We face our world every day. The issues that dominate our culture are the issues with which we must grapple. Do we have answers to the questions people are asking? I don’t mean pat answers, full of cliches and simple solutions, but answers that have substance and are grounded in truth? What do we say about AIDS, abortion, homosexuality, poverty, homelessness, racial prejudice, pre-marital and extra-marital sex, or even the church? And where do we get the truth we share? Is there some objective authority to which we can appeal? We believers contend that it is the Bible which gives us this objective authority. Indeed, we believe that the answers to the problems which beset us and society can be found on its pages.
But what’s so special about the Bible. Is this book any different than any other book? Some say it is inspired. If so, is it merely inspired like a classical masterpiece of art or literature? It there a higher inspiration? Some call it the very Word of God. Are they right? How can we be sure? Is the Bible full of myth or is it a message from God? Let’s see who and what we can call to the witness stand to give testimony concerning this book.
The Testimony of Scripture
Look with me first at the testimony of Scripture itself. You may be thinking that Scripture is an odd evidence to cite as proof that we can trust Scripture. After all, so what if Scripture claims to be true? That doesn’t prove anything. And you are right. But it is a common judicial practice in a court of law to allow the accused to testify on their behalf. What they say may or may not be true, but the fact that it may be true makes what they say very important. Just as their testimony must be corroborated by other evidence, so we will corroborate the Scripture’s testimony to itself by other evidence as well. But let’s first examine the testimony of Scripture.
Peter makes a powerful statement concerning the origin of the Bible. 2 Peter 1:20-21 says, "Most of all, you must understand this: No prophecy in the Scriptures ever comes from the prophet’s own interpretation. No prophecy ever came from what a person wanted to say, but people led by the Holy Spirit spoke words from God. (NCV)" The Bible claims to be a book of divine origin. Even though it is a product of human authorship, those human authors were men "led by the Holy Spirit." This passage of Scripture says that these men "spoke words from God." In other words, the Bible claims to be a message from God.
Another powerful passage is found in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God maybe adequate, equipped for every good work. (NASB)" Here again Scripture testifies about itself that it is inspired by God. The word translated "inspired" is a word which literally means "God-breathed." The Bible is "God-breathed." Inspiration is God breathing forth the Holy Scriptures, using the instrumentality of men to place down in words the very word of God.
Indeed, anyone who reads the Bible cannot help but being struck by the assumption that it is God who is speaking. Over and over again you hear phrases, such as "thus saith the Lord…" and "the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying…." The Bible clearly represents itself as a divine message to man.
Christ himself considered the Scripture to be the Word of God. In Matthew 5:18 we hear Him saying, "I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. (NIV)" When Jesus encountered Satan in the wilderness temptation, He quoted Scripture as a final authority. He said, "It is written…." He spoke of His own life being a fulfillment of the Scripture. Finally, one of His most powerful statements is found in John 10:35, "Scripture cannot be broken." If you would accept Jesus as Savior and Lord, then to reject His opinion concerning the Scripture as the Word of God would be to come into disagreement with the One whom we acknowledge as the eternal God.
The testimony of Scripture is clear. Scripture itself testifies to us that it is the very Word of God. But this alone is not enough. There are others we must call to the witness stand.
History is next to take the stand. What is the testimony of history concerning the Bible? Simply put, the testimony of history is that the Bible is a unique and supernaturally enduring book.
There have always been skeptics, people who predict the demise of Christianity and the Bible. The noted French infidel, Voltaire, said around 1750 that in 100 years Christianity would be swept from existence. Alas, much to Voltaire’s chagrin, that has not happened. In fact, less than fifty years after his death the Geneva Bible Society purchased his house for printing the Bible. Later it became the Paris headquarters for the British and Foreign Bible Society. It has been said an entire six-volume set of Voltaire’s work was once sold for ninety cents. The Bible is still a best-seller. As a matter of fact, the first religious book to be taken into outer space was the Bible. It was on microfilm. While in space one of the astronauts read from Genesis 1:1 - "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…." So much for a book that Voltaire said would be extinct by 1850.
