You know, I come into the ULC Minister's site as often as time permits, not only to fellowship with my Brothers and Sisters here, but to read what all of you have to say. Where it be how your day went, or some interesting things you may have to say about your own faith or even the common faith many of us share. I come in here because I CARE and I am interested in you and your lives and what you have to say, does mean a great deal to me as an individual. The one thing I guess that bothers me (well I don't guess, it DOES bother me), are the attacks and contempt and down right hatred many have for the Lord I serve and His word that I feel is a love letter from my God.
Never once have I ever attacked another's faith in here or their rights to observe and practice that faith. Now yes, when wild and crazy claims have been made of some being reincarnations of great and famous people, I have gotten wide-eyed and wanted to look up a number for the nearest "good humor man in white jackets" for those individuals. If at anytime I may have hurt feelings in this matter, I apologize as some things are just too wild for even someone as open minded as I am, to believe.
I am going to attempt here to blog why I (an educated man), believe that The Bible is the true and ABSOLUTE Word of God, and that the message in The Bible is authentic.
For centuries, The Bible was absolutely regarded as the Word of God with very few doubts at all. But then came along a man by the name of Bruno Bauer. Bauer was an atheistic professor at the University of Bonn in Germany. Wikipedia describes him so: "Bruno Bauer (September 6, 1809 – April 13, 1882) was a German philosopher and historian. As a student of GWF Hegel, Bauer was a radical Rationalist in philosophy, politics and Biblical criticism. Bauer investigated the sources of the New Testament and, beginning with Hegel's Grecophile orientation, concluded that early Christianity owed more to ancient Greek philosophy (Stoicism) than to Judaism. Bruno Bauer is also known by his association and sharp break with Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, and by his later association with Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner. Starting in 1840, he began a series of works arguing that Jesus was a second-century fusion of Jewish, Greek, and Roman theology."
So in essence in the past 150 years or so, after Bauer's attacks on The Bible and Christianity as a whole, the what is now referred to as the "higher thinking-critical attacks" began on The Holy Scriptures. Bauer claimed that Jesus of Nazareth was not only, NOT the Son of God and not the Christ, but that He never existed to begin with. There was no Jesus in history according to Bauer. But since that time there have been other attacks on the Scriptures. They’ve undermined its credibility and claim there’s no correlation between Holy Scripture and the outside evidence from history or archaeology or even geography, but quite the opposite is the case.
I read a great deal and I have studied many avenues of personal interest to me, in my lifetime. I hold a Ph.D. in Astrophysics, and as a scientist, like a medical doctor and a trial lawyer, we are interested in ONLY the facts and trying to prove or disprove theory. I have studied Biblical history and Theology since I was a young lad and have a great knowledge and understanding of both and of the Bible Itself. I am interested in Archeology and have studied in great depth ancient cultures and the ancient world and findings on these subjects, especially anything that pertains to Biblical history. So as a scientist I look for only the facts and absolute proof of what I am working on at the time. So in this blog I am going to present my facts on the subject matter and leave you the reader to decide for yourselves (where you are a believer in God and the Bible or not).
There have been many great and important men and women in history that have offered their opinion(s) on The Bible. I will begin by quoting the more negative quotes, as to be fair and balanced in my blog. Let's see what these people of note had to say in history:
"Another century and there will not be a Bible on earth!"
Voltaire 1694-1778 French philosopher
"The Bible is such a book of lies and contradictions there is no knowing which part to believe…"
Thomas Paine 1737-1809 American revolutionary and author
"(The Bible is) a mass of fables and traditions, mere mythology."
Mark Twain 1835 – 1910 American author and humorist
"If it (the Bible) was written by God, it wouldn’t be so full of loopholes. It wouldn’t be so full of contradictions."
