Possible, Potential HowToGetEternalLife Blog post

Please, Please tear into this, I now its kinda rough, but I hope it flows and gives a solid argument. I will take all thoughts and comments, so please dont be shy :) Thanks

Why Trust the Bible, Isnt it Like Thousands of Years Old??

One thing that every major religion and movement has in common is a book. This book defines everything about who they are, what they do, and how they live. The Mormons have a book that was passed down by God through the finding of a set of Gold plates and special glasses. The Muslims have a sacred book that their Prophet Muhammad wrote after receiving a direct revelation from an angel of light. Democrats and Republicans have books that define their party lines and policies. The list could go on and on since the Hindu’s, Buddhists, Catholics, Jews, every Cult, the Occult, etc. all have their own writings that they follow. Why is it then that the Protestant Evangelic Christian can say with full assurance that the Bible is the ONLY revelation from God. Why can they say that there is no Truth outside of its covers?

These questions have plagued my mind many a late night or long drive. How can we trust this book? Why do I trust this book? How can I be sure that it really is from God? After many years of walking out the Christian life, I can say that the LORD has not left us alone, and that the Bible can be trusted. Without the Bible we would be the most pitied of people since our faith would be based on nothing. That is why it is important that we can trust Bible and what it claims to be, The Direct Revelation of God. There are really two different types of evidence that show the authenticity of our modern day translation, external and internal evidence. Evidence can be found for the authority of the Bible from within its cover and the history that surrounds this most excellent book.

It amazes me how the Bible can be purchased at almost any store in the USA that sells books and yet it started coming together some 2000 years ago!! The New Testament was written down on pieces of dried out plants originally sent to the home churches and then copied and distributed from there. How on Earth did these writings continue for this long without correction or changes. The key to creating any translation is going back to the roots, if you will. It doesn’t matter if its Homer’s Illad or Odyssey, to make a translation of a classic work one must go back to the oldest manuscripts that we have of that writing, and then translate from that language into a language that can be understood in the present time. With the Old Testament and the Hebrew texts that we have we must go back to a group of scribes, professional writers and copiers, called the sopherim who were responsible for making copies of the Old Testament and preserving the text. They would copy the manuscripts word by word and after finishing a page they would do a word count and see if their copy matched that of the original. They were very ritualistic when copying the Scriptures that they had an amazing sense of awe and respect for these words and sought to preserve them without adding or taking away from the text. This process eventually led to the creation of a standardized set of texts called the masoretic texts. These texts were created between 500-1000 AD, and for a very long time these were the oldest Hebrew text of the Old testament we had. That is until 1947 when a Bedouin boy discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls in a cave, guess where, near the Dead Sea. These scrolls date back all the way to 250 B.C. and as recent as 50 A.D. The amazing scrolls discovered here are almost identical to those written in 500-1000 A.D., the masorectic texts. What does this all mean, well it means that the Old Testament is the same today as it was 2250 years ago, and the last book of the O.T. was written around 400 B.C., now that’s cool.

On the New Testament side we find that the New Testament was pretty much decided on by the early 4^th Century, the church fathers before this time included most of the books and quoted many of them as being authoritative from God. Athanasius was the first church father to include all 27 books of the New Testament as all being from God, and it was this list that the Council of Carthage affirmed as being the final New Testament Canon. The New Testament, like the O.T., was written, copied, and recopied so that all could read and glean from this wonderful truth. There are no autographs, or originals from the pen of the Apostles, due to the material they used, mainly papyrus. Papyrus would become britlle and break quite quickly which is most likely why it was copied and recopied so many times. Today we have approximately 5,400 different manuscripts of New Testament books, and the variances between those from today and 400 A.D. are so tiny is miraculous. The earliest manuscripts that we have date back to 200-250 A.D. so only a hundred or so years after John penned down his Revelation he received from Jesus of Nazereth. Even though we don’t have the originals we have some copies really close to the originals. Alright so let’s take a look at those variants that are found between the 5,400 different manuscripts found today. The amount is surprisingly small, about 10%. That means that 90% of what is written on the manuscripts concerning the same book is 90% the same for ALL of them. Now of these variants the most common is spelling difference or errors, if you have any book and everything matches up except for the spelling of names or places that’s pretty good. The next largest group of variants is the omission of small Greek words that don’t have to be there in the sentence. For instance in Greek sometimes a name is preceded by “the” but it doesn’t have to be. This group of variants doesn’t change the meaning of a passage.

I hope that you can see this and at least come to the conclusion that the Bibles we have today are very, very close to what the original authors intended to say. Now just agreeing and seeing the accuracy in its preservation is one thing and to see it has the Word of God is another thing. So let’s take a look at what the Bible claims about itself and the inspiration that breathed this text to paper.

Now let’s take a look at what the Bible has to say about itself. The Old Testament, I believe, is the easiest one to see that it comes from God. The Phrase “thus says the Lord” appears 414 times in the Old Testament. The prophets and priests who wrote the Scriptures wanted everyone to make sure that these were no their own words, rather that the words they spoke and penned were directly from God. I understand that one would have to have faith to see this as credible, but these Words and Prophecies of God do not contradict each other and they come true. Josephus, a Jewish historian in the 1^st century A.D., retells a story of Alexander’s approach to Jerusalem and how the High Priest and all the Levitical priests of the Temple came out to meet him. When they did Alexander supposedly fell down before them and told them that he had see a vision of the High Priest beckoning him to come and crush the Medo-Persians. When the High Priest heard this he took Alexander to the book of Daniel and relayed the Prophecy Daniel made in chapter 8 verse 5-8 about the fall of Persia and the rise of the Greeks. The creepy thing is that Daniel foretold, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that the great horn, Alexander, would fall and four would rise in its place and when Alexander the great died his four generals divided the Kingdom amongst themselves. Yeah Daniel was not written after all these historical events took place, sorry.

Then we have the New Testament testimonies of the authority of Scripture. Second Timothy 3:16 is a great passage to set the tone for what the Words of God are good for:

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, ¹⁷so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.(NIV)”

At this time Paul would have been including all the works of the Apostles and the Scriptures (aka Old Testament) in that word all. It is not only Paul that gives this testimony, in II Peter 1:21

“knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. ²¹For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (ESV)”

Peter makes it clear that Old Testament prophecies, probably in regards to Jesus (which there are a bunch), were not created and then interpreted by man, but God. Then in II Peter 3:15 & 16

^“15And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, ¹⁶as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. (ESV)”

Here Peter places the writings of Paul on the same level as the writings of the Scriptures. Peter is affirming their understanding that these words of Paul are inspired works of the Holy Spirit. We also see that Paul had a slight understanding of this himself it seems in I Corinthians 7:12 Paul clarifies that the next thought is his own and not of the Lord.

Now that you have somehow made it through this little post on the Bible authenticity, inspiration, and historical accuracy, you are left with a choice. Ignore everything you’ve read and continue to doubt that the Bible could be historically accurate and from God, or be encouraged that the Bible that you hold in your hand is materially the same as the first and second century church was able to read and learn from. These precious Words have not been preserved without great sacrifice and the blood of many men. Men who were willing to die on account of creating a Bible that was understood in a common language, John Huss (burned at the stake for creating an English bible) and Martin Luther (forced to live in seclusion and secrecy due to his desire to translate the Word to German) are just two of the many. The true defender of the Word is the Holy Spirit, for this is His Sword and without it the Gospel stops and salvation is lost. Let us cherish and read and study our Bibles that we are so fortunate to have and hold, even today in China Bibles are illegal in many parts of the nation and people die if they are found with a Bible on them or in their home.