The Bible: Fact or Fiction
I. Why This Subject?
a. 26% believe all religions are the same.
b. 50% believe a life of good works merits heaven.
c. 35% do no believe in Jesus’ physical resurrection.
d. 52% do not believe in the Holy Spirit as a living person.
e. 45% do not believe Satan exists.
f. 33% accept same sex unions.
“It cannot be stated too strongly that Christianity is an historical religion, and that it is so intimately tied to history that if the historical credibility of its sources were to be proven false, it would at once collapse as a possible claimant for our loyalty.”[5]
II. The Doctrine of Scripture, Simply Stated[6]
A. Revelation: God discloses Himself to men through both general and special revelation.
1. General Revelation: God reveals Himself to the whole of humanity through the works of creation, and through the individual’s moral conscience. (Genesis 8:20-22; Psalm 19:1-6; Acts 14:14-17; Acts 17:22-29; Romans 1:19-21; Romans 2:14-15)
2. Special Revelation: God reveals His mind and will in a unique and special way to His own people through His mighty acts in history and the interpretation of those acts through the Scriptures.
B. Inspiration: The Holy Spirit acted upon the writers of Scripture in such a way that the words they penned were not only the words of men, but also the word of God. Scripture then is an accurate record of God’s person, God’s acts, and God’s will. (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:19-21; 2 Peter 3:14-16; 1 John 4:6; Revelation 22:18-19)
C. Canon: The canonical extent of the inspired Scriptures are the thirty nine books of the Old Testament, and the twenty seven books of the New Testament. These Scriptures contain the whole counsel of God and are authoritative for all doctrine, faith and lifestyle. This foundation of faith, doctrine and practice is established so that those who hold such tenets are charged to preserve them and not add or subtract from them. (2 Timothy 3:16; Jude 3)
D. Inerrancy: The Holy Spirit supernaturally acted upon the writers of Scripture rendering them the infallible communicators of God’s mind and will. Therefore, the Bible is fully true in all of its teachings and affirmations. (2 Timothy 3:16)
III. Core Beliefs about the Bible
“There is an infinite, all-wise, all powerful, all-loving God who has revealed Himself by means natural and supernatural in creation, in the nature of man, in the history of Israel and the church, in the pages of Holy Scripture, in the incarnation of God in Christ, and in the heart of the believer by the gospel.’’[7]
a. “All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3:16-17
b. “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 by the Holy Spirit.” 2 Peter 1:20-21
“The Bible is fully true in all it teaches and affirms. This extends to the areas of both history and science. It does not hold that the Bible has a primary purpose to present exact information concerning history and science. Therefore the use of popular expressions, approximations, and phenomenal language is acknowledged and is believed to fulfill the requirement of truthfulness. Apparent discrepancies, therefore, can and must be harmonized.”[8]
“The Bible is inerrant only in its salvific doctrinal teachings. The Bible was not intended to teach science or history, nor did God reveal matters of history or science to the writers. In these areas the Bible reflects the understanding of its culture and may therefore contain errors.”[9]
Problem: If we cannot trust the Scriptures for things visible and measurable, how can we trust the Scriptures for those things that are invisible?
Scriptures says = God says
Therefore the Scriptures cannot err
Jesus’ attitude determines our attitude
Therefore we should trust Scripture absolutely
The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, being given by divine inspiration, are the Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.
The Bible evidences itself to be God’s Word by the heavenliness of its doctrine, the unity of its parts, and its power to convert sinners and to edify saints. But only the Spirit of God can make us willing to agree and submit to the Bible as the Word of God.
All men are not only permitted, but commanded and exhorted, to read, hear, and understand the Scriptures.
The Scriptures mainly teach what man is to believe about God and what duty God requires of man.
Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter I, Article V
“We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the church to a high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture. And the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is, to give glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God: yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.”
