The Bible: You Can Believe It!

[Word of Life]

Each of us has our own personal relationship with God and His Son Jesus, and this is very important. But knowing God's Plan for mankind and understanding what He has written is equally and more so important. God has a plan for mankind, and that plan is going to happen, and no man is going to thwart that plan or add to that plan.

God bless.

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The Bible: You Can Believe It!
By: John Schoenheit


The Bible is the best selling book of all time.

It has been a source of strength and hope for countless numbers of people through the ages. While there have always been critics of the Bible, since the mid-1800s it has come under increasing attack, especially from scholars.

The situation today is that many seminaries do not teach that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, but instead teach that it is at best the writing of great men. This sentiment has grown in Christian circles to the point that even many churches do not teach the Bible, and many church people no longer consider the Bible their standard for faith and practice.

The men who wrote down Scripture said they got their information directly from God. Thus, the Bible claims to be the very words of God. It claims to be true and right. The records in the Bible are presented as actual occurrences, not fables or fairytales.

Often skeptics try to lessen the weight of their criticisms about the Bible by saying, Even though it is not the words of God, it is still a good book with lots of valuable lessons. Make no mistake; if the Bible is not what it says it is, it is not a good book at all-it is a pack of lies and the men who wrote it were colossal liars.

This book is a defense of the accuracy and integrity of the Bible. It examines and refutes many of the most common criticisms that have been raised against the Bible. It shows that the biblical text is reliable and the text can be trusted. It shows that the accuracy of the text has not been compromised as it has been passed down through the ages. It shows the Bible is complete in 66 books and none of it is missing.

It gives evidence from science, history, and prophecy that only God could have authored. Scripture-man simply could not have done it. Once all the evidence is considered, it is apparent that the Word of God is indeed what it clearly claims to be-the very Word of God; a clear communication to people from God. It is not a book to be ignored, it is the key to blessings both in this life and in the life to come.

Part One: Important Questions that need to be Addressed

Can we trust the Bible?

For generations, people have trusted the Bible. It has guided, encouraged, and comforted millions of people who readily testify to its life-changing impact. It is the best selling book of all time, and not by a small margin. It is the cornerstone of Western Civilization and the document upon which our nation’s Founding Fathers based our Constitution. Its ethical standards have launched freedom movements, and its laws and regulations have guided lawmakers, judges, and jurists by the score. It has inspired great works of music and art, including songs, sculpture, paintings, plays, and movies. Its graphic portrayals of heroes and heroines have captured the imagination of young and old alike.

On the other hand, it is also perhaps the most criticized document in history. Literally thousands of books have been written giving “evidence” that it is not true. Typical of false witnesses, the detractors often contradict each other, and their logic is faulty. Opponents claim that it is “just a book written by men.” Some critics say its main character, Jesus, never lived. Others acknowledge that he lived, but claim he never said what the Bible says he said. Others acknowledge that he lived and that much of what is recorded in the Bible was what he said, but assert that he was not literally raised from the dead. And so it goes. Like the false witnesses at Christ’s trial, their testimonies do not agree (Mark 14:59).

The best way for you to decide whether you can believe the Bible is to weigh the evidence for yourself. I trust that when all of it has been loaded onto the scales, you will find that the Bible is reliable, trustworthy, and 100% believable.

Should we question the Bible?

Questioning is a normal and healthy part of learning. Every teacher I know loves students who ask questions, because it shows they are interested and learning. God certainly does not mind when we ask Him questions. Furthermore, God has answers to our questions. The Bible is full of answers on all kinds of subjects. God gave us a command to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30). Some people act as if an intellectual pursuit of God is either unnecessary or ungodly. However, God created our minds so we can think using reason and logic, and He is the One who said we should love Him with “all” our mind. We cannot do that if we are not fully convinced that the Bible is true.

Asking questions is a vital part of learning, and God tells us to ask Him if we need wisdom:

James 1:5
If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

It is very important, however, that we understand the difference between questioning and doubting. I believe that many people who say they “question” the Bible actually mean they “doubt” it. I say that because, in my years of teaching the Bible, most people who have told me they “question” the Bible are not really looking for answers. They do not trust God, and are comfortable living with doubt and unbelief about Him and His Word. If the Bible is true, however, it is not wise to remain comfortable in unbelief. We are pleased when people trust us, and God is pleased when people trust Him. In fact, the Bible states clearly that “...without faith [trust] it is impossible to please God...” (Heb. 11:6a). God can answer questions and help us believe if we search for answers, but God cannot stop our doubt and unbelief if we are comfortable with them.

It is not necessary to live in unbelief and doubt. You can resolve any doubts or overcome any unbelief you may have if you desire to. How? By becoming clear on what you doubt and why you doubt it, and then diligently seeking answers. God tells us that when we diligently seek, we will get answers. Sometimes the answers come very quickly, sometimes after years of study and prayer, but they do come.

Do not wait until you have “all the answers” before you serve God. He is vast, and His creation is vast, and neither you nor I will ever have “all the answers.” There will always be things we have questions about and things we do not know, so do not put off serving God just because you have questions. Do the things you know God wants you to do. Many times the answers come as you are serving and obeying.

<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o>Isn’t God so mysterious that there is not much we can know about Him?</o>



It is a sad commentary on Christian teachers and preachers that many of them, and the people they teach, believe that God and the Bible are mysterious and unknowable. Well-meaning Christians often quote Isaiah to support their claim.

Isaiah 55:8
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.

