiled or received for the sake of producing an infallible
and inerrant record.
2. Inspiration includes superintendence. God did not simply
move His
writers to
write: He superintended their writing so that they wrote
exactly what He wanted them to write. He gave free reign to write in their own
personal styles and vocabularies, but His superintendence assured that
they wrote exactly what He wanted them to write and not a word more.
3. On certain occasions, biblical inspiration was accompanied by excited
emotional or mental states; but inspiration is not, in itself, an
emotional or mental state. It is solely the
outbreathing of God upon His
chosen writers to write exactly what He wanted them to write.
When we use the word inspiration colloquially, in every day
speech - and I will be using it colloquially later in this study - we do refer to an elevated, excited, and even euphoric emotional
state that often precedes or accompanies an insight into the natural world, an invention, the creation of
a work of art, etc., but it is
important to remember that the Bible's use of the word is solely in
reference to the
writing of the sixty-six books of the Bible, that it carries in its
meaning the sense of
being superintended by God, and that the canon of Scripture is closed
(Hebrews 1:1-2; Revelation 22:18-19). People may sense the presence of God as they paint,
write music or preach the gospel, but their works or words must
never be reckoned to be on a par with Scripture as an authoritative,
supervised, infallible, inerrant word
or work from God.
4. 2 Timothy 3:16 says,
ALL Scripture is inspired by God. Inasmuch as
God outbreathed all of the Scriptures, all of the Scriptures are
inspired to the fullest degree. Therefore, all Scriptures are equally
inspired: the despondent words of Solomon in Ecclesiastes as much as the
words of Jesus in the Gospels. This does not mean that God wants us to be
despondent, but that He moved and superintended Solomon to record his
despondency infallibly and inerrantly.
5. Inasmuch as inspiration refers to the Lord’s direct work in and through
the writers of the Scriptures, it is only the original writings that were
inspired. Inspiration did not extend to copies of the original writings,
nor does it extend to any translation or any other work. (Nevertheless,
the Scriptures that we have today are accurate, as will be explained below.)
To sum up, the Bible’s testimony to its own divine origin is consistent,
strong, unwavering and certain.
II. EVIDENCES
Some of the evidences that follow cannot stand on their own as proof of
divine authorship, but do add to the weight of evidence presented.
Others, however, lend much weight
to the claim that the Bible is the Word of God, while yet others are
sufficient in themselves to stand as powerful proof that the Bible is the
Word of God. We will now examine them one at a time.
A. The Bible Stands Alone in its Uniqueness
1. The Bible is Unique in the Way it was Written
No other book was ever written as the Bible was written. It was written
over a period of 1600 years in three different languages (Hebrew, Aramaic
and Greek) by about forty different men employed in at least eleven
different occupations (kings, priests, prophets, soldiers, statesmen,
shepherds, fishermen, a tax collector, a tent maker, a doctor, a farmer)
and in at least six different countries (Israel, Babylon, Egypt, Greece,
Rome, Arabia) spanning three continents (Asia, Africa and Europe). There
are many compilations of books in the world, but the Bible is no mere
compilation. It is a fully integrated unit of sixty-six books combining to
form one Book. Consider the likelihood of the production of such a book
over a period of 1600 years. One might think that only God could
superintend such a project.
2. The Bible is Unique in its Subject Matter
The Bible is unique in much of its subject matter, particularly in its
declarations concerning the fundamental issues of existence and life.
a. The Bible Alone Declares How the Universe Came to Be
According to Dr. Henry Morris, “There are only three creationist
‘religions’ in the world - Christianity, Islam and Judaism - and all three
base their belief in creation on the record of Genesis [1:1-2:25]. Without
exception,” writes Dr. Morris, “all the other religions and philosophies
of the world have based their beliefs concerning origins on some form of
evolutionism. That is, they all begin with the universe (space, time,
matter) already in existence.... Only Genesis even attempts to tell us how
the universe itself came to be.”3
b. The Bible Alone Declared the Existence of Only One God
During the entire span of time in which the Bible was written, and
throughout the lands in which it was written, the nations surrounding
Israel worshiped pantheons of gods. Yet, the Bible declares the existence
of but one God.
1) In the Old Testament:
Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God,
the LORD is one
(Deuteronomy 6:4).
2) In the New Testament:
[W]e know...that there is no God but
one (1 Corinthians 9:4).
c. The Bible Alone Declares a Loving God
Paul declared that the so-called gods of the Gentile pantheons were
actually demons: [T]he things which the
Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God (1 Corinthians 10:20).
The Bible makes it plain, however, that God is not a monster given over to
lusts and jealousies and treacheries as were the pagan gods, some of whom
required child sacrifice of their worshipers. On the contrary, this one
God sacrificed His own Son, not only for His worshipers, but for the whole
world:
1) In the Old Testament:
Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we
ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But he was
pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities;
the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we
are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned
to his own way; but the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall
upon Him
(Isaiah 53:4-6).
2) In the New Testament:
For God so loved the world, that He
gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him should not
perish, but have eternal life (John
3:16).
d. The Bible Alone Identifies Sin as a Condition of the Human Spirit
Some religions identify evil in the deeds of men, but only the Bible
identifies evil as an inherent (though not original) condition of the
human spirit. Paul wrote, Are we [Jews]
better than they [the Gentiles]? Not at all; for we have already charged
that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; as it is written, "there is
none righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:9-10, comments added).
For
out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications,
thefts, false witness, slanders
(Matthew 15:19).
e. The Bible Alone Declares that Deliverance from Sin is a Work of God
Whereas some other religions and holy books prescribe certain disciplines
for the overcoming of evil, only the Bible declares that deliverance from
the power of sin is a work of God.
1) In the Old Testament
And he [a seraph sent from the Lord]
touched my mouth with it [a burning coal] and said, "Behold, this has
touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away, and your
sin is
forgiven”
(Isaiah 6:7, comments added).
2) In the New Testament
He [the Father] saved us...by the
washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured
out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior
(Titus 3:5-6). Notice how all three Persons of
the Godhead are active in the work of salvation.
I have been crucified with Christ; and
it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I
now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and
delivered Himself up for me
(Galatians 2:20).
f. The Bible Alone Declares that One’s Favor with God is Predicated
on Faith in God, Not on Good or Penitential Deeds
I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation
to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in
it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is
written [in Habakkuk 2:4], "But the righteous man shall live by faith”
(Romans 1:16-17, comment added).