IV. The Canon: What is the Bible?
a. Wayne Grudem: The canon of Scripture is the list of all the books that belong in the Bible.[12]
b. New Testament canon: The writings relating to Jesus Christ accepted by the Christian church as the authoritative source for faith. Protestants and Roman Catholics recognize 27 New Testament books as Holy Scripture.[13]
c. Old Testament canon: The writings prior to the birth of Jesus Christ accepted by the Christian church as authoritative source of God’s revelation as Scripture. Protestant churches recognize 39 books, and the Roman Catholics recognize 46 Old Testament books as Holy Scripture. The Jewish canon includes 24 books, but these appear as 39 books in modern translations.[14]
a. Roman Catholics believe that the church decided the canon, and so the church possesses authority equal to the Scriptures. This means that Roman Catholics hold Scripture + tradition= authority.[15]
b. Protestants believe that the Scriptures alone have authority, and that the church simply ratified what was already received and recognized as the Word of God. For Protestants, the church is submitted and not equal to the Scriptures.
a. “Is it authoritative—did it come from the hand of God? Does this book come with a divine ‘thus says the Lord?.’”
b. “Is it prophetic—was it written by a man of God?”
c. “Is it authentic? The fathers had the policy of ‘if in doubt throw it out.’”
d. “Is it dynamic—did it come with the life transforming power of God?”
e. “Was it received, collected, read and used—was it accepted by the people of God? [For example] Peter acknowledged Paul’s work as Scripture parallel to the Old Testament Scripture (2 Peter 3:16).”
1. The Hebrew Bible is organized in a three fold division of 24 books described by Jesus as the Law, Prophets and Psalms.[17]
a. Law/Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy
b. Prophets: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Minor Prophets (one book)
c. Writings: Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra/Nehemiah, Chronicles (the last book in the Hebrew Bible)
2. Our English translations of the Old Testament follow the division of the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, or LXX.
3. The Apocrypha are a collection of books included in the Septuagint and Roman Catholic Bible, but excluded from the Hebrew and Protestant Bibles.
4. We use the Apocrypha for historical and background information, but we reject it as God’s work because the books “(1) do not claim for themselves the same kind of authority as the Old Testament writings; (2) they were not regarded as God’s words by the Jewish people from whom they originated; (3) they were not considered to be Scripture by Jesus or the New Testament authors; (4) they contain teachings inconsistent with the rest of the Bible.”[18]
5. The Old Testament contains 1,904 references to “The Lord says,” “Thus says the Lord,” or “Hear the word of the Lord.” Clearly the authors thought they were recording God’s words.
6. The history of Israel was determined by the way the lived in light of the law. See especially Deuteronomy 28-30.
7. The Old Testament canon was solidified concurrently with three crisis events[19]: (1) following the Exodus under the leadership of Moses; (2) restoration after Babylon under the leadership of Ezra; and (3) after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD when the Jews had to completely rebuild under the leadership of Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai.
8. Defending Jewish beliefs, late in the first century, scholar/historian Josephus, articulated the extent of the acceptable canon.
“For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another [as the Greeks have], but only 22 books, which contain records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. The interval of time was little short of three thousand years; but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes , king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life. It is true our history has been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but has not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there has not been an exact succession of prophets since that time; and how firmly we have given credit to those books of our own nation, is evident by what we do; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add anything to them, to take anything from them, or to make any change in them; but it becomes natural to all Jews, immediately and from their very birth, to esteem those books to contain divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and if occasion be, willingly to die for them.”[20]
9. The oldest manuscripts of our current Masoretic Hebrew Text come from circa A.D. 800.
10. The Dead Sea Scrolls
In 1947 a Bedouin shepherd found several large jars in a cave near the Dead Sea. Inside the jars were rolls of leather and papyrus wrapped in cloths. Sold to an antique dealer for a small fee, they finally ended up in the Monastery of St. Mark in Old Jerusalem. Identifying the scrolls as ancient texts, researchers discovered more scrolls in other caves. The scrolls had been left there by a Jewish sect, the Essenes, who lived communally at Qumran by the Dead Sea, 140BC-60AD. Portions of every Old Testament book except Esther were found. The caves contained nothing from the Apocrypha. These texts, though written 8 centuries before the Masoretic Text proved to be more than 95% identical. No major doctrine or point of history contradicted.
What care the Jews took to preserve their Scriptures.