Consider the continuity of the Bible. It was written over a 1500 year span, by over forty authors from every walk of life. Here are just a few: Moses, a political leader, trained in the universities of Egypt; Peter, a fisherman; Amos, a herdsman; Joshua, a military general; Nehemiah, a cup-bearer for the King; Daniel, a prime-minister; Luke, a doctor; Solomon, a king; Matthew, a tax-collector for the Roman I.R.S.; and Paul, a Jewish Rabbi.
The Bible was also written in many different places. Moses wrote in the wilderness. Jeremiah wrote in a dungeon. Daniel wrote in a palace. Paul wrote many times inside prison cells. Luke, the doctor, wrote while traveling. John wrote while in exile on the isle of Patmos. The Bible was written on three continents; Asia, Africa, and Europe. It was written in three languages; Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
Yet, in spite of its diversity in every respect, there is a harmony and continuity from the beginning to the end. From Genesis to Revelation there is one subject throughout; God’s redemption of man. The Bible has a unity which cannot be explained except by a supernatural superintendence. The only explanation which fits the circumstances is that God was coordinating the entire project.
The Bible is also unique in that it is the best attested document in terms of its reliability. In others words, there is great evidence that the Bible we hold in our hands today has been reliably and accurately transmitted over the years. There are more then 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament alone. You can add to that over 10,000 Latin Vulgate and another 9,300 other early versions. There are more than 24,000 manuscript copies of various portions of the New Testament in existence today. It has been said that no other document of antiquity even begins to approach such numbers and attestation. To compare, the second place document is the Iliad by Homer with only 643 manuscripts that are in existence.
Additionally, the interval of time between the original writing and the earliest manuscripts is incredibly short in the case of the Bible compared with other ancient literature. So much so that Sir Frederic G. Kenyon, who was the director and principal librarian of the British Museum, said, "The interval then between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established."
The same can be said for the Old Testament as well. One of the greatest modern discoveries confirming the truthfulness and accuracy of the Old Testament was made in February or March of 1947. A Bedouin shepherd boy named Muhammad who was searching for a lost goat tossed a stone through a hole in a cliff on the west side of the Dead Sea. This was about 8 miles south of Jericho. What he heard was the sound of shattering pottery. There on the floor of the cave where several large jars containing leather scrolls which were wrapped in linen cloths. The jars were carefully sealed, preserving the scrolls in excellent condition for nearly 1900 years. These scrolls comprised ancient manuscripts of the Old Testament, predating the earliest known manuscripts by 900 years. One scroll was the entire text of the book of Isaiah. The Dead Sea Scrolls proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Hebrew text we have is accurate. Gleason Archer, a Harvard Ph.D., says concerning the Isaiah copies of the Dead Sea Scrolls, that they "proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95% of the text. The 5% of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling." Incidently, where there were variations, none of them changed the meaning of the text in any significant way. The fact that the text of both the Old Testament and the new has been transmitted so accurately is miraculous.
But not only has history shown that the Bible is unique in its continuity and in the reliability of its transmission, history also shows that the Bible is unique in its factual accuracy. The Bible has come under attack from many over the years who thought that it was full of errors. Bernard Ramm, a noted Biblical scholar, said, "A thousand times over, the death knell of the Bible has been sounded, the funeral procession formed, the inscription cut on the tombstone and committal read. But somehow the corpse never stays put."
We have seen the Bible dissected and criticized by many so-called intellectuals. The phrase "the assured results of higher criticism" used to be thrown about by those who would apply a rational literary criticism to the Bible. They came up with something known as the "Documentary Hypothesis." They claimed that the first five books of the Bible could not have been written by Moses because the "assured results of higher criticism" had proved that writing didn’t exist in his time. So they parceled out the verses to various hypothetical traditions of writers. We know it as J,E,P, and D, where each letter stands for a certain style of writing by anonymous authors. They even divided one verse into three authorships. Then some people discovered an ancient marker with some wedge-shaped characters on it. It contained detailed laws known as the code of Hammurabi. Here was a well developed written language. So it must have been after Moses time, right? Wrong! It was discovered that it predated Moses by at least three centuries.
