Reasons to Believe in the Bible
- if you ever want to make an elevator ride more interesting,
here's an idea
- turn around and casually ask your fellow elevator riders
what they think of the Bible
- and then hope you're in a tall building, because it
seems that everyone has an opinion on the Bible
- the range of opinions is just incredible
- some people believe it's a flat-out pack of lies
- and then other people call it the hope of the world
- I guess I would be interested in knowing what your
opinion is this morning
- what do you really think about the Bible?
- how seriously do you take it in your life?
- is it just nice to have around? Or do you read it and
obey its teaching?
- is it a guide in your life, a compass?
- how impressed are you by its wisdom?
- I'll bet there's a wide range of responses in this
church this morning
- no matter what you feel about the Bible, you have to
admit that it is unique
- that's not a subjective statement
- let the facts speak for themselves
- the Bible is unique in its COMPOSITION
- it was written over a 1,600 year time span by some
40 different authors from very different cultures and backgrounds
- it was written in three languages on three continents
- and yet it carries an unmistakable thread of continuity
within its pages
- it's unique in its composition
- the Bible is unique in its CIRCULATION
- it is without question the single most published book
in the world
- billions of copies have been printed and purchased
over the years
- tens of millions continue to be sold and circulated
year after year after year
- just show me another book that has stayed at the top
of the bestseller list for two or three hundred years
- most authors dream of writing a book that would top
the bestseller list for a week or two
- the Bible is unique in its TRANSLATIONS
- it is the most translated book in the world
- even though it's already been translated into over
1,200 languages, a literal army of full-time translators is working
today, making it available to more people groups
- and the Bible is unique in its DURABILITY
- it has survived bans and burnings
- it has survived ridicule and criticism
- countless kings and rulers have tried to eradicate
it
- but it lives on and its influence continues to spread
- it has outlived its cruelest opponents
- and the Bible is unique in the EFFECTS people claim
it has had on their lives
- people read books all the time
- most of the time when they finish a book, they stuff
it into the closet and begin reading another book
- but it's different with serious Bible readers
- they never seem to finish the book
- and when they do, they just begin reading it all over
again
- this morning millions of people are gathered at this
very hour to, among other things, read and study the Bible
- millions of people give testimony to the fact that
the information they've learned from the Bible transformed their lives
and altered their view of the world
- not many books seem to have that affect on people's
lives, wouldn't you agree?
- so you say, "Okay, I'll admit the Bible is unique,
but let's go on to some bigger questions"
-
- well, let's ask some hard questions about the Bible
- IS IT ACCURATE?
- more than a few people spout off about this issue,
don't they?
- you've heard them
- "Of course it's not accurate! It's riddled with
mistakes and contradictions"
- "It has nothing to do with historical fact"
- have you heard these things said about the Bible?
- if you have, you should know the truth
- the Bible passes the historicity test with flying
colors
- that's impressive, because the Bible makes hundreds
of references to historical events and places and people, so there's
plenty of opportunity for contradiction with the historical record
- but for the most part, there is remarkable agreement
between the historical record and the biblical account
- in the few cases where there are contradictions between
the historical records and biblical account, archeological records have
tended to prove that the biblical account is the more accurate account
- for example, the Old Testament makes frequent reference
to an enemy nation of the Israelites called the Hittites
- historians have never been able to come up with any
trace of evidence of the existence of the Hittite nation
- of course, they criticized the Bible for making reference
to this nation called the Hittites
- but in 1906, an archeological dig confirmed the existence
of the Hittite nation, and archeologists even unearthed their capital
city and 40 other cities that comprised their empire
- the Biblical account was the more accurate account
- in Daniel 5, the Bible references a man named Belshazzar,
the king of Babylon in that day
- the historical record has held that Nabonidus was the
king of Babylon at that time
- a clear-cut contradiction
- historians said, obviously the Bible is wrong
- it's an open and shut case
- we have proof that Nabonidus was the king
- but in 1956, archeologists unearthed 3 stones that
contained the inscribed information that solved the problem
- it seems that Nabonidus decided to lead his armies
out to battle at a faraway battlefield
- and so he installed his son as king in his absence
- and his son's name was Belshazzar
- once again, it was determined that the Biblical account
passed the test of historicity
- in fact, in the last 100 years, scores of archeological
finds solved what once seemed to be unexplainable contradictions between
the historical accounts and the biblical record
- the renowned Jewish archeological expert Nelson Glueck
once said, "It may be categorically stated that no archeological
discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference, not even once."
