Some people wonder about Christians? They say, “How could you believe that Bible? Everyone interprets it in their own way. It is filled with contradictions. It was written by fallible men.”
Every person has the right to believe whatever they want. But let’s look at some of the evidence that makes believing in the inspiration of the Bible a reasonable belief. First let's look at the text!
Is the Bible that we have, the actual Bible that was written?
The Old Testament has many manuscripts to attest to its accuracy and authenticity. The Hebrew Masoretic manuscripts, The Dead Sea scrolls, The Samaritan Pentateuch, the Targums, and the Talmud. These all offer checks and commentaries on one another. These sources testify to the authenticity of the original documents.
Every person has the right to believe whatever they want. But let’s look at some of the evidence that makes believing in the inspiration of the Bible a reasonable belief. First let's look at the text!
Is the Bible that we have, the actual Bible that was written?
The Old Testament has many manuscripts to attest to its accuracy and authenticity. The Hebrew Masoretic manuscripts, The Dead Sea scrolls, The Samaritan Pentateuch, the Targums, and the Talmud. These all offer checks and commentaries on one another. These sources testify to the authenticity of the original documents.
The Hebrew manuscripts were copied by one of the strictest sects, called the Masoretic scribes. Any imperfect copy was immediately destroyed! Because of the great reverence the Jewish scribes held towards the Scriptures, the entire process was specified in meticulous detail. The number of letters, words and lines were counted. As a result of this extreme care, the quality of the manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible surpasses all other ancient manuscripts.
The earliest Masoretic manuscript of the Old Testament is dated 890 AD. This is due to the systematic destruction of worn texts by the Masoretic scribes. However, The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1947, were dated from 200 BC, older than the most recently held manuscript by over 1000 years! In spite of this time span, the number of different readings between the scrolls and the Masoretic texts is quite small. And most of these have to do with spelling and style!
The quantity of New Testament manuscripts is unparalleled in ancient literature. There are over 5000 Greek manuscripts, about 8000 Latin manuscripts, and 1000 in other languages. In addition, there are tens of thousands of citations of New Testament passages by early church fathers. What is the typical number of existing manuscripts for any of the works of the Greek and Latin authors, like Plato, Aristotle, Caesar, Tacitus? FROM ONE TO TWENTY!!
Because of the many thousands of New Testament manuscripts, there are many different readings. Some of these differences creeped in because of visual errors in copying, auditory errors as they were read aloud, faulty writing, memory, judgment or even well meaning scribes who thought they were correcting the text. Sounds potentially grim right? Wrong! Only a small number of all these differences affect the sense of the passages, and only a FRACTION of these have any real consequences! Furthermore NO variant readings are significant enough to call into question ANY of the doctrines of the New Testament! The New Testament can be regarded as 99.5 per cent pure, and the correct readings of the .05 percent can often be discovered by scholars who compare the thousands of manuscripts against each other.
The John Rylands Fragment of the gospel of John is dated 117-138 AD, only a few decades after the gospel was written. The time span for most of the New Testament manuscripts is less than 200 years from the date of authorship, and some books are within 100 years!! Compare the New Testament to one of the “better” ancient manuscripts:
Caesar's writings. Date written: 60 BC. Earliest copy: 900 AD. Number of manuscripts: 10.
New Testament. Date written: 47-100AD, Earliest copy: 130 AD. Number of Manuscripts: 14, 000!
To a sufficient degree of scientific and scholarly review, the Bible we have is the Bible that was written. Obviously the Bible was written in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic and the English bible is a translation. That’s why studying the original languages is helpful in interpretation.
“Who decided what books were to be included?
Wasn’t that some arbitrary decision by a church council.” No in fact it was not. The Old Testament was settled in the minds of most Israelites , It was known as the Law, the Prophets and the Writings. The Apocrypha “hidden books” (accepted by the Catholics as Canon in AD1546!) was never accepted as a true part of the scriptures by Israel. Philo and Josephus, first century philosopher and historian did not recognize the Apocrypha as scripture. Neither did the Jewish scholars at Jamnia 90AD or Jesus himself. Many of the early church Fathers spoke out against it because they abound in historical inaccuracies, and contradict accepted Scripture,
The New Testament is made up of 27 different books that had been in circulation through the church in the first century. These books were written by the 12 Apostles and their associates. When the Synod of Hippo met in 390AD they simply recognized these books. By that time, many writings purporting to be scripture had been floating around. The criteria for inclusion were. 1) did it find general usage and acceptance in the churches? 2)Was the authorship apostolic? 3) Did it have the history of life changing truth and acceptance in the churches?We can be grateful for the careful scrutiny of the early church in this regard .