Christopher Hitchens 1949 - Author
For all sorts of motives and reasons, people often have very strong opinions about The Bible. Those of us who are Christians consider the words as coming from God Himself, written by man, inspired by the Holy Spirit. The people that I just quoted above, obviously have a very different opinion, and they are some of the most famous people in history. How do we know who is right? Is there a way we can find the truth? I want to give fair treatment to both sides on this issue in order to prove my point. It will be up to you the reader to decide if the case I make for The Bible holds water, or not. I am not attempting to ask anyone to change their faith at all, but to be open minded and read this blog with an open mind and heart and then decide if in fact what I have said is true or not.
While for many centuries, The Bible held a favored place as a cornerstone of Western civilization, today it seems The Bible is often assumed to be full of errors, false and irrelevant, until proven otherwise. In this blog I am simply going to apply the laws of scientific and legal evidence to determine a few basic questions: Is this book a reliable document or not? Is what we have today what the authors of the Bible wrote, or has it been corrupted over the centuries? And, can the contents of this book be trusted and believed?
Now in the legal system and in the scientific world, there is only one thing that counts: the facts, in order to determine what actually happened. There are many today that say, "Well, you have your truth and I have my truth." And that might work in a bar or on the golf course at the 19th hole, but not in the worlds of science, medicine or in a court of law that often deal with issues of life and death. In other words as one of my favorite Television characters on the old TV show Dragnet would say, "just the facts maam, just the facts." Ahhhh visions of Jack Web...
First of all allow me to tell you something about this book I am going to be blogging about here, and is at the exact center of this blog.
This book here as many of you call it, is the most popular book in the world. In fact, since its first printing in 1455 it has sold over 6 billion copies. Every year there are an estimated 100 million Bibles sold around the world and many more are given away. While the number of copies sold does not determine truth, what is it about this book that has stood the test of time?
One of the things that makes it so extraordinary is the fact that it has survived--even thrived-for thousands of years. At times it’s been revered. At other times it’s been searched out and burned. People have died simply for possessing it. What is the message in this book that has caused some to give their lives to defend it?
The Bible was written over a 1500 year period from approximately 1400 B.C. to 100 A.D., written by more than 40 writers. It was written in three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. The first translation of the Bible from its original language was the Septuagint, a Greek translation from the Hebrew Old Testament in the 3rd century B.C. In its present form, the Bible consists of 66 books: 39 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New.
It wasn’t until 1228 when Stephen Langton separated the Bible into chapters. In 1488, a rabbi, named Isaac Nathan, divided the Old Testament into verses. And Robert Stephanus did the same to the New Testament in 1551. The first English translation began in 1382 and was completed in 1384 by John Wycliffe and his associate, John Purvey. These translations were all done by hand and were smuggled throughout Europe. The first Bible printed on movable type was the Gutenberg Bible in 1455. It was a version of the Latin Vulgate.
Martin Luther first translated the New Testament from Greek into German in 1522. With the help of others, the complete German Bible was completed in 1534. Luther’s translation was influential in the first printed English translation of the New Testament by William Tyndale in 1525. Tyndale was later captured, strangled and burned at the stake.
The first legal English translation of the Bible was the Coverdale Bible. Completed in 1535, it was translated by Myles Coverdale, who relied heavily on the work of William Tyndale.
The first English translation of the Bible to be divided into chapter and verse was the Geneva Bible in 1560. This translation is also called the "Pilgrims’ Bible" because this was the Bible that the Pilgrims brought with them to America.
Fifty years later, the King James Bible, certainly the most sold translation of the Bible in the world, was published in 1611. Since then, thousands of translations have taken place across the world.
The collection of the 66 books that are found in the Bible were, of course, written and distributed before the invention of the printing press. The printing press assured that each and every copy would be correct and identical. All works of antiquity, prior to the printing press, must meet certain standards to be considered reliable.
The first test is the Bibliographical Test. It answers the question: Was the document written close to the time of the event, and how many copies are available for comparison? The second test is Internal Evidence Test. It answers the question: Did the writers have the means and opportunity to get the story right and are there obvious contradictions within the works? The third is the External Evidence Test. It answers the question: Is there evidence outside the documents that can validate the historical claims of the documents?