- incidentally, the Book of Mormon, when it is subject
to the test of historicity, fails horribly
- the Book of Mormon contains the story of a vast civilization
that supposedly existed in the Americas between approximately 600 BC
and 400 AD
- it records the name of tribes and cities and mountains
and rivers and coinages of that civilization
- and most Mormons believe that book lock, stock, and
barrel
- and yet not one single historian inside or outside
of the Mormon church has ever been able to produce a single piece of
artifact or evidence that would substantiate any of the claims of the
Book of Mormon
- the historical record cannot substantiate a single
city, river, tribe, or mountain mentioned in the book
- friends, this is devastating
- it suggests to many including myself that the whole
work may very well be a hoax
- thank God that the Bible has no trouble passing the
historicity test
- in the handful of remaining conflicts between history
and Scripture, the jury is still out
- one can fully expect, though, that the Bible's track
record of accuracy will still stand
- when all the evidence is finally in, when all the digs
are finally completed, the Bible will no doubt retain its historical
respectability
- now, beyond the historical accuracy, I've found that
most Bible critics have no idea how much manuscript evidence there is
backing up the Bible's credibility
- here's what I mean
- in university, the professor assigns Homer's Iliad
or Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars
- their writings have had an enormous impact on society
over the years
- they are some of the most famous books of ancient Greece
- nobody questions the content of their works - their
reliability or historicity
- nobody says that errors have crept into their manuscripts
in transmission over the centuries
- they are just basically accepted at face value as being
accurate representations of what the authors originally wrote
- but did you know that there are ten existing copies
of the ancient manuscripts of Caesar's Gallic Wars?
- less than ten to study and compare in order to determine
accuracy in transmission throughout the years
- with Homer's Iliad, there are only 643 copies
- now, take a guess how many copies of the New Testament
are still in existence, to be compared and studied for the purpose of
determining if they have been passed down accurately
- the New Testament, what do you think?
- wouldn't it be great if there were 1,000?
- or 2,000? That way we could say it's 3 to 1 more manuscript
evidence than Homer's Iliad
- friends, there are about 5,366 existing manuscripts
that help us study and make sure that the information in the New Testament
has come to us accurately over the years
- manuscripts that were hand-copied have been found in
Palestine, Syria and Egypt, and there is strong agreement among them
no matter where they're found
- you might have heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which
were found in a cave near the Dead Sea in 1947
- they contained two copies of the book of Isaiah from
the Old Testament that date back 1,000 years before the second oldest
manuscripts
- do you know what they found?
- the copies "proved to be word for word identical
with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text.
The 5 percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the
pen and variations in spelling"
- we can confidently say of the Old Testament that there
has been no substantial change in the text of the Old Testament in the
last 2,000 years, and very little change before that
- no wonder it is said that the Bible is the single
most documented piece of literature there is
- simply put, there is no equal with respect to manuscript
documentation
- for you trivia buffs, of the 184,590 words in the New
Testament, how many words have been put on the questionable list?
- words that are on the disputed list, which means there
is some question about the grammatical sense or their meaning or interpretation
- of 184,590 words, guess how many are on the disputed
list, that scholars are still working on?
- 400
- and none of the 400 make any difference on any major
teaching or doctrine
- but that is a fraction of one percent
- incredible accuracy in manuscript evidence!
- Norman Geisler writes, "We have 100 percent of
the New Testament and we are sure about 99.5 percent of it. But if we
did not have such good manuscript evidence, we could actually reconstruct
almost the entire New Testament from quotations in the church fathers
of the second and third centuries. Only eleven verses are missing"
from their writings
- even if all the copies of the New Testament had been
burned at the end of the third century, we could have known virtually
all of it by studying these writings
-
- OKAY, YOU SAY, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MIRACLES RECORDED
IN THE BIBLE?
- "I mean, whales, and floods, and walks on water,
and resurrections - how can I believe in this?"
- the only answer we can give here is to make sure that
we distinguish between God and the record of the activities of God,
the Bible
- last week we discussed reasons for believing in God
- we went through four arguments that build a strong
case for the existence of God
- by definition, we said that God would be non-contingent
and all-powerful and eternal and limitless
- not just capable of creating the world, but creating
of causing extraordinary things within the world
- fully capable of causing a flood or a famine or
doing a healing or resurrection
- for a limitless being, miracles are merely recreational
activity
- the Bible was assigned the task of recording the miraculous
activities of God
- just because it records them from time to time, doesn't
mean that they are fantasies or fabrications made up by writers
- besides, the miracles that the Bible records were almost
all done in public places, and were witnessed by multitudes of people,
Christian and non-Christian alike
- had they been fabrications thought up by the writers,
as soon as the writers circulated accounts of those miracles, there
would have been a public outcry that demanded an apology and retraction
- the New Testament documents were being circulated in
a short enough time after the events took place that if it wasn't accurate,
there would have been a huge outcry
- the New Testament documents spread like wildfire after
the birth of the early church, and no contest of the contents was launched,
despite the fact that the documents contained many references to supernatural
activity and miracles
- friends, the Bible is unique
- and it is accurate historically, from manuscript evidence
- but maybe one more question is the most important one
-
- IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED? IS IT THE BOOK THAT GOD WROTE?
