Frequently Asked Questions

3. Is The Bible really word of God?

No matter what you think about the Bible everyone agrees that it is quite unique. This is a book like no other !
1. It was written by over 40 different authors over a 1,500 year span. These authors were from every walk of life, from kings to peasants.

2. It was written on three continents, Asia, Africa and Europe. It was written in a number of different places: In the wilderness, in a dungeon, on a hillside, in a palace, in prison, and while traveling on the road.

3. It was written at different times: During war and during peace. In times of great joy and in times of great sorrow and despair.

4. It was written in three different languages, Hebrew, Greek and some Aramaic.

5. The Bible has been read by more people and published in more languages than any other book.

6. The Bible has withstood vicious attacks. Many have tried to burn it, ban it or outlaw it. From the days of the Roman emperors to the more recent communist countries, many have tried to rid the earth of it.

Lets look at the reliability of the text of the Bible :
Extreme care was taken to make sure no mistakes were made whenever a scroll was copied. Here are a few of the safeguards they took:

1. No word or letter, not even a yod, could be written from memory, without first looking at an authentic copy called an exemplar.

2. They counted the number of times each letter of the alphabet occurs in each book....and if it came out wrong they threw the scroll away.

3. They knew the middle letter of the Pentateuch and the middle letter of the whole Bible. After copying a scroll, they found the middle letter and then counted forward and backwards from it, and if it came out wrong they destroyed the scroll and started over.

So much for the mechanics of it, let's look at some of the things it wrote about :
The Bible mentions 40 different non-Hebrew kings of the countries that were around the Hebrew nation. These kings lived between 2,000 years before Christ to about 400 years before Christ. Critics said that the Bible just made these names up, that there were no such kings because mention of them was found no where else outside of the Bible.

But then as archaeologists made new discoveries it was found that not only did the kings exist, their names are spelled correctly and they appear in correct chronological order to all the other kings which that country had during it's history. BUT THE REALLY BIG SURPRISE WAS THE FACT that these kings were listed in correct chronological order with respect to kings of all the other countries. When it said two kings went into battle together against three other kings, (mentioning them all by name,) IT NEVER GOT IT WRONG. FOR THIS TO HAPPEN BY ACCIDENT IS ONE CHANCE IN 75 WITH 22 ZEROS AFTER IT. (750 sextillion?)

The critics really thought they had found a huge error when the Bible said that Belshazzer was king of Babylon because historical writings said Nebanitas was king, but after an archeological dig they found that Nebanitas had decided to wage a war in a distant land and made his son king while he was gone. Guess what the son's name was? Your right, it was Belshazzer.

AS A MATTER OF FACT THE CRITICS HAVE BEEN FOUND WRONG IN EVERY CASE! You would be hard put to find any near-eastern archaeologist who now questions the accuracy of the Bible.

In testing the historical reliability of the Scripture we should use the same criteria by which all historical documents are tested :

A. One of the main tests is how many copies we have from antiquity. So let's compare the Bible with the next most existing number of copies of an ancient manuscript.

1. That would be the "Iliad" by Homer - we have 643 copies. Outside of the Bible, this was the most read book in antiquity. We only have 49 copies of Aristotle's work and only 7 of Plato's.

2. So how many ancient MSS do you thinks we have of different parts of the Bible? WE HAVE 34,590 !!

IT CAN BE SAFELY BE SAID THAT NO OTHER WORK OF ANTIQUITY HAS BEEN SO ACCURATELY TRANSMITTED. NO ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIG HAS EVER SHOWN THE BIBLE TO BE WRONG !!

The text might be reliable but is it inspired ?
1. Remember we saw that the Bible was written over a 1500 year period by over 40 different authors.

A. These authors spoke on hundreds of controversial subjects with agreement and unity from Genesis to Revelations. In other words they don't contradict each other.

B. Whether it is a system of philosophy or religion a system is prepared by a single person. He lays down the rules and works out the details until we have a system. It is the work of one mind during a given period of his life. This has been done many times and we understand how it's unity is maintained and everything is properly connected.

C. The Bible is not that sort of thing at all. On the contrary. The Old Testament was written over a period of about 1500 years by many different authors.

It is easily seen that it would be very difficult to maintain unity of ideas under these circumstances. AS A MATTER OF FACT, EXCEPT FOR THE BIBLE IT HAS NEVER BEEN DONE! Where do you find any other such thing in the history of the earth? This cannot be explained on natural grounds.To assume that such a thing is the result of a human invention that held throughout the centuries would require infinitely more faith than to believe that God was behind the authorship of the Bible.

2. If the Bible were inspired, we would expect the Bible to say so itself. (While a mere claim does not prove anything in itself, the lack of a claim would be very damaging.)

A. All through the Bible we have such statements as "The Word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah," Jer 13:1 or "Thus saith the Lord unto me." Jer 14:1

B. 2 Peter 1:20-21, "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. 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."

C. 2 Timothy 3:14-17, "But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."

1 Is Jesus God?
2 Can Christianity be proved?
3 Is The Bible really word of God?
4 What so special about Christianity?
5 What about all the war and suffering caused by Christians?
6 If my good deeds outweigh my bad deeds can I still reach Heaven?
7 What happens to those who’ve never heard of Jesus?
8 If God is so good why does he allow evil to exist?
9 Truth and tolerance, what does Christ require?

 
 
     
 

All rights reserved. Powered by websight technologies