While there are 66 books in the Bible, I am going to begin my examination with just four: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the first four books of the New Testament and commonly called "the Gospels." Let’s see if these four books will measure up to the standards to be considered reliable.
Let's examine the reliability of the Gospels, the chronicle of the life of Christ from four different authors. We do this because we do not have the original of these books, but that’s the case with every work of antiquity.
The first test is the Bibliographical Test. The first question to be answered is how soon were the documents written after the events they recorded? Let's take a look at other documents of antiquity to see how this standard is applied. When we survey the authors from classical antiquity to secular authors, we find a vast difference between when they wrote their works and the oldest manuscripts we have today. For example, Plato, the great philosopher, died in 347 B.C., and yet, the first manuscripts we have are from the 10th century A.D., 1,200 years later.
Or, let’s take Herodotus, the father of history. He died in 425 B.C., and yet the oldest manuscripts of any of his works date from the 10th century, some 1,300 years later. There are only eight copies of his work available for comparison.
The writings of Julius Caesar and his great commentary on the Gallic Wars provide us with 10 manuscripts—only 10dated some thousand years after his death.
And, finally, the oldest manuscript of any of Aristotle’s works is dated 1,400 years after it was written. And there are only 49 copies of his work available for examination. And, so, we have a span of between a 1,000 and 1,400 years between when these works were written and the earliest available copies we have today. And yet, most scholars consider them very reliable.
Three of the Gospels were written within a few decades of the life of Christ. The time between the original document and the earliest existing copies is less than any other work of antiquity. And the number of manuscripts available for comparison? Today over 5,000, and that number continues to grow. There is no question that we have today, paradoxically, the further away we’re getting from the events of the first century and before, we’re getting a more and more accurate text. And even with the other texts that may not be quite as accurate, there is nothing ever discovered, in any of the other editions, which violates any basic doctrine in the Christian faith. There is no other group of ancient writings that even comes close to the bibliographical evidence for the trustworthiness of the New Testament.
The second test is the Internal Test. Did the writers have the opportunity to get the story right, and are there any obvious contradictions within their work? Were they eyewitnesses to the events they record or close associates of eyewitnesses who could easily confirm the events or not?
Let's discuss the "canon." "Canon" is just a word that comes from Greek. Canon is a measuring stick, eventually came to mean a rule, something you measure something with, and so, the canon is that which is authoritative, that which you use to measure or evaluate other things. So, with the Scriptures we evaluate other teaching, other writings, so it’s canonical, it’s authoritative, is what that term means for those who do not understand its meaning.
The question of canonicity, of course, occurs to the present day yet. How do we know what is God’s Word and what isn’t? There were several rules for determining what should be in the canon and what should not. One rule was, of course, the account had to be written by an eyewitness or a near-eyewitness. Luke, for example, was not one of the 12 apostles, but he was very close to them and had eyewitness reporting, of course, in his trips with St. Paul. So that would be an example of a near-eyewitness. Then we have, of course, the second rule and that is it must be coherent with the rest of Christian doctrine. It can’t be way off the deep end somewhere. It has to be integrated very well with the rest of Christian theology. And the third rule has got to be, what was used in church worship? In the Greek-speaking churches in the East and in the Latin-speaking churches in the West, they always decided what was being read, perhaps, on the Sunday after Easter, they all reported about doubting Thomas, and so that becomes then part of the canon and part of the pericopes as well, the readings for the Church Year.
So, the four Gospels pass that second test.
The third test has to do with external evidence. Is there evidence from other sources that can support the historical claims of the documents? Some scholars, at first, denied some historical events and places of the Bible until external evidence was found. Here is where my interest in Archeology comes into play.