- or is it a collection of religious stories that man
wrote?
- which is it?
- you should know that without apology, the Bible itself
claims to be inspired
- (2 Timothy 3:16) All Scripture is God-breathed and
is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
- (2 Peter 1:21) 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.
- over 3,000 times in the Bible, the writers used the
expression, "Thus says the Lord"
- so let there be no mistake as to what the Bible claims
- it boldly asserts that God guided the minds and hearts
of men to record through their various personalities and styles exactly
what he wanted to communicate in written form
- people ask, is there an substantiating evidence to
back up the Bible's claim to be inspired?
- yes, there is
- the first evidence would be fulfilled prophecy
- because the Bible was written over a 1,600 year period,
many of the earlier writers made bold predictions about what would happen
in following centuries
- you can build a strong case for the inspiration of
the Bible on this point alone
- the birth of Jesus Christ, for instance, was predicted
several hundred years before his arrival
- these prophecies were incredibly detailed, like saying
what lineage he would descend from, what city he would be born in, his
manner of birth, what his ministry would be like, how he would die
- how can anyone account for these prophecies being filled
to the letter several hundred years later apart from admitting that
God must have played a part in authoring the prophecies?
- let me cite another example
- in the fifth century BC, there was a strong, vital
city on the Mediterranean coast called the city of Tyre
- the Bible prophet Ezekiel made the bold assertion that
it would be utterly destroyed and that no city would ever be built on
that site again
- obviously, the people who heard that prophecy in that
day thought he was deluded
- it would be like me announcing this morning that Boston
is living on borrowed time
- but a few hundred years after the prophecy by Ezekiel,
the prophecy was fulfilled in amazing detail
- the city of Tyre was destroyed
- if you go to Israel today, you can go to the flat rocks
that once provided the foundation for that city
- how do you count for the fulfillment of that plus hundreds
of other fulfilled prophecies apart from the inspiration and authorship
of God?
- Jesus also stated repeatedly and categorically that
the Scriptures are the word of God
-
- CAN I SAY ONE MORE THING ABOUT THE ACCURACY OF THE
BIBLE?
- this is more subjective
- I have found the Bible to be penetratingly accurate
in what it says about me
- painfully, penetratingly accurate in what it says about
me
- it speaks truthfully about who I really am
- about what my human tendencies are, about what my nature
as a man is
- you'll never read a book that cuts through the veneer
as the Bible does, that gets to the root issues
- to be candid, I suspect that many people know just
enough about the Bible to have developed a vested interest in avoiding
it
- because they know that if they read it, it is going
to speak truthfully to them, and they'll have to change
- a woman named Joan Olsen was an agnostic, although
her parents were Christians
- they had many discussions about the Bible, until Joan
and her husband agreed to study Christianity
- listen to what they found:
- Dr. Olsen writes:
- I implied that our study would be honest and objective,
a sincere search for truth. But our agnostic bias made us begin
the search in a diabolically clever way. We would prove that the
Bible is not the Word of God…
- "First," I said [to Joan], "we will
review all the agnostic arguments we heard during university and
medical college years. Second, we will pick out and list the scientific
mistakes in the Bible. These mistakes will prove it to be the word
of men, not the Word of some infallible Creator"
- after an intense study, listen to the conclusions
of these agnostics:
- The Bible…represents God, motivated by an
eternal love, reaching down to tell us about Himself and His plan
for us…We also noted the remarkable unity and consistency evident
in the Christian Scriptures…
- Contrary to our previous understanding, we found
the Bible to be historically accurate. To the science of archeology
the Bible owes its vindication in the matter of historical accuracy…
- Then there is the remarkable scientific accuracy
of the Bible. Here was the exact target of the attack Joan and I
had launched to disprove Christianity and Christ…We encountered
great difficulty, however, in finding scientific mistakes in the
Bible. Again and again we were forced to cancel out seeming mistakes
because of more up-to-date evidence or information.
- after months of serious questioning, Dr. and Mrs. Olsen
concluded that the Bible is indeed God's message to mankind
- based on this belief, they both accepted Jesus Christ
as their Savior
- later, the journeyed to East Pakistan (now Bangladesh)
where they have served as missionaries since 1962
- (Isaiah 40:8) The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God stands forever."
- friends, the Bible is accurate, it is reliable, it
is the very Word of God
- I guess I would ask you the questions I began with
this morning:
- what do you really think about the Bible?
- how seriously do you take it in your life?
- is it just nice to have around? Or do you read it and
obey its teaching?
- is it a guide in your life, a compass?
adapted from a message by Bill Hybels