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and
that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works,
that no one should boast
(Ephesians 2:8-9).
In the midst of a pagan world with its wicked gods who required human
sacrifice, what or who caused a book to be written that offers a
reconciled, loving relationship with the one God on the basis of the
sacrifice of His own Son? It is reasonable to believe that, if there were
such a loving, sacrificial God, that He would let us know by means of a
permanent written record how we might avail ourselves of the means that He
provided for our salvation.
B. The Bible is Consistent in its Central Theme and Continuous in its Development
The central theme of the Bible is the love of God. This love can be seen
in that the angels, the very first created beings, were created with the
capacity to experience the joy of God’s wonders. God said to Job,
Where were you when I laid the foundation of
the earth!....When the morning stars [angels] sang together, and all the
sons of God [angels] shouted for joy (Job 38:4-7, comments added)? God’s love can be seen, as well, when
He created Adam and Eve and entrusted them with a beautiful, perfect,
pristine environment to enjoy (Genesis 1 and 2, especially 2:28-31). It
can be seen in the fact that, though His children rebelled against Him
(Genesis 2:16-17; 3:1-7) and, indeed,
all have sinned (Romans 3:23),
He sacrificed His own beloved Son to rescue them from the power and
eternal penalty of sin, For God so
loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes
in Him should not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16). God’s love can be seen by His creation of the
wonderful eternal abode into which He will escort all who love him (John
14:1-3; Revelation 21:1 - 22:5).
From the beginning of the Bible to the end we see the theme of God’s love
develop and come to fruition for time and eternity. Is it reasonable to
believe that forty or more men spread over a period of 1600 years and six
countries on three continents could conceive, compose and compile a
sixty-six book unit that is perfectly consistent in theme and seamless in
the development
of that theme from the first book to the last? It is far more reasonable to believe
that there was One overarching Mind in charge of the entire project.
C. The Bible Contains No Contradiction
One would expect that, if the Bible were authored by God, it would contain
no contradiction and, indeed, that is the case. There may seem to be
contradictions, but in every such case it is because the text is not
properly understood for some reason, whether it be lack of understanding
of the culture or because it is not studied in context or because of
poor translation or some other reason, but there actually are no
contradictions. Here are some examples of apparent, but not actual,
contradictions:
1. Apparent Contradiction Due to Lack of Understanding of the Culture
Matthew 27:5 says,
[Judas] went away and hanged himself.
Acts 1:18 says,
...and falling headlong, he burst open
in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. An apparent contradiction, but not an actual one. There are
at least two possible explanations: 1) A natural explanation: Judas hanged
himself over a cliff and the branch to which the rope was tied, or the
rope itself, broke. 2) A cultural explanation, as quoted from Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum's
Messianic Christology, Appendix 8, "The Death of Judas
Iscariot," pp. 153-154:
"Judas committed suicide [by hanging, NM] at the end of the first night of
Passover, before the first day of Passover [the Jewish day is from sundown
to sundown, NM] when the morning Passover sacrifice would be offered....
According to Jewish law, if there was a dead body in Jerusalem, then the
city was to be considered defiled and the morning sacrifice could not be
offered. However, Jewish law goes on to say that if the corpse is taken
and cast into the Valley of Hinnom... then the city is cleansed and the
Passover can be offered up.... When Judas hanged himself within the walls
of Jerusalem, he caused the city to become defiled, thus preventing the
morning sacrifice from proceeding.... Judas' body would have been taken and
thrown over the wall into the Valley of Hinnom, thereby cleansing the
city. The fall of Judas' body is what is being described in Acts 1:18."
2. Apparent Contradiction Because of Poor Translation
The King James Version of Exodus 20:13 reads,
Thou shalt not kill, but
Exodus 21:15 commands, And he who strikes his
father or his mother shall surely be put to death. An apparent contradiction; but there are several
Hebrew words that can be translated kill. The one used in 20:13 should
have been translated, murder. In fact, most of the recent translations
translate it that way: You shall not murder. So, under the Mosaic Law
murder was forbidden, but capital punishment was commanded for one who
struck a parent. No contradiction.
3. Apparent Contradiction Because Studied Out of Context
In 2 Corinthians 11:8, Paul wrote, I robbed
other churches. In
Philippians 4:9, he wrote, The things you
have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things. Did
Paul exhort the Philippians to be church robbers? If he did, that would be
contradictory to his exhortation to the Ephesians,
Let him who steals steal no longer
(Ephesians 4:28). Hmmm!
Let’s look at the statement in
context: I
robbed other churches, taking wages from them to serve you.
No, he didn’t really rob other churches. He received wages from them which
enabled him to serve the Corinthians from whom he didn’t receive wages. No
contradiction. At times, the immediate context suffices to clarify a
statement, as in this case. At other times, the broader context of a few
paragraphs must be considered, or an entire book, or the entire Bible. In
any case, considering a scripture in context will often resolve an
apparent contradiction.
It is not reasonable to think that the sixty-six volumes of the Bible, so
varied in authorship, time, place of composition, etc., would contain no
contradiction - unless their composition was superintended by God.
D. The Bible Does Not Contradict the Proven Facts of Science
At the very least, the minimum test that a book must pass to possibly be
the Word of God is its consistency with proven natural facts. Any book
that fails this test could not possibly be the Word of God inasmuch as any
reasonable conception of God must include the premise that only truth
proceeds from God’s lips. In fact, the Bible itself declares,
[I]t is impossible for God to lie... (Hebrews 6:18). I think you’ll see from
these amazing examples that the Bible passes this test far more than
minimally!
1. From Anthropology
Genesis 10, often referred to as the Table of Nations, delineates, in
detail, the lines of descent of the earth’s first nations proceeding from
Noah and his three sons. According to Unger’s Bible Handbook, Young’s
Analytical Concordance (page 25) declares that Dr. William F. Albright,
former director of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem,
called the Table of Nations “an astonishingly accurate document.”4 Its
accuracy is truly astonishing in light of the fact that it was written by
Noah’s son, Shem (Genesis 11:10), about 2300 B.C. and was included in the
Pentateuch (the Five Books of Moses) about 1450-1400 B.C. No ancient fable
here, but a reliable anthropological document.
2. From History
Joshua’s conquest of Jericho took place about 1400 B.C. According to
Halley’s Bible Handbook,5 Dr. John Garstang, director of the British
School of Archaeology in Jerusalem and of the Department of Antiquities of
the Palestine Government, excavated the ruins of Jericho between 1929 and
1936. Let’s see how the Book of Joshua (authored by Joshua about 1400-1370
B.C.) matches up with Dr. Garstang’s findings.