It was quite common in history of Jesus research or historical Jesus research in the 19th and even into the 20th centuries, to question the biblical account of Jesus on the basis of historical and cultural data. So, for example, a common claim was that the resurrection story in the Gospels could not be true because that was not typical Jewish burial practice. That is to say, something like a crucified criminal, like Jesus, being given over to a family member or a friend for a rather elaborate burial would not have been possible. The claim was made, for example, that if a Jewish criminal would have been crucified, the Romans would have taken his body, thrown it into a mass grave, dogs would have scattered his bones. There’s no chance for resurrection.
Now, granted, they could make that claim because, for a long time there was no historical evidence of Roman crucifixions in Judea—no examples of burials of crucified people. Until, happily, in 1968, while building some apartment buildings just north of Jerusalem, some builders bulldozed open a hillside and found numerous graves. In one of these graves, they found what’s called an "ossuary," a bone box, in which bones are placed after burial. And these bones happened to be the bones of someone who was crucified by the Romans sometime between 10 and 60 A.D., so we’re at the right ballpark, roughly in his 20s from what they could determine.
And, strikingly, his foot actually had a seven-inch nail still stuck in it with a piece of olive wood stuck in the back. So, apparently, they couldn’t get his feet off the cross. They just hacked the cross off and threw the whole thing into the grave. His family came and buried it.
So, it’s strikingly like what is described in the Gospels. Someone condemned by the Romans, crucified, nails in his hands and his feet, given over to a family member or a close friend, and given a rather elaborate burial—exactly as you see depicted in the Gospels. So it’s no longer possible to claim that the Gospel narratives are complete fiction because we have examples of this sort of thing happening.
Now, I happened to dig up a 1971 Time Magazine article about this at the library when I was doing my research. The above mentioned dig was a couple of years before this evidence was published by Time Magazine and, of course, the Time Magazine article was, you know, "Could this have been Jesus?" kind of a thing, rather sensationalist. But it did point out that here’s the first time we have evidence of this type of burial, and it fits exactly with what we have in the Gospels. So, it doesn’t give us proof of the resurrection, but it certainly shows that the Bible’s not fable. It’s plausible the way it’s described the events.
Skeptics have pointed out that the oldest existing copies of the Old Testament date some 1,500 years after the original writing. They assumed that given the great amount of time between the original document and the oldest copy there must be hundreds, if not thousands of errors in the text of the Old Testament! Even some Bible scholars have claimed we can't even be sure Jesus of Nazareth existed.
One thing we need to keep in mind is for us (Christians), The Bible is an important Book, and Jesus is a Very important person. In the first century, Judea was a backwater Roman province. Nothing important happened there. They sent minor officials to govern it. It really had not much consequence to the Roman Empire. And no one really knew much of what was going on in Judea. They tried to just keep things quiet there. So, to have any evidence of any historical figure is quite striking. In fact, Pilate, it was only recently that we had external evidence of Pilate himself. And we now know that he actually existed and the dates of his rule and information such as this.
So, when there’s a claim that "well, we don’t have any evidence of Jesus." it’s actually kind of what we would expect. On the other hand, we do have rather significant textual evidence of references to Jesus pretty early on from non-Christian, non-Jewish sources. So, for example, two Roman historians, Suetonius and Tacitus, who are both writing in the early second century, based on their research, talk about Nero, Emperor Nero, in 64, persecuting the Christians. Now, Suetonius, it’s kind of a quick reference, but in Tacitus you have the long description that you’re probably familiar with of Christians being thrown to the lions, of burning Christians, of crucifixions of Christians-- that Nero wanted to pass off blame for the fire in Rome, the great fire, and so he blames the Christians.
So, you have within 30 years of Jesus’ death a reference to people who are followers of this Christ, and is pretty good evidence of some knowledge of this person.
The second piece of evidence is from Pliny the Younger, who is a governor in Bithynia, in Asia Minor after 110. And, we have preserved from him a number of letters about various topics. One of which mentions the problem of the Christians. He saw it as a problem. So, these Christians would gather together and they’d worship what he called, "Christ," and even references they worshiped Christ as "a God." So you have evidence in the early second century they’re worshiping this Christ as a divine being and they’re doing all the things we would expect early Christians to do. They’re teaching; they’re talking about the Ten Commandments; they’re having a meal; they’re celebrating the Lord’s Supper. So, granted, this is 50 years later, but it is a further reference to Christians outside the New Testament.