As with any passage of Scripture, the context is key to proper interpretation. To whom is the “your” in this passage referring? Who are those people who do not think or act like God? From the preceding verse, Isaiah 55:7, we discover it is the wicked and evil people of the world. Wicked people do not think or act like God (Ps. 5:4; 10:4), but righteous people are to imitate Him (Eph. 5:1). You cannot effectively imitate someone unless you know a great deal about him, and the fact that righteous people are commanded to imitate God shows that we can know much about Him. The very same section of Isaiah tells us God can be known. Just two verses earlier in Isaiah, we read:

Isaiah 55:6a
Seek the Lord while He may be found....

If God can be “found,” then He can be known. It is clear from many biblical references that God wants us to know Him. In fact, God has revealed Himself so clearly through His Word, His Son, and creation that if we do not know Him, we are fools.

Jeremiah 4:22a
My people are fools; they do not know me....

God is not in hiding. He has revealed Himself for millennia. For example, He made Himself known to Moses and the Israelites.

Psalm 103:7
He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel.

Of course there are some things about God we do not know. There are some secret things, as it says in the following verse from Deuteronomy, but the last part of the verse says the things God has revealed “belong to us.”

Deuteronomy 29:29
The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.

If God could be known in the Old Testament times as these verses show, then we can know Him even better today because Jesus Christ made Him known even more clearly. John 1:18b says Jesus Christ “...has made Him [God] known.” If Jesus made Him known, then obviously He can be known. Therefore, if someone does not know God, it is his own fault, not God’s. The whole Bible is about God and His Son, Jesus Christ, and it is not a small book. God wants people to know Him and His Son. He wants people to enter into relationship with Him and to fellowship with Him and His Son.

Interestingly, while God has been trying to reveal Himself to people, they have often pushed Him away. Time and again in the Old Testament it was not God who turned from His people, but the people who turned from Him and rejected His knowledge. God even complained that there was no “...knowledge of God in the land” (Hosea 4:1b-KJV), and later He gives the reason why: “...You have rejected knowledge...” (Hosea 4:6). The same thing is happening today. Rather than pressing in to know God, people are afraid that God will intrude into their lives. They think God will want them to do things they do not want to do, as if He did not have their best interests at heart.

The primary reason people think God will intrude into their lives and that religion is meaningless and burdensome is because of man’s regulations and practices that have been added to true Christianity. Truth is freeing, uplifting, and affirming. In contrast, man’s religion is wearisome, binding, and burdensome. Unfortunately, much of man’s religion has been palmed off on the public as true Christianity. This happens because people have not been taught how to read the Bible and really understand what they are reading. So they end up following whatever their religious leaders say. Jesus Christ dealt with the same thing almost 2,000 years ago. The Pharisees’ man-made religion forced all kinds of burdensome practices on people. Concerning the religious leaders of his day, Jesus said, “They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders...” (Matt. 23:4a). He was speaking of the heavy loads of unnecessary religious practices. In contrast, he said of his ways: “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:30). While man’s religion is burdensome, true religion is a joy and a great blessing.
Because they have been taught unbiblical doctrines instead of the truth revealed in the Bible, Christians often think that God cannot be understood. It would be off the subject of this book to discuss individual doctrines, but if you are one of the people who has been told God is mysterious or you have to “take it on faith,” then you might want to look more deeply into those doctrines to see if they are actually in the Bible. Through my years of study I have come to the conclusion that the truth, God’s truth, makes sense. God made the mind of man in such a way that we can understand and love Him. God created people so He would have a family to fellowship with Him. It would be ridiculous for God to want a family, create a family, and then not reveal Himself to them. He reveals Himself to those who earnestly seek Him (Prov. 2:1-5; Heb. 11:6).

Not only can and should we know God, but we can also understand the Bible and know biblical truth. There are people who assert that no one can really know the truth, but they did not reach that opinion by studying the Bible. God says He wants all men to know the truth. Although most translations of 1 Timothy 2:4b state that God wants us to “...come to a knowledge of the truth,” the Greek text is much more forceful, something that is picked up very well in The Amplified Bible.

1 Timothy 2:3b-4 (AMP)
(3b) ...God our Savior
(4) Who wishes all men to be saved and [increasingly] to perceive and recognize and discern and know precisely and correctly the [divine] truth.

God would be a liar if He said He wants us to perceive, recognize, and know precisely and correctly the divine truth, but gave us no way to know it. We can know both God and truth if we are willing to give up some time and energy and approach God and the Bible with prayer, honesty, perseverance, humility, and intellectual rigor. Of course, this means taking time out of our busy lives and dedicating it to Bible study and learning about God. But that investment will pay off thousands of times over. If you are a Christian, you will live forever, and God will absolutely repay you manyfold for the effort you give to Him now. Jesus told us that we should seek God’s kingdom first in our lives, and that all the other things we desire will be added to us in time (Matt. 6:33).
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[Word of Life]

Wasn’t the Bible passed down verbally from generation to generation before it was written?

A common misconception about the Bible is that it was passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation before it was written, so therefore it must be the words of men, and unreliable. If the Bible is man’s writing, then it deserves no more credit or attention than any other great book. In the final analysis, what we believe about the Bible will determine our attitude about it and in large part set the spiritual tone for our lives. The truth is, the Bible did not come by the will of man, but holy men of God wrote the very words of God.