(1) Dr. Garstang found that Jericho’s wall consisted of an inner and an
outer wall linked together by houses built across the top. Joshua 2:15
says that Rahab’s house was on the city wall.
(2) Dr. Garstang determined that the city was destroyed around 1400 B.C.,
and confirmed that the walls fell down flat - not partially, but flat - an
amazing phenomenon for a wall of such thickness. Joshua 6:20 states,
the wall fell down flat.
(3) Dr. Garstang found “great layers of charcoal and ashes and wall ruins
reddened by fire” and that “houses along the outer wall were burnt to the
ground.” Joshua 6:24 says that the Israelites
burned the city with fire, and all that was in it.
(4) Under the ashes and fallen walls, Dr. Garstang found storerooms in
which there was “an abundance of foodstuffs, wheat, barley, dates,
lentils, and such, turned to charcoal by intense heat, untouched and
uneaten: evidence that the conquerors refrained from the food.” Joshua
6:18 declares that before the conquest, Joshua warned the Israelites,
[K]eep yourselves from the things
under the ban. (See Leviticus 27:28).
The conquest of Jericho took place 3,400 years ago. The Bible describes it
in detail with unfailing and absolute accuracy! A Hebrew myth? Not at all.
Simply more evidence that the Bible was authored by God.
There are many examples of the Bible’s accuracy concerning scientific
phenomena. Dr. John Morris of the Creation Research Institute lists
thirty-nine of them from six areas of science.6 Perhaps the most
astounding example is the following:
3. From Chemistry or Nuclear Physics
2 Peter 3:10-13 declares, But the day of
the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with
a roar and the elements will be destroyed [melt in the
King James] with intense heat, and the
earth and its works will be burned up. Since all these things are to be
destroyed [dissolved in the King James]
in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and
godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, on
account of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the
elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are
looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.
The literal sense of the passage is that there will be a literal burning
of the present heavens and earth. Scripture refers to three heavens: the
heaven where God dwells and the two naturally observable heavens, the
starry heavens (outer space) and the atmospheric heavens, where the birds
fly and the clouds hover. This passage must refer to at least the starry
and the atmospheric heavens. Note the passages,
the elements will be destroyed with intense heat
and the
elements will melt with intense heat. Both Strong’s and Young’s Concordances give two of the meanings of
the word translated elements as “element[s]” and “rudiment[s].” In other
words, the most fundamental particles of the entire physical universe (if
not of the heaven in which God dwells, as well) will be destroyed, will
melt, with intense heat. Note the word
intense.
Fisherman Peter never studied chemistry or nuclear physics; yet, in about
64 A.D., he wrote, in the most apocalyptic of tones, that the most
fundamental of physical particles will one day be destroyed, melted with
intense heat. According to Strong’s, two of the meanings of the Greek word
translated melt in verse 10 are “break up” and “dissolve.” (Strong’s
gives the meaning of the different Greek word translated
melt in verse
12 as simply “melt.”7)
Dr. Morris writes,
"Possibly this will be a global atomic fission reaction [note the word
dissolved in II Peter 3:11], or else simply a vast explosive
disintegration involving transformation of the chemical energy of the
elements into heat, light and sound energy. What remains after the global
fiery disintegration will be other forms of energy so that, although God’s
principle of conservation still holds, the solid earth will seem to have
fled away" (Revelation
20:11).8
Dr. Morris associates this conflagration with Revelation 3:20, which is
after the Millennium and before the Great White Throne Judgment. Others
consider it a pre-millennial phenomenon. In any case, we catch the point
that Dr. Morris is making. Whether the passage refers to atomic fission
(as it seems to many Bible scholars) or the explosive transformation of
all chemical energy into other forms of energy, Peter speaks of an
explosion of a magnitude that would have been unthinkable in the early
part of the twentieth century, let alone two thousand years ago. This
Scripture was scoffed at early in the twentieth century for that very
reason; but since then, mankind has beheld such spectacles as exploding
stars (through the use of telescopes) and nuclear holocausts - and the
lips of scoffers have been sealed!
The Bible’s amazing accuracy in all scientific phenomena that it touches
on must be recognized as nothing less than the signature of God. How could
it be otherwise?
E. On Matters of Science that are Unobserved or Unobservable,
the Bible Offers the Most Plausible Explanation
Not only is the Bible accurate in its scientific presuppositions and
declarations, but it offers the most plausible explanation in those
matters that are unprovable or unproven in terms of direct observation.
The most glaring example involves the most fundamental, central and
critical of all scientific issues: the origin of the universe and natural
life.
Dr. Henry Morris says, “It is axiomatic that there are only two possible
basic models of the origins of the universe, of the earth, of animate
life, of human life and of all the basic systems of the cosmos. These are,
in simplest terms, evolution or creation.”9 The two are in irreconcilable
conflict and are mutually exclusive. It must be one or the other. It
cannot be both. (It is impossible that the universe could have existed
from eternity past. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that all the
energy in the universe is coming to a place of balance, or rest, as when
the heat from a glass of water flows into a cold object placed in it. The
heat flows until the water and the object are the same temperature; then,
heat flow from the water into the object ceases. Now, energy still moves
from location to location in the universe, on both microcosmic and
macrocosmic scales; but if the universe had existed from eternity past,
energy flow would have ceased an eternity ago. Therefore, the universe
could not possibly have existed from eternity past: It had to have a
beginning.)
Nothing has done more in the last century and a half to destroy people’s
faith in the Bible than the so-called theory of evolution except,
perhaps, the skepticism concerning the Bible that arose in some German
seminaries in the middle of the nineteenth century. Some German
theologians declared that the Bible was not a divine book at all, but a
mere fabrication of man. Evolution, propounded by Charles Darwin in 1865
in regard to the origins of life, has been extrapolated to include the
very origins of the universe itself. It holds that, by means of continuing natural processes unguided by any divine Person, the universe simply
popped into existence from the absolute vacuum of empty, endless space and
evolved into all of its present forms, inanimate and animate. These twin
doctrines, born of hell, have ruined the faith of hundreds of millions of
people and of entire denominations and nations. Having robbed life of its
Creator, they set the stage for the devaluation of life and the multiple
holocausts that characterized the twentieth century even unto the murder of
a million and a half unborn babies a year in the United States since 1973.