If the Gospels are deemed unreliable based upon this External Evidence Test, then our entire knowledge of the ancient world, such as Plato, Aristotle, Caesar will crumble because no source compares to the best-attested works of antiquity: the Gospels.
Dr. Randall Price is a world-renowned archaeologist, author and college professor. Since 2002 he has served as the director of excavations at the Qumran site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947. The Dead Sea Scrolls refer to a large collection of biblical and other texts from around the time of Christ.
I quote Dr. Price from a paper he wrote just last year in 2010. ---"Whether we talk about the autographs, which are the original versions of the Bible, or the apographs, those copies made from it, we are talking about books that were scrolls, originally written on the type of materials that were available in the ancient world. These would have been leather, a type of material that would have been made from the skins of animals or parchment, which is prepared leather, and then would have been written with ink made from soot that’s mixed with vegetable gum.
Now, when we look at the book of Jeremiah, chapter 36, there it describes the process of writing. And it says that Baruch, who was Jeremiah’s scribe, wrote on a type of material that was then cut up by King Jehoiakim and thrown into the fire. So it had to be something easily cut and then was burned. We believe that the material that was used more frequently was something called "papyrus," made of a plant matter originally from Egypt, but then also available in Israel itself. And this would have been extremely delicate, wouldn’t have been preserved well, but would have been easy to write upon and probably the most common thing used for the composition of biblical books.
Job is an interesting book, likely the oldest book in the Bible, written about 1500 B.C. The last book of the Old Testament to be written was likely the book of Malachi which was the written somewhere around 400 B.C. During those 1,100 years, these documents had to be copied over and over to preserve the content. Just how was that copying done to insure accuracy?
Skeptics have pointed out that the oldest existing copies of the Old Testament date some 1,500 years after the original writing. They assumed that given the great amount of time between the original document and the oldest copy there must be hundreds, if not thousands, of errors in the text of the Old Testament! We don’t know the exact process used during the Old Testament period for preserving the Scriptures. However, it is important to understand that the copying methods used in reproducing the Bible were astounding in their accuracy.
The Hebrew word for scribe is "sofer." Its root meaning is "to count." And what did they count? We know that around the seventh century a group of scribes called the "Masoretes" had to copy the original page with such exactness that the number of words on a page could not be changed. If the original page had 288 words, for instance, then the page being copied had to have the same 288 words. Each line on a new page had to be the exact same as the line on the old page. If the first line on the original page had nine words, the first line on the copy page had to have nine words.
After a page was copied, the number of letters on that page was counted and compared with the original, and then another scribe would check to see what the middle letter was on the copy and the original. The scribes were not allowed to copy sentence for sentence or even word for word. They had to copy letter for letter. After a page was copied and checked by another, still a third person would check to see what the middle word was on the page. Then, when the whole book was finished, another would count the phrases."---
When I was in Jerusalem, I visited the Israel Museum and saw and examined with my own eyes an original, on sheepskin, biblical Dead Sea Scroll fragment. That is from the book of Daniel and dates to 125 B.C. And just how accurate were they in copying the Old Testament books? Up until about 65 years ago, the oldest manuscripts of the Old Testament came from around 1000 A.D. These were called the "Masoretic text." They were the product of a group of Jewish scholars known as the "Masoretes." They took on the responsibility to insure that the books of the Old Testament were preserved for future generations. But how accurate was the Masoretic text? Many scholars suspected many errors had occurred in the copying process. Many people believed them until one day in 1947, a boy threw a rock into a cave.