Although many people say the Bible was passed down verbally from generation to generation before it was written, there is no proof this actually occurred. All those who wrote the Bible are long dead, and there are no testimonies from them or people they spoke with saying that all they did was write down the family histories and campfire stories that had come down to them. Can it be proven that the men who wrote the Bible just put down oral traditions on paper? It cannot. So when people say the Bible was passed down from generation to generation, they are just stating a theory. There is no actual proof to substantiate it.

Are there reasons we should reject the theory that the biblical records were passed by word of mouth for generations before being written? Certainly. Anyone who studies the history of oral traditions knows that details get lost, names and places are forgotten or replaced, and there is a tendency to exaggerate, either for better or worse, such that the good guys become very good and the bad guys become evil incarnate. The Bible is written in a way that shows it is not just a book of oral traditions. The characters are depicted in ways that are inspiring, heartwarming, true to life, convincing, and convicting. They have their good points and their human weaknesses. In reading about them we read about ourselves, because their humanity is so well portrayed in Scripture.

Furthermore, the details, place names, and geographical descriptions in the Bible are written with the accuracy of an involved and knowledgeable eyewitness. That eyewitness is God. The richness, depth, and historical accuracy of Scripture are in sharp contrast to the exaggerations, the historical inaccuracies, and the shallow and one-dimensional portrayals of characters in legends, folk history, and mythology.

Does God talk to men?

If the Bible is God’s Word, then God must talk to men. Of course, there are many people who do not believe that God speaks with people, but that is only their opinion. They cannot prove that God does not talk with people. If there is a God, and if He did create people, then it makes perfect sense that He would communicate with them. Many people through the centuries have testified that they had personal contact with God or the Lord Jesus Christ, and today it would be difficult to go to a gathering of charismatic Christians and not have at least some of them testify they had received personal communication from Heaven in one form or another.

In the Bible, there are a number of words used to describe its contents: “Scripture,” the “Word of God” or “Words of God,” “prophecy,” “revelation,” etc. Each of these words has its own distinct meaning, yet the idea is the same: knowledge given by God to men and written down in what we refer to as the Bible.

The Bible specifically states God gave it to men.

2 Timothy 3:16
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.

“All Scripture,” what is written in the Bible, “is God-breathed.” “God-breathed” points to God as the source of the words. In order to speak, you have to breathe. This verse is saying that all the words written in the Bible came from God—He “breathed” them out. In other words, no man or group of men was the source of Scripture. No man sat down with a paper and pen (or a clay tablet and pointed stick) and said, “I’ve got some great insight and a good story, and I’m going to write part of the Bible.” The testimony of the Bible is that God is its source.

Let’s look at another reference.

2 Peter 1:20-21
(20) Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation.
(21) For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

To have confidence in the Bible, we must understand that Scripture did not have its origin in the will of man, and thus, not in any traditions that were passed down from generation to generation. Neither was it the accumulated wisdom of a few “inspired” men. This verse refers specifically to speaking words from God, but it is also applicable to writing words from God. Here it clearly states that the origin, or the source, of the words was not man. The content of the Bible came from God, who communicated it to men, who then wrote it down.

By the way, “prophecy,” as the word is used in the Bible, does not always mean foretelling the future. The word “prophecy” also refers to the declaration of past or current events and the details of those events. Whenever God gives information to someone and that person speaks it, that is prophecy. A quick read of any of the prophetic books such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Ezekiel will show that much of the prophecy they spoke concerned Israel’s past and present. Therefore, the entire Bible is “prophecy,” some of it foretelling future events and some of it simply declaring the truth concerning past or current events. Scripture is clear that no prophecy was the prophet’s own interpretation.

In Galatia, there were people who stood against the message of the apostle Paul. The Lord moved Paul to write that it was the Lord who was the author of Paul’s writings. Paul did not get his message from man; he got it by revelation from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Galatians 1:11-12
(11) I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up.
(12) I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

Paul was not the only writer who got his message by revelation. All the writers of the Bible did. In the case of Moses, the Bible says many times, “the Lord spoke to Moses.” Why question that? If there is a God, can He not speak with those He created? In fact, if there is a God, it seems certain He would speak to people. Many men who put pen to paper as writers of the Bible made the specific claim that God spoke to them, and there are many accounts of Him doing so. A partial list includes: Moses (Exod. 19:3), Joshua (Josh. 1:1), Samuel (1 Sam. 3:11), Solomon (1 Kings 3:11), Job (Job 38:1), Isaiah (Isa. 6:8-13), Jeremiah (Jer. 1:4-19), Ezekiel (Ezek. 1:1-3; 2:1ff), Hosea (Hosea 1:1), Joel (Joel 1:1), Amos (Amos 7:1-9), Jonah (Jonah 4:1-11), and Paul (Gal. 1:11 and 12). The testimony of these men and others who wrote the Bible is that they were writing expressly what God said to write.

Not only is there no proof the Bible was passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation before it was written, there is evidence to the contrary. It is obvious that people who lived at the time the Bible was written thought Moses, David, Daniel, etc., were writing the words of God. No one carefully preserves and passes down the word of a lunatic or liar, which is exactly what the authors of the Bible would be had they claimed God was speaking to them when He was not. The fact that the books of the Bible were carefully preserved and passed down from one generation to the next shows that the people who lived when they were written recognized those documents as being true and valuable. There is no indication the people alive at the time of Moses doubted that God spoke to him. This is why the books of Moses were very carefully preserved as the Word of God.