Let us now pick the evolutionary fantasy to pieces and observe the logic
of believing the Bible’s creation account.
The so-called theory of evolution is no theory at all. There are two
methods by which scientists discover facts. One is by strict observation,
as is carried out by those who observe wildlife with a minimum of human
interference. The other is termed the scientific method, which involves
identifying an issue to be resolved, hypothesizing and experimenting. A
hypothesis is a reasonably possible explanation for an observed
phenomenon. Experiments are formulated and carried out to test a
hypothesis. If the results of the experiments support the hypothesis, the
hypothesis is elevated to the status of a theory. If further
experimentation by other scientists supports the theory, the theory is
elevated to the status of a fact. How does evolution shape up in relation
to these procedures and standards? Evolution has never been observed
occurring naturally nor has any observation or experiment ever provided
any evidence that it has ever occurred at any time. In fact, scientists
have run computer simulations of original cosmic conditions and duplicated
billions of years of random variations in the hope of proving evolution -
and have embarrassingly admitted that all that such computer simulations
have generated was CHAOS!10 Nevertheless, the vast majority of the
educational institutions in the world teach evolution as fact though it
has never met the qualifications of a theory and should have been rejected
even as a hypothesis many thousands of observations and experiments ago.
It is most scientific to call it a fantasy.
Did you know that a single human brain processes more information per
given unit of time than all of the computer systems in the world combined?
In light of the fact that it took the cumulative efforts of the finest
scientific minds until the middle of the twentieth century to invent the
electronic calculator (let alone the computer!), do you think that a human
could possibly have evolved by the random sloshing about of cosmic mud?
But a human is far more than a brain! The human body is composed of over
ten billion cells, each of which contains about forty-five internal organs
called organelles that function together with greater complexity than a
major city, and far more efficiently. The cells, in various specific combinations, compose the
body’s tissues which, in turn, form all of the organs in each of the
body’s systems: skeletal, muscular, nervous, endocrine, cardiovascular,
lymphatic, respiratory, digestive, excretory, reproductive (half a system
in males, the other half in females), all of which work to sustain the
whole and perpetuate the race. But a human is more than a body! He or she
is alive and thinks and experiences emotions and searches for ultimate
answers. The product of matter times movement times time? Unthinkable! The
odds against it are infinitesimal beyond imagining.
According to Dr. Scott M. Huse, the chance development of a system
composed of 200 integrated parts is 1 in a number written as 2 followed by
270 zeroes, which is 2 followed by 190 zeroes times greater than the
number of electrons in the universe (1 followed by 80 zeroes)! (The
likelihood of just spelling the word “evolution,” containing a mere nine
integrated parts [in this
case, alphabet letters] by randomly selecting nine letters from the
alphabet is one in 5,429,503,080,000.) “And yet,” says Dr. Huse, “a 200
part system is ridiculously primitive compared with living systems.11"
Keep in mind that even bacteria qualify as living systems. How
preposterous to think that a human could evolve by chance!
Dr. Morris writes, "[T]here is no evidence whatever that evolution is occurring today - that
is, true vertical evolution, from some simpler kind to some more complex
kind. No one has ever observed a star evolve from hydrogen, life evolve
from chemicals, a higher species evolve from a lower species, a man from
an ape, or anything else of this sort. Not only has no one ever observed
true evolution in action, no one knows how evolution works, or even how it
might work.... [N]o one has ever seen it happen (despite thousands of experiments that have tried to produce it)....
"[T]here is no evidence at all that evolution ever took place in the
past.... [A]ll known vertical changes seem to go in the wrong direction. An
average of at least one species has become extinct every day since records
have been kept, but no new species have evolved during that time. Stars
explode, comets and meteors disintegrate, the biosphere deteriorates, and
everything eventually dies, so far as all historical observations go, but
nothing has ever evolved into higher complexity.
"[T]he story is one of extinction, not evolution.... No fossil has ever been
found with half scales/half feathers, half legs/half wings, half-developed
heart, half-developed eye, or any other such indicator....
"If evolution were true, there should be millions of transitional types
among these multiplied billions of fossils - in fact, everything should
show transitional features: But they do not!
"In living organisms, true vertical changes go down, not up - mutations
cause deterioration, individuals die, species become extinct. In fact,
everything in the universe seems to be headed downhill toward ultimate
cosmic death...."12
Drs. Duane Gish and Richard Bliss write, "Life appears abruptly and in complex forms in the fossil record, and gaps
appear systematically in the fossil record between various living kinds."13
When I was a boy I was fascinated by portraits of my hunched-over, hairy
"missing link" ancestors. I gaped with wonder as I noted family
resemblances in Java Ape-Man, Neanderthal Man, Piltdown Man, Heidelberg
Man, Nebraska Man, Peking Man and Cro-Magnon Man. But how disappointing!
The skeletons or skeletal fragments from which these “men” were
constructed all turned out to be either distinctly human or another
distinct specie. Not a one was a missing link! Nebraska Man, who played
the leading male role in the Scopes Trial of 1925 (which opened American
public schools to the teaching of evolution), was eventually found to have
been built up - very scientifically, I might add - from the tooth of an
extinct pig! One Java Ape-Man was built up from the knee-bone of an
extinct elephant! Missing link Lucy, accorded posthumous celebrity status
after her discovery in Ethiopia in the 1970's, was probably just an ape.
(Nothing personal, Ma’am. It’s Byron Nelson’s conclusion based on computer
analyses of the positional relationships between your bones.14)
“‘The fossil record,’ says Douglas Dewar, a British naturalist and once an
ardent evolutionist, 'cannot be regarded as other than a HOSTILE witness
against evolution; the earliest known fossils of each class and order are
not half-developed but have all the essential characteristics of their
class and order.’”15
Consider this poignant confession after a lifetime of labor: "As we look at the main group of fossil flora, we find there that at
definite intervals they are all at once and quite suddenly there, in full
bloom in all their manifold forms. Any change is entirely lacking. This
all stands as crass a contradiction to the evolution theory as could
possibly be imagined... [A]ll my investigations have led to incredible
contradictions... on account of which the theory of evolution ought to be
entirely abandoned... it is a serious obstruction to biological research.
My attempts to demonstrate evolution by experiments carried out for over
40 years have completely failed."16
One more consideration: Have you ever considered the concept of
devolution, evolution in reverse? If, indeed, viruses can evolve into
Einsteins, why, in all my years of formal and informal study, have I never
heard of even one scientist who believed that Einsteins can devolve into
viruses?!! Have you ever heard or read of even one advocate of devolution
in the sense of a complex specie changing into a less complex one?