Again, quoting from Dr. Price: --"That rock struck pottery--about 37 jars, from the testimony of that particular Bedouin shepherd. And in those jars were scrolls, scrolls made of parchment. On the scrolls were written copies of the Bible. Every book of the Old Testament, except for the book of Esther, was represented among those scrolls. And then also other documents, sectarian documents, but many of these were commentaries on the Bible, so included biblical text as well. What is interesting is that from one of those caves, and there were 11 caves numbered in the order of discovery, from cave one came copies of the book of Isaiah. In fact, a complete copy of Isaiah, the longest book in the Old Testament, 66 chapters, the best to compare, perhaps, with the Masoretic text to determine how well the text had been transmitted. And in that text we realized that 95 percent of that text aligned with, or agreed with, the Masoretic text written over 1,000 years later. So we saw in that text the accuracy of transmission by those Hebrew scribes over that long period of time.
The Dead Sea Scrolls have been called "the most important biblical, archaeological find in history." While they are called scrolls, what they mostly consist of is 19,000 fragments. Putting them back together would require some of the most sophisticated science available.
Now, remember, as we’ve taught already, the Dead Sea Scrolls weren’t really scrolls. That’s a misnomer because very few complete scrolls were actually found. The great discovery came in over 19,000 pieces that have taken literally 60 years to put back together again into the 800 or so scrolls that we know today.
Now to help understand a little bit about the science and academia of this particular project, here in my hand is a fragment of a Torah scroll from the book of Leviticus, which I am printing to this paper. And as you can see, two columns as I mentioning before, stitched together. And if we were to be on the reconstruction process, and this is just 350 years old, sheepskin, as well, as we were putting the scrolls back together again in Jerusalem, what we would have to do is find where that particular piece went in the text. What a puzzle!
And then we would literally put it back together again on where it was supposed to go. There were numerous copies of the exact same scroll, for instance, 36 copies of Psalms. So how were we able to put the scrolls back together again?
Three unique techniques, the choices there: handwriting style, very unique handwriting styles for some of the scribes. And because of infrared technology we were able to line the piece up where it was supposed to go.
We used infrared and DNA testing on the scrolls as well. But how, because of the duplicate copies, were we able to make sure that piece went into the right spot? Well, remember just like humans, animals have unique DNA. Therefore, all we had to do to make sure the right piece went into the right spot, we would then DNA test pieces to the north, west, east and south, and if they all matched the same DNA, we knew we put the scrolls back together again.
Literally, what’s taken over 60 years to perfect and to publish accurate data out of Jerusalem, literally has taken that long for only one reason: making sure that we put the project back together again accurately. But this is just a wonderful little piece and, again, a perfect representation of what the Dead Sea Scrolls truly were: 19,000 pieces put back together again into over 800 unique scrolls. Archaeology is actually a very young discipline. It’s only 125 years old and yet, spectacular discoveries are being made."--
I have seen many accusations and statements here in the ULC made by skeptics that the Bible cannot be trusted because there are references to events, cities, nations and individuals that are not found anywhere else except in the Bible. The conclusion has been that the absence of outside corroboration must mean the Bible is in error.
If that is the case, it doesn't matter if the scribes made perfect copies or not. But what if the evidence is yet to be discovered? That is what archaeology is all about—discovering evidence of what happened in the past. Archaeology reveals the material culture of the ancient past, which enables us to then reconstruct the events of history and compare them with the biblical text to see how accurate it might be.
According to Dr. Price, --"We have excavated, in the case of Israel, probably less than one percent of all the tels, or archaeological mounds that are available. And yet, that one percent is quite interesting because it has, time and time again, proven that the Bible is a trustworthy, reliable document. It helps us confirm the facts of history. It helps us complement the witness of the Bible in regards to history. It helps us clarify the world of the Bible, which these event took place. And, so, archaeology is, in a sense, a handmaiden to history to help us understand the trustworthiness of the text.