It is also very clear that people in later generations recognized that God had spoken to their forefathers. Josiah is a good example. He was a king of Judah who reigned some 800 years after Moses. His father, Amon, was an evil king who did not obey the Law of Moses, so Josiah grew up without knowing the Mosaic Law. When Josiah started his reign, the scrolls containing the Law of Moses were found in the Temple and read to him. His reaction was immediate. He ripped the clothing he was wearing (an Eastern way of showing he was very upset) and sent a delegation to Huldah the prophetess to find out what to do. Josiah was worried because he knew the words that were read to him were God’s commands, not just “Moses’ wisdom” (2 Kings 22:13). Josiah did not take the attitude, “It is unfortunate we have missed out on the wisdom of Moses for so long; after all, Moses was such a learned individual.” No, Josiah knew it was God’s Word and God’s commands that had been found, and he was concerned about the wrath of God that would come upon his kingdom because he and the people had been disobedient to His laws. Regrettably, many people today are so convinced the Bible is man’s words and man’s wisdom, they feel completely comfortable ignoring it.

Jesus Christ believed God spoke to Moses and other people who wrote Scripture. He openly stated that it is God’s Word. Surely he would not have said that if he believed the Bible were just the accumulated wisdom of some great men. Jesus also said the Word of God was true (John 17:17). He did not say it had contradictions or errors.

Although Moses lived some 2,500 years after Adam, almost 1,000 years after the flood, and almost 500 years after Abraham, that does not mean that what he wrote was passed down to him by word of mouth from earlier generations. God is eternal. He was an eyewitness of all the events on earth throughout history and He has perfect memory. Therefore, God is exceptionally well qualified to speak to men who would then write down what He said. Furthermore, God would get all the details correct—something that is true of the biblical text but certainly not something we would expect if it were the product of accumulated folklore and stories passed down from generation to generation. Many critics of the Bible either do not believe there is a God or they think that God would not speak to people, so they conclude that men authored the Bible. Their conclusion is in error. God does exist. Furthermore, He created man to fellowship with Him, so it makes perfect sense for Him to speak with men and women.

Does the fact that the Word of God was written by revelation mean there were no stories passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth or in other writings? Not at all. The great events described in the Bible would have been told and retold, and even inspired folklore and legends. Of course, the vast majority of these are lost to us. However, some were preserved (with a significant loss of accuracy) in the writings of other cultures. For example, many ancient cultures have a Flood story. It is vital to understand, however, that there is a big difference between admitting there were stories passed down from generation to generation, and claiming the writers of the Bible used these stories as the basis for their work. If anything, what God told the holy men to write would have confirmed or corrected things that had come down to people by word of mouth.

People who say the Bible is only a collection of folklore passed down through the generations often try to make this idea easier to accept by saying, “But the Bible is still a good book with wonderful lessons.” Make no mistake, the men who wrote Scripture claimed that God actually spoke to them. The whole Bible is record after record of “the Lord said,” or “the Lord did.” If these records are not true, if God really did not speak to the men who wrote, if God did not put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, or save Noah and his family on the Ark, or sustain Israel with manna for 40 years, or dry up the Jordan River so Israel could cross over, or stop the sun for Joshua, or multiply the loaves and fish, or raise the dead, then the Bible is not a “good” book at all—it is a pack of lies, and the men who wrote it were colossal liars. The Bible does not claim to be a book of stimulating stories and inspiring fables—it claims to be “the truth.”

The books of the Bible do not begin with “Once upon a time,” or some other homespun opening that would let the reader know they are just man’s folklore. They are clearly written as if they happened just the way they are recorded.

The Bible makes many claims: claims about its author, God; claims about the men who wrote what God said; claims about events such as the walls of Jericho falling down; claims about salvation and how to obtain everlasting life; and claims about the future and how things will be at the end of this world. If these claims are not true or are exaggerations of what really happened, what is left to believe? That the Bible is a book with some nice proverbs and a few insightful parables and stimulating stories? That is not very satisfying or comforting, and it does not make the hard work of learning the Bible even worthwhile. If, on the other hand, the Bible is the Word of God as it claims to be, then it is worth studying, learning, and obeying. Furthermore, if the Bible is in fact the Word of God, then the critics are doing mankind a monumental disservice by causing people to doubt it, and they will have to account for this “...on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ...” (Rom. 2:16).

Rom 2:16
(16) In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.

 

[Word of Life]

Continued:

Didn’t the men God spoke to make mistakes?

I have occasionally heard it stated that even if God spoke to men, what they wrote cannot be trusted because men make mistakes. That is an unreasonable and unfounded belief. Imagine the following situation: you are the president of a large corporation and you have a secretary. You call your secretary into your office because you want to dictate a letter. After you finish dictating, you ask to see a copy for review, and a little later a copy shows up on your desk. You take one look at it and immediately recognize it is nothing like the letter you dictated. If this happened more than once, you would probably fire the secretary. A good secretary would be able to get what you said written down word for word with no problem at all. So ask yourself, “Is God less knowledgeable of a person’s abilities and skills than a corporate president?” Do you think He might know who is going to accurately record what He says? God picked the men He could trust to get it right, just as you would. By the way, does the secretary have to know everything the president knows to accurately record what he says? The answer is an obvious, “No.”