Given that all of nature is in a state of breakdown and decay (the Law of
Entropy or the Second Law of Thermodynamics), is not devolution infinitely
more likely than its heralded opposite? And yet, evolutionary evidence
supposedly abounds everywhere!
Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci, painter, anatomist, civil engineer
and inventor, was a religious skeptic all his life; but in his last days
he exclaimed, “This earth, it’s all so perfect! It’s all so perfectly
designed! It’s impossible that a single mind didn’t create it, that
there’s no plan to it!” One of his last paintings was of a lady pointing
upward to a cross.17
The evidence is in. Mindless, purposeless, random evolution did not create
the complex systems and wonders of the universe, nor was the patriarch of
your bloodline a baboon, nor were you descended from a pond scum (as my
high school Biology teacher told me I was) or even something as
sophisticated as a mutated fish. It is as the Bible says:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the
earth (Genesis 1:1).
Then the LORD God formed man of the dust of the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (Genesis 2:7).
On matters of science that are unobserved or unobservable, the Bible
offers the most plausible explanation. Powerful evidence, indeed, that the
Bible is the Word of God!
F. The Bible has Profoundly Influenced the World for the Good
A bright light shone in the ancient Middle East. It was the Law that God
gave to Israel
through Moses. The light brightened dramatically with the life, atoning
death and resurrection of Jesus and the teachings that flowed from his
life and lips. This biblical light has been monolithic in its influence
around the world for respect for human life in general, for spouses,
women, parents, the elderly, children, the poor and strangers. It
declares, You shall love your neighbor
as yourself (Leviticus 19:18;
Matthew 22:39) and even “[L]ove your enemies, and pray for those who
persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). It has upheld the beauty and blessing of
marriage and the family and has condemned all that would threaten these
most wonderful of human relationships.
Brian T. Collidge, opponent of the public display of the Ten Commandments,
“concedes that the Commandments reflect universal teachings that are
beneficial to a civil society.”18
Thomas Huxley, nineteenth century agnostic and outspoken defender of
Darwin’s theory of evolution, argued for the reading of the Bible in the
public schools with these words: "By the study of what other book could children be so much humanized, and
made to feel that each figure in that vast historical procession fills,
like themselves, but a momentary space in the interval between two
eternities, and earns the blessings and the curses of all times, according
to its effort to do good and to hate evil, even as they are also earning
their payment for their work?"19
Sherwood Wirt, former editor of Billy Graham’s “Decision” magazine, wrote
of the changes effected throughout the Roman Empire after the conversion
of Constantine to Christianity: "Many permanent legal reforms were set in motion by Emperors Constantine
(280?-337) and Justinian (483-565) that can be laid to the influence of
Christianity. Licentious and cruel sports were checked; new legislation
was ordered to protect the slave, the prisoner, the mutilated man, the outcast woman. Children were granted important legal rights. Infant
exposure was abolished. Women were raised from a status of degradation to
that of legal protection. Hospitals and orphanages were created to take
care of foundlings. Personal feuds and private wars were put under
restraint.... Branding of slaves was halted."20
The specific reforms of Constantine mentioned by Mr. Wirt were all in
keeping with the teachings of Scripture. In those areas of life and
thought in which Constantine properly applied the Bible’s teaching he
wrought tremendous good, confirming the wholesomeness of the Bible's
teachings and providing more evidence for its divine origin. On the other
hand, in certain other matters, Constantine established policies
and set precedents that contradicted the Bible’s teachings and wrought harm even to this day. One example
is his official references to the Jews as "a nefarious sect"21
and other such epithets spoken in conjunction with exhortations to
ostracize them. Such actions by Constantine fueled the fire set by many
before him for the incessant and virulent persecution of the Jews, and
demonstrates the great evil that follows when biblical exhortations and
examples are transgressed. This, too, though in a negative way, provides
evidence of the Bible's divine origin!
In the Middle Ages, it was the Bible that inspired Christians to establish
hospitals and
universities, the latter of which were established for the propagation of
the gospel and Christian service. It is because God intended the Bible to
be read and practiced by all people everywhere that believers have been
motivated to promote literacy and education in the farthest reaches of the
earth. It is the Bible that motivated Christians to fight for the
abolition of slavery in England and the United States and, in our present
day, some Muslim and other nations. Martin Luther King, leader in the
fight for civil liberties in the 1950's and ‘60's, continually appealed to
the God of the Bible as his source of direction and strength.
What magnitude of change can the Bible bring to a people? In 1876, Mary Slessor left Scotland to bring the Word of God to the interior of Nigeria,
where lived four million cannibals.
"Witchcraft and drunkenness were rampant. The
savages worshiped fetishes; they murdered twins; they turned the
mother of twins out into the jungle to be devoured by beasts because they
believed twins were brought about by a conjunction with a demon. Almost
half of the population were slaves. When a man died, they would eat fifty
slaves; twenty-five more would have their hands tied behind them and their
heads would be whacked off. Unmarried women were chattel. They could be
raped, tortured, or murdered at will.... Children were considered no
better than animals, often simply left to die.
"Mary’s heart was touched by the plight of twins always left to die or
ground to pieces in a pot. She would snatch them up and take them in....
"One after another the chiefs of the various tribes yielded their lives to
Christ. One after another the tremendously horrible customs plaguing these
people for years were abolished; the murder of twins, infanticide, the
slaughter of wives and slaves, the trial by poison and boiling oil, and
all other terrible customs.
"Through her ministry, thousands from the Ibo tribe became Christians and
abandoned their degrading ways."22
To what depth can a nation sink when the Bible’s influence is removed? In
a Breakpoint radio byte, Chuck Colson quoted South African Anglican Bishop
Desmond Tutu as saying, “Africa is bleeding.” In the same context Bishop
Tutu said, “The awful truth is that in Africa there was far greater
freedom in the colonial days than there is now.” Alluding to historian
Paul Johnson’s authority on the subject, Colson went on to say,
"The colonial days were not perfect by any means. Yet the colonial powers
were Christian in culture, if not in personal belief.
And wherever the colonial powers went, around the globe, they brought with
them basic principles derived from biblical faith: things like the rule of
law, individual responsibility, political freedom, care for the weak,
respect for learning."