In the Bible, King David, an ancestor of Jesus Christ, is mentioned over 1,000 times. Outside of biblical or Jewish writings, there was no historical evidence that David ever existed. That was the case until a significant archaeological find at Tel Dan, Israel. In 1993, Avraham Biran, Israeli archaeologist, discovered in Tel Dan, a site in today’s Golan Heights, a monumental dedicatory inscription, which was written on basalt stone. The two pieces that were fragmentary that were found had an inscription written by the Arameans, one of the enemies of Israel. These people came from Damascus and King Hazael was the leader of these people. It describes a war between Israel and this Aramean group in which the Arameans, apparently, were victorious. And, as they referred to the conquered enemy, they refer to the King of Israel of the "House of David."
Now, remarkably, this is the first instance in an archaeological inscription in which the name "David" appears. And, because it’s written by an enemy of Israel, not by an Israeli themselves, therefore we can’t accuse an Israeli of propagandizing this name or this myth of history, it actually was an historical person. Because, also, it was written 150 years after the event and it mentions the House of David, that is, the lineage of David. If there was a House of David, there had to be a David to have a house. And so, we have clearly- an historical text referring to King David."--
Archaeology is actually a very young discipline. It’s only 125 years old, and yet, spectacular discoveries are being made. For example, who was the judge on Good Friday who condemned Jesus? Pontius Pilate. Well, some of the critics were doubting that he ever lived, until in 1962 an Italian archaeological expedition found a two-by-three foot stone with a two-inch Latin inscription on it: "To the people of Caesarea, Pontius Pilate, the Prefect of Judea, has presented the Tiberieum," a building in honor of the Emperor Tiberius.
So, this is the hard evidence from the ancient world, the "smoking gun," if you please, from the ancient world that, yes, there was a Pontius Pilate. And then, who’s on the other side of the bar on Good Friday?
The chief prosecutor: who was the chief priest among the Jews. His name was Joseph Caiaphas.
Well my friends, in November of 1990, they announced the discovery of the Caiaphas ossuary. That’s a stone chest in which to bury bones. And they’re running out of space and so, therefore, they wanted a more compact way of dealing with the dead and his name is inscribed on the other side of a beautifully ornamented limestone bone box, "Joseph Caiaphas." And so, there we have absolutely, both the judge and the chief prosecutor on Good Friday showing up in stone.
So what do we have? Archaeological discoveries continually affirm the historical accuracy of the Bible. In fact, it is said that archaeology is the best friend Christianity ever had. The evidence is overwhelming. The Bibliographical, Internal, and External Tests confirm the text of the Bible: both Old and New is reliable. It has stood the test of time. The Bible stands alone as the best-attested ancient document, bar none. Now, if this text is reliable, what about the message?
I think a lot of people assume that faith is the great thing whereby the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it. But, in my case, I think, faith is really more appropriate if it’s based on fact. You know even as a child, I always thought that if these spectacular events, as reported in the Scripture really happened, well, then we ought to be able to find some fallout in the evidence, maybe in terms of the geographical place names, or the hard evidence of Archaeology or the references in history. We find all three in the case of the Christian faith. We find all three when it comes to affirming the Bible.
In the beginning of this blog I asked you to keep an open mind and read for yourself the evidence I was going to present in The Bible's defense in both a scientific and legal manner of looking at the facts. I asked you to approach the question of the reliability of the Bible with an open mind and to render your conclusions to my research on the basis of the evidence presented. I have said that it seems that some people, in confirming the reliability of the text of the Bible, hold it to a higher standard than other ancient documents. Actually, that makes some sense.
Plato offers us philosophical ideas. Something written by a Caesar gives us historical information. An ancient Greek play may be amusing and enlightening. But the Bible claims to speak for God. It should be held to the highest standard.
That leaves one more issue. It’s one thing to agree that the text is reliable. It is quite another to say that it is true. If these documents have come to us through the centuries intact, that leaves one to wrestle with the significance of what is written in them. Is it God speaking in the Bible? If so, what is He saying? The focus of the Bible is on a central character and a central event in that person's life. Namely, the central person is Jesus Christ, and the central event is His death and resurrection from the dead.