The assertion that the Bible must be full of errors because men wrote it down is just that—an assertion. I know of no book written by a Bible critic that definitively lists the specific doctrines or verses supposedly corrupted by man’s influence. If modern scholars and critics really believed that part of the Bible was from God (which would be more valuable than gold), and part of it was from man (which would have modest value at best), then we would expect to see a huge amount of effort being expended to sort out man’s words from God’s words, and recover the true words of God. There is no such effort, which reveals that the critics do not actually believe that “some” of the Bible is from God. They only say it has man’s mistakes in it to discredit it and to have a reason to ignore it. Wise people are not fooled by the unproven assumption that the Bible contains man’s mistakes. Wise people believe, and live by, the Bible.

Hasn’t the text been copied so many times it is unreliable?

It is occasionally stated that the Bible has been copied and/or translated so many times that it has become unreliable. The actual evidence refutes this idea. The text of Scripture was copied, yes, but not to the end that it cannot be trusted. In actuality, the fact that the Bible has been copied over and over enables us to be sure we have a biblical text that is very close to the original. This is easy to understand. We will examine two scenarios to show that making multiple copies actually helps to establish what the original said.

In scenario number one, you are living in the “BC” era (before computers)—no photocopy machines, not even carbon paper. You write a letter to a friend and make a handwritten copy for your files. Later, you are told that your letter never arrived at your friend’s house, so you go to your files to make a copy from your copy. However, as you are making the new copy, you do not see something you are sure was in your original letter. It occurs to you that when you made the copy you might have left a line or two out. Unfortunately, you have no way to check. The original is lost and you are holding the one and only copy. There is simply no way to determine whether your memory, or the copy you are holding, is faulty.

In scenario number two, you write a letter and then copy it ten times and send it to ten friends. In this situation, if you lose your original you can still recover what it said with a high degree of accuracy. The way to reconstruct the original is to get the ten copies together and compare them. Then you can usually tell very quickly if mistakes were made. The multiple copies allow you to determine the content of the original. People endeavoring to make an exact copy may make a mistake, but rarely do they make the same mistake on several different copies. They may leave out a word on one, misspell a word on another, and even skip a line or double a line on a third, but the same mistakes would not be made on all the copies. Comparing the copies would reveal the mistakes, and the original could be reconstructed. When several people are making the copies, it is even easier to reconstruct an original because it would be rare indeed for different people to make the same mistake. Thus, it is almost always the case that the more copies of a document that exist, the greater the likelihood is that an accurate original can be reconstructed. This principle is recognized by scholars and is sometimes referred to as “the tenacity of the text.”

There are more manuscripts of the Bible in existence today than of any other document from the ancient world. There are more than 5,500 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament and more than 10,000 manuscripts of the Latin New Testament. Furthermore, the New Testament was translated into other languages as well, including Aramaic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Slavic, Bohairic, and Anglo-Saxon. There are, in fact, more than 24,000 ancient handwritten manuscripts of the New Testament that can be read and compared and used to rebuild the original text. That is not all. Have you ever written a letter to a friend and quoted someone in it? Many of the early Christians and Church Fathers wrote letters and essays in which they quoted the Bible. There are more than 36,000 patristic citations of the Bible (i.e., quotations of the Church Fathers or “Patriarchs”) that scholars use to help determine the original text.

Generations of biblical scholars have carefully read, reread, and compared these texts to get back to the original New Testament. Furthermore, the use of computers to compare and contrast manuscripts has greatly increased scholarly confidence that we are very close to the original documents penned by Matthew, Paul, Peter, and others. Does that mean the New Testament text we have today is perfect? No, but it is very close. Ezra Abbot places the purity of the New Testament text at 99.75% pure, and A. T. Robertson’s estimate is 99.9%. Scholars testify there is not one essential doctrine of the Church that is in question because of an inaccuracy in the text. Not one! This means if you are reading an accurate translation of the Bible, you can believe what you read.

In contrast to the more than 24,000 New Testament manuscripts on hand today, in a distant second place for the most ancient manuscripts from which to build and check an original text is the Iliad by the Greek poet Homer. There are only 643 manuscripts of the Iliad that have been preserved and are available for us to study today. Yet the same critics who say the Bible cannot be trusted would never say you should not bother to read the works of Homer because they have been copied over and over and there are so few manuscripts existing that we just cannot trust that we are reading what Homer wrote. Interestingly, those same critics support the teaching of ancient history using the works of Homer, Caesar, Pliny, Herodotus, Livy, Tacitius, Plato, and others.

I received my degree in philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and I do not remember one professor saying that the works of the ancient philosophers were in doubt because we could not trust they had come down to us intact. Yet I heard over and over that the Bible was untrustworthy. The evidence, however, is that the text of the Bible is much more surely established than is the work of any other ancient writer. Why was I not taught this in school? Because there is a bias against the Bible—a bias not based on the facts of the case. The facts of the case prove that the text of the Bible is the most reliably established of all the ancient writings.

Not only is the New Testament text we have today very close to the original, the evidence shows that the Old Testament text is too. First of all, there are tens of thousands of manuscripts of the Old Testament available to check and compare. However, unlike the Greek scribes, the Hebrew scribes handled the text with an almost superstitious reverence. There were specific regulations about the types of materials onto which the biblical text could be copied, the kind of ink that could be used, the size of the printed columns, and the spacing of the words. There was even a specific ritual that was to be performed before writing down the name of God. It was also forbidden to write anything from memory. After a scribe wrote, each line was counted to assure none were doubled or skipped, and each letter was counted so that if one were omitted, the error was immediately discovered. If, at the end of copying, even one error was found on the manuscript, it was destroyed. Modern textual scholars agree with Sir Fredrick Kenyon who stated, “The Christian can take the whole Bible in his hand and say without fear or hesitation that he holds in it the true Word of God, handed down without essential loss from generation to generation throughout the centuries.”