Colson pointed out that Uganda, which had been “Christianized by Anglican and Catholic missionaries” was not long ago considered “the most
delightful country in all of Africa,” but after it threw off colonial rule
it fell victim to [Muslim] military dictator Idi Amin “who choked the
rivers of Uganda with his victims.” He also spoke of Ethiopia, a Christian
country from ancient times until its Christian leader, Haile Selassie, was
assassinated in 1974. It then fell victim to a Marxist regime and has,
since that time, been stricken with famine, civil war and wars with its
neighbors.23
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, wrote, in his Commentaries on the
Constitution of the United States (1883), "[T]he promulgation of the great doctrines of religion, the being, the
attributes, and providence of one Almighty God; the responsibility to him
for all our actions, founded on moral freedom and accountability; a future
state of rewards and punishments; the cultivation of all the personal,
social, and benevolent virtues; these can never be a matter of
indifference in any well ordered community. It is, indeed, difficult to
conceive, how any civilized society can well exist without them."24
The world would be far more wicked than it is now were it not for the
Bible. I’ve heard more than one well-traveled missionary say how much more
respect there is for life and how much more livable life is in those
countries in which the Bible’s influence is the strongest. Certainly, the
immeasurable beneficial effect that the Bible has had on the nations of
the world is powerful evidence of its divine origin.
G.
The Bible has Profoundly Changed Individual Lives
for the Good
It is impossible, of course, for nations to be changed without individual
lives being changed. Living conditions for the Ibo could not have changed
were it not for the radically changed lives of many individual Ibo.
The message of the Bible has changed lives wherever it has gone. John
Newton (1725-1807) earned his living on a slave ship. During a storm, he
cried out to God for protection. His survival marked the beginning of his
conversion. Several years later, because of his Christian convictions, he
abandoned the slave trade and eventually became pastor to William
Wilberforce who led the fight in the British Parliament against the slave
trade. Newton wrote a hymn that contained the following words:
"Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see!"
Chuck Colson, whose underhanded activities as President Nixon’s “hatchet
man” landed him in jail, was subsequently touched by the Bible’s message
of salvation through Jesus Christ. He now spends his life ministering to
all aspects of prisoners’ needs and speaking out against injustice and
destructive philosophies and policies of governments and societies.
The power of the Bible’s message to convert lives from evil to good is
further evidence that the Bible is the Word of God.
H.
The Bible is a Literary Masterpiece in a Class of its Own
One would think that if the Bible were authored by God it would be a
superlative literary work. Indeed it is. The Bible contains at least eight
different literary forms: historical narratives, biographies, letters,
sermons, proverbs, drama, poetry, psalms. Its stories have become ingrained in Western thinking: the Creation, the Garden
of Eden, Noah’s Ark, the Tower of Babel, the Exodus, the Giving of the Law
at Sinai, David and Goliath, Jonah and the “Whale,” the Christmas Story,
the Sermon on the Mount, the Feeding of the Five Thousand, the Christmas
and Easter stories. The 23rd Psalm is universally acclaimed for its
lyrical, pastoral beauty; the Beatitudes for its gentle, poetic cadences.
Yearning for adventure on the high seas? The gripping account of the
shipwreck in the Acts 27 has been touted as the most realistic rendering
of a shipwreck in all literature. Dying for apocalyptic drama? Read the Revelation; then find, if you can, a more captivating or
intriguing tour de force.
Where can you find a more intriguing plot? God, in the presence of the
holy angels, creates a magnificent universe, forms man of the dust of the
ground and breathes into his nostrils the breath of life. The man sins,
the earth and the universe become cursed and the human race becomes
separated from God. God, who justifiably could have wiped out the human
race, sets in motion a rescue plan that involves the virgin birth of His
Son, His Son’s living a sinless life, dying for the sins of the world,
being resurrected, setting all things in the spiritual and material
universe in order and presenting to His Father a perfected universe
crowned by the church in all her glory,
having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but...holy and blameless (Ephesians 5:27) which, with the
saved of all ages, will live in the presence of the holy angels and the
Triune God forever. Search all literature and let me know if you find a
more original and thrilling and wonderful plot at the end of which the
reader is lifted to join in such a gleeful chorus of never-ending
Hallelujahs!
No other book comes close to the Bible in literary quality! It is the kind
of masterpiece that one would expect from the Master-Creator of the
endless wonders of the universe, Himself.
I.
The Bible has Inspired A Great Multitude of the World’s Great Works of Art
If God were to write a book, one would expect that its theme would be so
lofty and its artistry so consummate that it would inspire copious amounts
of the world’s most wonderful works of art. The Bible has done just that.
The great cathedrals of Europe lift their spires in expressions of heavenly
adoration and aspiration. The Last Supper of Da Vinci; the great paintings
of Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, and his
great sculptures - the Pieta (the body of the deceased Jesus draped across
His mother’s lap), the Moses, the David - all were inspired by the Bible.
The inspiration for the "Praying Hands" so often seen on wall plaques and
greeting cards and in magazine articles, came to Albrecht Durer
(1471-1528) as he beheld a friend in prayer. The “Messiah,” by George
Frederic Handel (1685-1759), perhaps the most wonderful of all musical
compositions, was written in less than twenty-five days during which
Handel felt he was under the inspiration of God. The manuscripts of Johann
Sebastian Bach (1686-1750), contain copious inscriptions which reveal the
source of his inspiration: “S.D.G.,” Soli Deo Gloria: “Solely to the Glory
of God;” “J.J.,” Jesu Juban: “Help me, Jesus;” “I.N.J.,” In Nomine Jesu:
“In the Name of Jesus.” According to Dr. James Kennedy, “[Bach] told his
pupils that unless they committed their talents to the Lord Jesus Christ,
they would never be great musicians, for music, according to Bach, was an
act of worship.”25 The Pilgrim’s Progress is among the world’s great
literary masterpieces. Written by John Bunyan during his imprisonment for
his faith, it contains wonderful allegories of the Christian walk and of
the pitfalls of which Christians must beware. Next to the Bible, more
copies of The Pilgrim’s Progress have been printed than any other book.
Among the most inspiring of Hollywood productions are stories taken from,
or inspired by, the Bible: The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, Chariots of
Fire.
What other book, or any other medium of communication for that matter, has inspired so many wonderful works of art? None. No other book comes even
close. This fact constitutes even more evidence that the writing of the
books of the Bible was initiated and divinely controlled by the God of the
Bible, the Creator of the endless natural wonders of the universe, which
itself inspires breathtaking works of art.