Again the "assured results of higher criticism" declared that there were no Hittites at the time of Abraham, since there were no records of them apart from the Old Testament. Wrong again! Today, because of the results of archeology, there are hundreds of references indicating more than 1200 years of Hittite civilization.
Robert Dick Wilson, who is fluent in more than 45 languages and dialects, said, "I may add that the result of my 45 years of study of the Bible has led me all the time to a firmer faith that in the Old Testament we have a true historical account of the history of the Israelite people." Nelson Glueck, former president of the Jewish Theological Seminary in the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati and one of the greatest archaeologists ever, said, "I’ve been accused of teaching the verbal, plenary inspiration of the Scripture. I want it to be understood that I have never taught this. All I have ever said is that in all of my archeological investigation I have never found one artifact of antiquity that contradicts any statement of the Word of God."
We could go on. Suffice it to say that history gives clear testimony to the veracity of the Scripture. One professor remarked, "If you are an intelligent person, you will read the one book which has drawn more attention than any other, if you are searching for the truth."
The final witness to take the stand is God Himself. We come now to the testimony of God concerning the Scriptures, a testimony which is powerful indeed.
Philip Hughes, who was educated at the University of London, says, "If the Bible is in reality the inspired Word of God, it must be as such self-authenticating; it is in no need of human sanction. God Himself witnesses to the truth of the Bible. As its Author He also authenticates it to the heart and mind of every believer. It is by the operation of the Holy Spirit that we are brought to faith in Christ, and that saving faith is founded upon the good news proclaimed in the pages of the Bible, and nowhere else. It is by the internal witness of the Holy Spirit that we acknowledge and appropriate the Biblical message and are assured daily and constantly that `all Scripture is inspired of God.’"
The power of God working through the Scriptures in the life of all who believe them is the supreme proof of the inspiration and authority of Scripture. The Bible is a powerful book, because God is a powerful God. While we may defend the Bible and seek to offer proofs that authenticate the truthfulness and accuracy of the Bible, the Bible really needs no defense. Spurgeon, a London preacher of the past, compared our defending the Bible to defending a lion. He said, in essence, that the best way to defend a lion was to let it out! It will defend itself. That is precisely what we need to do to the Bible. The Bible is its own best defense.
We’re told in Hebrews 4:12, that "For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. (NIV)"
The Bible is alive. Its truth pierces through all of the facade, all of the plastic pretense of who we claim to be. It speaks powerfully to who we really are. If you don’t believe it, then read it. Its truth will powerfully grip you. Your inner spirit will agree with the words you read. And God, by His Spirit, will begin to open your eyes to see the truth.
There is no book like the Bible. It is a supernatural book with a supernatural origin. It has a mystical power about it. It is the power of God. As you read it, you will come to believe it, because you will experience its power.
Remember, finally, that the theme of the Bible is God’s redemption of man. So, the primary purpose of Scripture is to lead us to Jesus Christ, the One who died on the cross save us from our sin. Paul said to his disciple Timothy that the purpose of the Scripture was "to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." (2 Timothy 3:15 NASB) Indeed, that is the purpose for which the gospels were written. It says in John 20:30-31, "Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (NIV)" Jesus Christ is the focus of the Bible. You may not have all the answers, but if you will come to Jesus, He will lead you to the truth.
Jesus said, in Matthew 7:24-27, "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash. (NIV)"
If we are to stand before the onslaught of error in our day, we must have our intellectual house built on the rock of God’s Word. We must learn to think Biblically about all the issues of life. Only then will we be able to have a faith that works.
Copyright © 1999 J. David Hoke. This data file is the sole property of the copyright holder and may be copied only in its entirety for circulation freely without charge. All copies of this data file must contain the above copyright notice.
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