To summarize the main points we have covered so far: (a) God is the Author of Scripture, (b) He communicated what He wanted written to men who wrote it down accurately, and (c) the content of the Bible has been copied many times over, which has preserved the accuracy of the text and allowed researchers to verify it. These are significant truths, and they give us confidence in the integrity of the Bible.

 

[jiggyfly]

I din't read the whole article yet, just browsed through it but I didn't see any mention of translation. While the scriptures given in their original text are inerrent, translations are not inerrant. IMO translation free from bias are non-existant.

 

[Word of Life]

Continued

Didn’t the original text have contradictions?

It is often stated you cannot believe the Bible because it is full of contradictions. That is not true. As we saw earlier, the Bible is “God-breathed” and therefore the original would have been absolutely perfect and without contradiction. Any “contradiction” in the Bible is an apparent contradiction not an actual contradiction. Thankfully there are many books that have been written explaining apparent contradictions in the Bible. Occasionally, the serious student of the Bible may see an apparent contradiction in the version of the Bible he is reading. These come from one or a combination of three sources: transmission, translation, or misunderstanding.

Transmission is copying the text in the same language. For example, the Hebrew Bible was copied in Hebrew to make more Hebrew texts available, and the Greek texts were copied in Greek to make more Greek texts available. Errors in transmission occur when the person copying the text fails to be 100% accurate. Perhaps he skipped a word or a line or misread a word. Remember that copying texts used to be a very tedious process. Copying any significant portion of Scripture could lend itself to copying errors. If a copy that contains an error becomes the basis for a version of the Bible, then that version will also contain the error. However, remember that the numerous copies and Scripture citations now available have enabled researchers to identify the vast majority of these types of errors.

A humorous example of a transmission error occurs in codex 109, a manuscript copied in the 1300s A.D. An apparently sleepy scribe was copying the genealogy in Luke 3, which, in the text he was copying from, was in two vertical columns. Instead of copying the names in vertical columns as they appeared in his master copy, he copied them across the columns horizontally. The result was that everyone had the wrong father. God was the son of Aram, and the source of the human race was not God, but Phares. Correcting the manuscript was very easy because of the thousands of correct manuscripts in existence. Other copying mistakes may not be as obvious, but they are corrected by the same process, i.e., comparing manuscripts. [10] If a version of the Bible is based on a manuscript of text that has a copying error, then that version may contain an apparent contradiction.

Translation errors are the second way apparent contradictions get into the Bible. Greek and Hebrew can sometimes be difficult to translate, especially if the translators do not understand what the author was trying to say. It is unrealistic to think that translators have never made a mistake, but it is more unrealistic to stop reading the Bible or say it is unreliable because it has been translated from one language to another. I am not aware of a “perfect” English version. Some English versions are better than others; nevertheless, all of them speak of salvation through Christ and the value of godly living.

An example of a mistranslation occurs in the King James Version of Acts 7:45. The verse is speaking of Joshua bringing the tabernacle of Moses with him into the Promised Land, but the King James Version reads that “Jesus” brought in the tabernacle, not “Joshua.” The mistake is understandable because in both Greek and Hebrew, “Joshua” and “Jesus” are the exact same name. However, in English they are different, and the English translation needs to be accurate. Most modern versions have corrected the error and read “Joshua.”

One kind of translation error occurs because the exact meaning of the Greek or Hebrew word cannot be brought into English. This is not so much a case of an actual error, but is rather the inability of the translator to bring the fullness of the meaning of a Greek or Hebrew word into English. An example in the Greek text occurs in Luke 11:8. In the record in Luke, in the middle of the night a man is demanding bread from his neighbor. The NIV says the man was bold, while the NASB says the man was persistent. Why the difference? The Greek word anaideia actually has both meanings. Choosing one meaning or the other is usually necessary, but does not yield a completely accurate understanding of the text. This is one of the reasons that Bible study is necessary, lexicons and concordances are important, and commentaries can be very helpful.

God authored the Bible for our blessing and benefit, and it is up to us to work to know and understand it. The Amplified Bible was written to communicate more of the depth of meaning of some of the Greek and Hebrew words, and instead of a one-word translation of anaideia in Luke 11, it incorporates both meanings and reads, “shameless persistence and insistence.” If you discover a mistranslation in your Bible, it is helpful to make a note of it in the margin so you will read it correctly in the future.

Misunderstanding is the third, and without a doubt the most common, source of apparent contradictions. When a person misreads something in the Bible or misunderstands what he reads, he may interpret it as a contradiction. Misunderstandings can happen fairly easily, and for a number of reasons. Misunderstanding the language of the Bible, failure to note the person or people being addressed, not properly understanding the biblical customs or way of recording information, assuming similar records are identical or identical records are only similar, not getting all the details about something from every part of Scripture and thus making false assumptions about the records, and not recognizing the legitimate figures of speech used by God in the text are some of the major causes of apparent contradictions.

Biblical language can be hard to understand. Words like “atonement,” “sanctification,” “redemption,” etc., are not used in everyday English and can be misunderstood easily. Also, many words have more than one meaning. Even seemingly simple biblical words like “saved” can have a variety of meanings depending on the context. People and places often have more than one name, and, to make matters worse, different people and places often have the same name. For example, Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, is also called “Reuel” and “Jether” (Exod. 4:18-Hebrew text, but most versions have “Jethro” so readers will not be confused). However, at least five other people in the Bible are named “Jether.” It is easy to see how contradictions could be “found” when, in actuality, no contradiction exists.