J. The Preservation of the Scriptures
If God wrote the Bible for the enlightenment of all people for all time,
one would think that He would preserve it; and preserve it He did. As far
as we know, He did not preserve the original autographs. (If He did, He
has not yet revealed to us where they may be found.) Nevertheless, many
times more early manuscripts of the Scriptures have been preserved than
the manuscripts of any other ancient document.
1. The Preservation of the Books
a. The Preservation of the Old Testament Books
It can be inferred from the Bible that Adam was not a grunting,
troglodytic knuckle-walker. He was an intelligent man who spoke in a fully
developed language, conversed with God and named the animals. Adam and
some of his descendents wrote much of what was later to be included in the
Book of Genesis. In Genesis 2:4, we see the phrase, These are the generations of....
This phrase is also found in Genesis 5:1; 6:9; 10:1;
11:10,27; 25:19; 36:1,9; 37:2.
In all except this first one, 2:4, the name of a specific patriarch is
attached. Parallels with the terminology of the ancient Babylonian tablets
indicate that these names are actually the
signatures of the original writers of the particular tablets. That is,
each of these primeval patriarchs kept the narrative records of his own
generations, inscribing them on stone or clay tablets and then appending
his name at the end when he was ready to turn over the tablets and the
task of writing the toledoth (Hebrew.
these are the generations of) to the next
in line.26
In Genesis 5:1, we read, This is the book
of the generations of Adam,
indicating that Adam wrote the second half of Genesis 2:4 through the
first half of 5:1, and similarly with the other sections. These tablets
eventually came into the possession of Moses, who included them in the
book we call Genesis.
Despite its history of loss due to Israel’s disobedience to God, God
preserved His Scriptures intact and repeatedly returned them to His people.
(For examples, see 1 Samuel 6:21-27:1 and 2 Kings 22:8.) As late as the
fifth century B.C. we read, in Nehemiah 8:8, that Ezra and his assistants
read from the book, from the law of
God.... Dr. Morris writes,
The book of the law of Moses undoubtedly included all the Pentateuch,
and possibly is used here generically for all the Scriptures which had
been received by this time. Ezra is generally believed to be largely
responsible for organizing the canon of the Old Testament Scriptures.27
So, we see that the Law of Moses, which contained even the writings of
Adam, was intact and in the possession of God’s people in 444 B.C. By the
time of Ezra, or thereabouts, the entire Old Testament had been written
and compiled.
In about 335 B.C., Alexander of Macedon gained control over Syria and
Israel. Upon his death in 323, four of his generals divided his vast
empire among themselves. Syria and Israel fell under the rule of the
Seleucids. In 167 B.C., Seleucid king Antiochus Epiphanes invaded
Jerusalem with the purpose of crushing all vestiges of the worship of
Yahweh. Among his measures were the forbidding of the reading of the Law
and the ordering of all scrolls of the Law to be confiscated and burned.
Compliance was mandatory upon pain of death - but God did not allow His
Scriptures to be destroyed. He raised up the Maccabees, a Hebrew family,
to lead a revolt against Antiochus. In 164 B.C., against overwhelming
odds, the ragtag Jewish army defeated two of Epiphanes’ armies and drove
them out of Jerusalem (for which Jews celebrate Chanukah. Not a bad
holiday for Christians to celebrate, either!) God’s Book remained intact!
b. The Preservation of the New Testament Books and the Entire Bible
No ancient classic has nearly as much manuscript representation as does
the New Testament. According to the International Standard Bible
Encyclopedia, ten or fifteen ancient manuscripts of a classic are
generally considered a good representation, but “[t]he manuscripts of
whole or parts of the New Testament are reckoned by thousands, the oldest
fragment going back to ca. A.D. 150, and several papyri dating from about
200.”28
No book in history has come under attack like the Bible, yet God has
preserved His Book
for all who would read it. In 303 A.D., Roman Emperor Diocletian demanded
that all sacred books be burned, and declared, “The Christian religion is
destroyed and the worship of the gods restored.” However, it was
Diocletian’s attack on the Bible that actually led to the compilation of
the twenty-seven books of the New Testament.29 To turn the tables even
more, Emperor Constantine became a professing Christian. Subsequently, in
his Edict of Toleration (313 A.D.), Constantine granted freedom of
religion throughout his vast Roman Empire. He favored and supported
Christians and Christian works in many ways, including the exhorting (in
325 A.D.) of all his subjects to become Christians - and the ordering
of
the production of fifty Bibles for the churches of Constantinople.30
In the eighteenth century, French philosopher Voltaire declared, “Fifty
years from now the world will hear no more about the Bible.” Exactly fifty
years later, the Geneva Bible Society bought the very press that Voltaire
used to publish such statements, and used it for the printing of Bibles.
In the twentieth century, Richard Wurmbrand was imprisoned for
fourteen years for preaching and teaching the Word of God. Today, the
organization that he founded, Voice of the Martyrs, uses one of the
Rumanian prisons in which he was incarcerated under the Ceausescu regime
as a warehouse for the Bibles and related literature that they print and
distribute. The Soviet Union, the world’s only officially atheistic empire
in all of history, collapsed in 1989 from internal decay. Subsequently,
its master nation, Russia, opened its floodgates to the influx of millions
of Bibles and thousands of Bible teachers. Communist China ruthlessly
suppresses its vast number of unregistered (and therefore uncontrolled by
the government) churches; but the more the underground church is
persecuted the more it explodes in numbers; and millions of Bibles,
contraband if not printed and distributed by the government, are printed
inside and outside of China, distributed within China and treasured above
all possessions by millions of Chinese.
Much persecution has accompanied the translation, production and
distribution of the Bible in many of the world’s languages, including
English, the language in which most of the Bibles of the world are now
translated. Virulent attacks against the Bible have been launched in full
force in Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist countries. All have failed! God has
been guarding His Word. No one will ever bring it down!