The apostle Paul puts it this way, Paul, who is the author of more writings in the New Testament than anyone else, says specifically that, "If Christ has not been raised, then your faith is in vain …" that we have no hope. --that even Paul is found to be a false witness if Christ has not been raised.
And, if that’s the case, then he continues later on, if there is not resurrection of the dead then, "let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." That we have no hope, if Jesus has not, in history, on a specific day, risen from the dead. That’s our hope.
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the Gospels, are the four sources of evidence that contain the majority of the historical information about the life of Jesus Christ. Can a person determine what is said about Him and what He said about Himself? According to the Internal Test I mentioned earlier, these men were eyewitnesses or close associates of the eyewitnesses.
The Gospels not only report Jesus’ teachings and His miracles and His works, but they also report that He claimed to be the Son of God, and that He was the Messianic figure pointed to repeatedly in the Old Testament. Now, it’s one thing, indeed, to make a claim like that, but another of His claims was that He would die and rise again. So it’s one thing to make the claim, it’s another to see it happen. That's what we have with the four Gospels: documented evidence from eyewitnesses. Christianity is the only religion that makes the historical fact of one event the center of its entire message. As I stated earlier what St. Paul said, "If Christ be not resurrected ... your faith is useless."
But how many witnesses were there, really? We don’t know how many Roman soldiers and spectators were present when He died. The Bible records that His detractors went to Pontius Pilate and said, "Sir, we remember that when He was still alive that deceiver said, 'After three days I am to rise again.' Therefore, give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day." So there is evidence that He was certainly dead. There is evidence that Roman guards saw him buried and were placed as guards at this tomb. After the resurrection they went and reported what they saw.
Some base their trust in the Bible completely on blind faith, apart from any evidence and considerations. This is unnecessary and, in fact, sells the Bible short. Faith in the Bible is rooted and grounded in historic events and places, many of which we are able to point to today.
One of the arguments concerning the resurrection of Christ goes something like this: "Since none of us were there, no one can really say what happened 2,000 years ago." Was George Washington the first president of the United States? Of course he was. Did you see him sworn into office? Of course not. Would it be logical for you to say, "Since I didn’t see George Washington sworn into office, there is no way I can be sure that he was the first president?" Again, of course not. We know that he was the first president because of the historical documentation of witnesses who were around when he was president and there are no documented claims that deny that fact.
Christians believe that The Bible is the record of everything that God has done in order to win humanity back to Himself. Now, we know there’s a lot of evil in the world. How did it come if God is so gracious and so good? Don’t blame God for it. It’s humanity that’s responsible. And so, in order to repair that creation, which God could have turned away from if He wished, He sent Jesus Christ, Himself, His own Son, to suffer and die for our sins so that, by that act of obedience and by His triumphant resurrection, life is restored. The breach with God is healed. And that is the great, Good News that the Christians call the Gospel. And that’s the reason that Christians are so excited about it.
IMHO the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most important event in the history of mankind. And your conclusions about the Bible may or may not have changed. I am not asking you to change, but to reconsider the falacies and down right incorrect lies many have presented on these boards to attack and lend to even contempt and hatered for God and The Bible. I have no idea why so many hate and despise God, maybe He didnt give you a pretty red toy fire truck as a kid, I have no idea. But I am asking you the reader to consider these words above and to at least stop with the hateful comments about my Lord that I love and adore and serve with all of my heart and soul. Show Christians this consideration and I can assure you, I for one will not attack the being, faith and belief you worship or even those that choose not to worship.
"I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God … I study the Bible daily."
Isaac Newton
"That book (the Bible) is the rock on which our Republic rests."
Andrew Jackson
"(The Bible is) the greatest benefit the human race has ever experienced."
Immanuel Kant
"In the highest sense the Bible is to us the unique repository of eternal spiritual truths."
Dwight Eisenhower
God Bless You One and All!!!