Failure to note to whom a passage is addressed causes many apparent contradictions. Different parts of the Bible are addressed to different individuals or groups of people, and God occasionally changed the rules He wanted men to live by. Something God said to Abraham may not apply to the Jews under the Law, or something God said to the Jews under the Law may not apply to Christians. Also, God spoke specific words to many individuals and groups that do not apply except to them. It can cause great confusion if someone just picks up a Bible, opens it, reads a passage and tries to apply it in his life without noting to whom the passage is addressed. Imagine that a man by chance opens his Bible to Genesis and reads God’s command to Abraham that male children must be circumcised or His covenant is broken (Gen. 17:14). However, the next day his Bible happens to fall open to Galatians, and he reads, “Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all” (Gal. 5:2). This man could become completely confused about what God desires for his life. But there is no need for that confusion. If you recognize that God has given different rules at different times, and also has spoken specifically to individuals or groups, then you know that finding out to whom a section of Scripture is addressed can be the most important key to making it fit with the whole of Scripture, and you most certainly want to find this out before applying it in your own life.

Another thing that causes Bible readers to be confused is not recognizing the manners and customs of the people in the Bible. There has been a dramatic change in people’s daily lives and customs since biblical times. For example, the well-known Bible character, Samson, told his enemies a riddle and challenged them to tell him what it meant. They secretly threatened his wife, and said that they would kill her and her family if she did not give them the answer to the riddle. Wanting to save her family, she told them the solution. They then went to Samson and gave him the solution, acting as if they had figured it out for themselves. Samson realized how they solved his riddle, and he proclaimed, “...If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle” (Judg. 14:18c). Samson’s statement about plowing does not make sense to us Westerners, and we wonder what plowing with a young cow has to do with solving a riddle. However, as we study the culture of the Old Testament, we learn the answer. In the Biblical culture, women were occasionally referred to as “cows” (Amos 4:1), and a young woman was referred to as a “heifer.” A somewhat similar usage in our culture is referring to females as “chicks.” In training a heifer to plow, the owner prods it with a goad (a pointed stick), until it learns to plow a straight row. Samson said in a very Eastern way, “If you had not plowed with [threatened with some kind of pain] my heifer [my young wife], you would not have found out my riddle.”

An example of an apparent contradiction involving chronology occurs when we compare Jeremiah 25:1 with Daniel 1:1. In Jeremiah 25:1, the first year of Nebuchadnezzar is the fourth year of Jehoiakim, king of Judah. In Daniel 1:1, Nebuchadnezzar is called the king of Babylon in the third year of Jehoiakim. Although this was once considered an obvious contradiction, scholars now know that far from being a contradiction, it actually proves the accuracy of the text. Jeremiah wrote from Judah while Daniel wrote from Babylon, and the two countries used different systems of counting the reigns of kings. The first months of their respective calendars were six months offset. The start of Daniel’s year in Babylon was Nisan, which usually falls in our March or April (they used lunar years, which are different than our solar years). The start of Jeremiah’s year was the month Tishri, which occurs in our September or October. Thus, an event that started in the summer of the fourth year of Daniel would still be in the summer of the third year of Jeremiah. If the books of Jeremiah and Daniel gave the same information about the years of Jehoiakim and Nebuchadnezzar, then that would have been a contradiction, and not historically accurate. God moved both Jeremiah and Daniel to record information that was historically accurate to them, given the countries in which they were living, and the entire Bible is just as historically accurate as the dates of Daniel and Jeremiah.

False assumptions about the Four Gospels are a common source of apparent contradictions. It is common knowledge that each of the Four Gospels gives different details about Christ’s life. This means the only way to get the entire picture of Christ’s life is to read all four. [12] Scholars have noticed the differences between the Four Gospels, and claimed that the writers contradicted each other. For example in Matthew 21:19, Jesus cursed a fig tree that withered immediately. In Mark 11:14-21, Jesus cursed a fig tree that withered overnight. Doubters are quick to point out this difference and say that Matthew and Mark contradict each other. The simple truth, however, is there were two trees that Jesus cursed. The fig tree was a symbol of Israel, and Jesus cursed two of them to make a point. It was the same point God made to Pharaoh in the book of Genesis when He gave him the same basic dream twice—something done twice is established by God and will certainly come to pass. Jesus knew that Israel as a nation was going to wither after it rejected him, so he cursed two fig trees to emphatically make the point.

The above examples are just two illustrations of so called “contradictions” often cited by critics of the Bible, that are nothing of the kind. There are also times when God places pieces of a story throughout the Bible so that only the diligent reader will see all the details. For example, different parts of the history of Israel are found in Kings, Chronicles, and the Prophets, so someone reading just one part will not get the whole story and may make false assumptions.

Before we close the discussion on apparent contradictions, it is essential to cover the very important area of figures of speech. A figure of speech is a deviation from the literal usage of language, or an unusual use of language to make an impact on the reader or catch his attention. The Bible should be taken literally whenever and wherever possible, but there are occasions when it is not literal, and a knowledge of figures of speech is essential in order to make sense of some difficult parts of Scripture. The field of figures of speech is not guesswork or haphazard. It is quite technical and exacting. There are more than 200 different figures of speech that have been identified in Scripture. The milestone work that has been done on the subject is the book, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible, by E. W. Bullinger. Sadly, it is often the case that whenever someone does not understand a verse, or is unwilling to take it literally, he calls it a figure of speech. This is simply not the proper way to handle God’s Word.