History
Because the Bible continually refers to historical events, it is verifiable. The Bible’s accuracy can be checked by external evidence. The historicity of Jesus Christ is well established by early Roman, Greek and Jewish sources, and these extra-biblical writings affirm the major details of the New Testament portrait of Christ. The first century Jewish historian, Josephus, made specific references to John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, and James in his Antiquities of the Jews.
Because the Bible makes abundant references to nations, kings, battles, cities, mountains, rivers, buildings, etc., many of its details are open to archaeological investigation. Archaeology has provided external confirmation of hundreds of biblical statements. Many critical attacks on the Bible have been silenced by archaeological evidence.
For example: Critics scoffed at Luke’s reference to Lysanius as the tetrarch of Abilene in AD14-29. But archaeologists have recently found two Greek inscriptions which prove that Lysanius was indeed the tetrarch of Abilene at that time.
Most professional archaeologists and historians acknowledge the historicity of the Bible. The evidence strongly supports the accuracy of the Bible in relation to history and culture, but in many cases it has been overlooked or rejected because of philosophical objections. Those who would discard the Bible as historically untrustworthy must realize that the same standard would force them to eliminate almost all ancient literature.
Fulfilled Prophecy
No other book in the world contains the kind of specific prophecies found all through the pages of the Bible. There is no comparison between, say Nostradamus, and the Old Testament Prophecies about Jesus Christ. Other so-called prophecies are so vague and cryptic that they could be ”fulfilled” in any number of ways. But the prophecies of the Old Testament are so detailed that their fulfillments were obvious and clear. There are some 300 Old Testament prophecies that were literally fulfilled in the life of Jesus Christ and these messianic predictions make no sense apart from His life. The odds of his fulfilling all these prophecies is astronomical. The most explicit and powerful of all messianic prophecies is Isaiah 52:13- 53:12 written seven centuries before the birth of Christ. This song of the suffering servant reveals that the Messiah would suffer sinlessly (53:4-6,9), silently (53:7), and as a substitute for the sins of others.(53::5-6) Messiah will be subject to scourging, pierced through, and placed in the grave of a rich man in his death. But after his death he will be lifted up and greatly exalted (52:1)
The Problem of Interpretation
“Okay but all these denominations and sects have their own way of interpreting the Bible. What makes you think yours is correct?”
While it is true that Christians disagree about many issues, there is far wider agreement over the cardinal doctrines than you might think. Most denominations share the foundational truths about Christ, God, man, sin, and salvation. When disagreement occurs, it is usually because of faulty methods of interpretation.
The most crucial of these principles of interpretation is context. Every passage should be interpreted in light of its immediate and broad context. We must remember that Scripture contains history, poetry, letters and narratives. Verses lifted out of context can be twisted to mean almost anything. Scripture is its own best interpreter. These rules are actually deceptively simple. Everything you read you interpret through context, language syntax and clear rules of interpretation. This holds for coupons to newspapers, to books. The Bible must be read the same way. With an honest attempt to understand the author’s original intent.
The problem of Science and Contradictions
The Bible does not say that the earth is the center of the universe. It does not say the earth is flat. Most of those that say that it contradicts science are those who never read it and usually fail to come up with any example of a contradiction. Any perceived contradictions are usually pretty easily explained.
The Uniqueness of the Bible
Indeed the Bible was written by men. But men who were inspired by God. The Bible claims for itself that it is divinely inspired. In referring to the Law and the Prophets, Jesus said “But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter of the Law to fail.” Luke 16:17
The 66 books of the Bible, were written over an 1800 year time span, by more that 40 authors, including kings, herdsmen, fishermen, the educated, and the uneducated. It was written in three languages on three continents. It includes history, poetry, letters, prophecies, wisdom literature.
In spite of this diversity and the controversial topics presented in the Bible, there is an amazing unity. The main theme being the redemption of a fallen creation back to God through Jesus Christ. Today, if you were to get 40 experts of similar background to write on a controversial topic, the result would be a crazy quilt of contradictions. This unity attests to the supernatural guidance of the writing.
I hope this has helped to dispel some misconceptions of the Bible. Only our own prejudice against it will keep us from searching out its pages for the truth. Be intellectually honest with yourself and seek understanding of this divine book that reveals the plan of God to redeem men unto himself through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