2. The Preservation of the Accuracy of the Books
God, who took such care to preserve His Bible throughout history, took
care to preserve the accuracy of its contents.
a. The Preservation of the Accuracy of the Old Testament
Until the middle of the twentieth century, the oldest known copy of the
Old Testament was the Masoretic Text. "This monumental work was begun around the 6th century AD and completed in
the 10th century by scholars [known as Masoretes] at Talmudic academies in
Babylonia and Palestine, in an effort to reproduce, as far as possible,
the original text of the Hebrew Old Testament. Their intention was not to
interpret the meaning of the Scriptures but to transmit to future
generations the authentic Word of God. To this end they gathered
manuscripts and whatever oral traditions were available to them.... The
rigorous care given the Masoretic text in its preparation is credited for
the remarkable consistency found in Old Testament Hebrew texts since that
time. The Masoretic work enjoyed an absolute monopoly for 600 years, and
experts have been astonished at the fidelity of the earliest printed
version [late 15th century] to the earliest surviving codices [late 9th
century]. The Masoretic text is universally accepted as the authentic
Hebrew Bible."31
From about 500 A.D. until the present, the standard Hebrew text of the Old
Testament has been perfectly preserved; but after 1947, the faithfulness
of the Masoretic Text to much earlier Old Testament Texts was put to the
test. In 1947, about five hundred scrolls dating from about 125 B.C. to
100 A.D. were found in a cave near the Dead Sea. Of these, about 175 were
biblical, containing several copies of many of the books of the Old
Testament and sections or fragments of others. All Old Testament books
were represented except the Book of Esther.
These Dead Sea Scrolls were written, on the average, a thousand years
nearer the time of the original autographs than the final Masoretic Text.
Naturally, scholars expect older texts to reflect the original autographs
more faithfully than later texts. Among the Dead Sea scrolls was a scroll
of Isaiah from 125 B.C., 1125 years nearer the original than the final
Masoretic Isaiah. Astoundingly, a comparison of the Dead Sea and Masoretic
Isaiahs revealed virtually no difference between the two. In speaking of
the biblical Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic Text overall, Dr. Arnold
G. Fruchtenbaum writes, “Where there is a variation, there is absolutely
no change of meaning. For example, one scroll may say, ‘he went to
Jerusalem.’ The other scroll may say, ‘he went unto Jerusalem.’ ...[S]o
the text has remained intact.”32
It is reasonable to conclude that, if God preserved the integrity of the
Old Testament for the last two thousand years, He preserved it from the
time of the original autographs.
b. The Preservation of the Accuracy of the New Testament
As concerns the New Testament, over 20,000 hand-copied manuscripts of the Greek text are in existence.33 According to Dr. Fruchtenbaum, “...by
virtue of these many Greek texts it is possible to determine what the
original Greek New Testament was.”34
Peter wrote, You have been born again not of seed which is perishable but
imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of God. For,
"All flesh is as grass, and all of its glory like the flower of grass. The
grass withers, and the flower falls off, but the word of our God abides
forever." [Isa. 40:6,8]. And this is the word which was preached to you (1 Peter 1:23-25).
Peter addressed this letter to Jewish believers (1 Peter 1:1, 2:12) to
whom the Word of God
and the Word of the Lord referred not only to
specific messages that God spoke or revealed to individual prophets, but
to the entire body of Hebrew Scripture.
God promised through Peter that His Bible, whether written on tablets of
clay or stone or parchment or paper or on any modern medium, or in the glorified memories of the saints in the eternal ages,
will always be preserved
forever!
Amazingly, despite attempts to destroy them, all sixty-six books of the
Bible have been preserved, and their faithfulness to the original writings
has been confirmed to a far greater degree than has any other book of
antiquity. Sir Isaac Newton said, “There are more sure marks of
authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history.”35 It’s as if the
Bible enjoys supernatural protection. Yes, the preservation of the
sixty-six books and of their accuracy is even further evidence that the
writing of the Bible was inspired - initiated and superintended - by God.
K. The Preservation of the Jew
The preservation of Jewish national identity is powerful evidence of the
Bible’s divine authorship. Consider this assessment by David Egner of The
Radio Bible Class:
"By all reckoning, the Jews should have died out long ago. Their survival
as a distinct people is a miracle of history....
"You cannot talk to a Babylonian today, nor a Hittite. You will not meet a Moabite or a Phoenecian on the street. But you can converse with a Jew.
"By every measuring stick of history there should not be even one
identifiable Jew alive today. For 4,000 years they have endured
unbelievable hardships: exile from their land more than 60 per cent of the
time; organized efforts to destroy them; the crumbling of the
civilizations in which they sought refuge; the sophisticated brutality of
the 20th century.
Yet the Jews are alive and flourishing. They survive every effort to
destroy them."36
How is it that they survive every effort to destroy them? Let’s look to
the Scriptures: Thus says the LORD, who
gives the sun for light by day, and the fixed order of the moon and the
stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; the
LORD of hosts is His name: If this fixed order departs from before me,
declares the LORD, then the offspring of Israel also shall cease from
being a nation before me forever. Thus says the LORD, If the heavens above
can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out below, then
I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have
done, declares the LORD
(Jeremiah 31:35-37).
For I, the LORD, do not change; therefore
you, o sons of Jacob, are not consumed (Malachi 3:6).
These Scriptures, written in 597 B.C. and 397 B.C., respectively, purport
that God declared that He would preserve Jewish national identity for as
long as there are sun, moon and stars and until the universe is fully
measured and the foundations of the earth fully searched out. Despite the
repeated fury of Satan and the nations to destroy the Jews, there are
still 13,000,000 of them alive and identifiable today, 2400 and 2600 years
after these passages were written. Were these purported declarations by
God the hallucinations of heatstruck Hebrew holy men - or were they the
Words of God? Look to history - and decide.
L. Detailed Prophecy and Detailed Historical Fulfillment
Perhaps the most amazing phenomenon in the Bible is its containment of
hundreds of detailed prophesies that have come to fulfillment - in detail:
prophecies as broad as the blueprint of history and as focused as the
details of Messiah’s life and crucifixion; prophecies of the destruction
of specific nations, of the endurance of others, of the scattering and
gathering of Israel and of political and military alliances in the distant
future.
1. The Blueprint of History
In about 601 B.C., an amazing dream was given to Nebuchadnezzar, King of
Babylon, and its interpretation to his Hebrew advisor, Daniel (Daniel
2:1-45). The dream and its interpretation revealed the succession of the
world empires central to Bible and world history and prophecy: Babylon,
Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, the split of Rome into eastern and western
divisions, and an empire consisting of ten kingdoms which will, in turn,
be crushed and replaced by a kingdom which the
God of heaven will set up... which will never be destroyed (v. 44). The first five of these
elements have already come to pass in world history!
2. The Fate of Nations
Around 850 B.C., Obadiah prophesied the destruction of the then mighty
Edomite nation (southeast of the Dead Sea), saying,
[T]here will be no survivor of the house of Esau (v. 18). Between 450 and 400 B.C., God
declared through the prophet Malachi,
I have made [Esau’s] mountains a desolation |