It should not be thought unusual that God would use figures of speech. We use them all the time, and God uses them to enhance His communication to us. Interestingly, most of the time when we humans use them, we do so instinctively and haphazardly. God always uses figures of speech for a specific purpose, so it is important to recognize them. An example of how knowing the figures of speech in Scripture can help us correctly interpret the Bible occurs in Malachi. The prophet Malachi said that Elijah would come before the great Day of the Lord (Mal. 4:5). When the disciples finally realized that Jesus was the Christ (the Messiah), they were confused because, to them, Elijah had not yet come. They asked Jesus, “...Why then do the teachers of the Law say that Elijah must come first?” (Matt. 17:10b). These disciples had been taught in the Synagogue that the Christ could not come until Elijah came, and since Elijah had not come, then how could Jesus be the Christ? Jesus corrected their misunderstanding and said, “...Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him...” (Matt. 17:12a). “Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist” (Matt. 17:13).

John the Baptist was not Elijah, but there were so many similarities between the two men that God used the figure of speech Antonomasia, or “name change,” to describe John. Antonomasia is used to import the characteristics of one person onto another person. When my son was young, he would occasionally jump up and down on the couch. If I caught him, I would say something like, “Cut that out, Tarzan.” I know my son’s name is not Tarzan, but by calling him “Tarzan,” I was attributing Tarzan’s characteristics to him. This is a common figure, and one that we use all the time. Elijah did not have to come back from the dead to fulfill Malachi’s prophecy. One like Elijah needed to come—and John was similar to Elijah in so many ways that it was appropriate to prophetically call John “Elijah.”

The use of Antonomasia in Malachi is a good example of a non-literal figure of speech. Another is Hyperbole, or exaggeration. Exaggeration was a common way of making points in the biblical culture, and so it appears in the Bible. Christ said, “And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away...” (Matt. 5:30a). He would be horrified if anyone actually cut off a hand. In a very Eastern way, Christ was making the point that we need to be prepared to take drastic measures to stop sinning.

An example of a figure of speech that uses unusual patterns of language to get the reader’s attention is Polyptoton, or “many inflections.” Polyptoton uses the same word more than once in a passage, but uses it in different parts of speech. A good example is 2 Kings 21:13b: “...I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.” In this verse it is the unusual repitition of the words that God uses to catch the attention of the reader. Knowing the figures of speech used in the Bible resolves many apparent contradictions, and also points out to us things to which God wants us to pay special attention. Anyone wanting to understand the Bible better will profit by taking some time to study Bullinger’s book on figures of speech.

It has been proven over and over again that “contradictions” in the Bible are only apparent contradictions, which study and research can resolve. The original God-breathed Word first given to the writers was without contradiction, and things that are hard to understand or at first seem like contradictions can be explained in light of the whole scope of Scripture.

To be continued.....

 

[Coconut]

Each of us has our own personal relationship with God and His Son Jesus, and this is very important. But knowing God's Plan for mankind and understanding what He has written is equally and more so important.

Just a comment...this statement is all wrong ...knowledge will never be equal to or more important than relationship...true knowledge flows from relationship...or it is intimacy that breeds understanding of His ways...not head knowledge.


ISV John 14:16 I will ask the Father to give you another Helper, to be with you always. He is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, for it neither sees him nor recognizes him. But you recognize him, for he abides with you and will be in you.

1Jn 2:27 The anointing you received from him abides in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. Instead, because his anointing teaches you about everything and is true and not a lie, abide in him, as he taught you to do.

 

[Word of Life]

Thank you coconut. I appreciate your comment.

It's like I have said in previous posts of mine. I am not denying relationship, and I am getting rather concerned why people don't see that statement in my posts. Relationship with the Father and Son is extremely important.

When Jesus was with us, Jesus had a relationship with the Father. Daily He went and prayed and spoke to the Father. But Jesus also preached the Word of God and so did Paul. They did both.

I get very concerned in what I read. when I see that people are not reading the Bible! And I want to encourage people, to not be afraid in reading the Word of God and allow God to teach us. I have gained much spiritual knowledge by reading His Word and it's there for all of us. I do not see it as head knowledge.

People do not know where my heart is, my words may sound attacking to some and maybe I need to learn to say things in a more gentle way to not offend. I get very concerned about how this teaching which has got out into the world, it hurts me in my heart. I don't know the hearts of others, but I do not see any harm whatsoever in encouraging people getting back to the Word of God, to get back to His truth.

I agree that man does not teach, but God can teach us, and He can show us so many wonderful things and heal us.

I get upset, when folks comment about things and they don't go back to the Word of God, to see what's actually been said.

The annoiting, which we receive, would not lead us away from the Bible!

God bless

 

[stephen]

http://www.talkjesus.com/church-sermons/7413-lamb-god.html


Seems clear to me....the bible is the infallible word of God.

No competition.....on any human, natural, transient and such.....level

 

[Bambi]

With God all things are possible.

I believe God is able to make any translation of scripture 100% accurate. 1 Peter1:<SUP class=versenum id=en-KJV-30398 value="23">23</SUP>Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.
<SUP class=versenum id=en-KJV-30399 value="24">24</SUP>For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:
<SUP class=versenum id=en-KJV-30400 value="25">25</SUP>But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.