11. Jesus regarded the Old Testament as the Word of God. In fact his life was saturated with Old Testament scriptures and ideas.
a. Jesus regarded Old Testament history as true: Abel, Noah, Abraham, circumcision, Sodom and Gomorrah, Isaac and Jacob, manna, the wilderness serpent, David eating the temple showbread, David as psalm writer, Solomon, Elijah, Elisha, Zechariah, Moses as giver of the law, Jonah, the sufferings of the prophets, the popularity of false prophets as well as Genesis 1 and 2.[21] Note that some of the most controversial history, Jesus accepted as true.
b. Jesus faced the temptation by saying three times, “It stands written.”[22]
c. Jesus frequently referred to the Ten Commandments as the rule of ethics.[23]
d. Jesus used the law as springboard for his teaching as in the Sermon on the Mount and the Greatest Commandment.[24]
e. On the cross, at his hour of ultimate crisis, Jesus quoted Psalm 22:1, “My God, My God. Why have you forsaken me?”[25]
f. Jesus saw Himself as the fulfillment of the Law and Prophets (Matthew 5:17).
g. Jesus fulfills of the Old Testament ceremonial system of Temple, priesthood and sacrifice.
h. After the resurrection, on the road to Emmaus, he rebuked the two disciples for not believing the prophets, and then explained what the Scriptures said about himself (Luke 24:25-27).
i. Jesus believed the Old Testament was God’s word—so should we!
j. John Wenham writes:
“To Christ the Old Testament was true, authoritative, inspired.To him the God of the Old Testament was the living God, and the teaching of the Old Testament was the teaching of the living God. To him what Scripture said, God said.”[26]
a. Matthew the tax collector
b. Mark, the interpreter of Peter
c. Luke, not an eyewitness, but a careful researcher
d. John, “Jesus did many other things in the presence of his disciples…” (John 20:30); “This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true” (John 21:24); “That which was from the beginning, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; and we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you may have fellowship with us” (1 John 1:1-3).
e. Peter, “To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ’s sufferings,” (1 Peter 5:1); before the Sanhedrin, describing Jesus life and work, “We are witnesses of these things and so is the Holy Spirit…” (Acts 5:32)
f. In choosing a replacement for Judas as one of the twelve, the requirement was “to choose one of the men who been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of the resurrection,” (Acts 1:21-22).
a. He regarded his writings as authoritative. To reject or alter the gospel he proclaimed was to receive God’s curse (Galatians 1:6-9). His instructions came from the authority of Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 4:1-2). He expected the church to follow his instructions whether they were verbal or written (2 Thessalonians 2:15). Paul expected that his commands about idleness would be followed (2 Thessalonians 3:14-15). His written commands were the commandments of the Lord (1 Corinthians 14:37). Paul regarded himself as true apostle versus competing false apostles (2 Corinthians 11:13).
b. Peter regarded Paul’s writings as Scripture along with the other Scriptures (2 Peter 3:16).
a. Peter regarded the apostle’s writings as equal to the Old Testament prophets (2 Peter 3:1-2).
b. John said that those who did not listen to him were not from God (1 John 4:6).
c. John considered his writing in Revelation as “word of prophecy” that could not be altered (Revelation 22:18-19).
a. Apostolic: written by an apostle, or someone close to an apostle.
b. Orthodox: consistent with the rest of scripture
c. Universal: accepted by the whole church instead of an isolated geographic location
“There was the objective fact of the divinely-given teaching of Christ and the apostles which was committed to writing in the apostolic age, much of it with direct apostolic authority, almost all of it with direct apostolic approval. There was the subjective fact of the establishment of a large section of these writings in the life of the church. Our Lord had laid down the principle that his sheep would recognize his voice (Jn. 10:3-16). These writings were not at once consciously received as Scripture. But the New Covenant from the very first meant more to believers than the Old Covenant and in these books from the apostolic circle believers recognized the voice of the Good Shepherd. They were read in assembly alongside the Old Testament Scriptures, and in a very short time, with no authoritative imposition or theological deduction, they formed a de facto New Testament. It simply required the impact of heresy to evoke the explicit statement of what was implicit in the irrevocably established practice of the church. By this process the bulk of the New Testament found unquestioned recognition in the whole church. The remaining books had to run the gauntlet of severe critical scrutiny. Their apostolicity was tested by the strength of the historical tradition that supported them and by the evidence of their reception as Scripture as the people of God. By this process the church came to a remarkable, though not absolutely complete, unanimity on the subject round about the fifth century, and unanimity has remained sufficiently complete to the present day to make any revision of the Canon appear most improbable.”[29]
V. What Evidence is there that the Bible is Reliable?
“He [God] so regulates the knowledge of Himself that He has given signs of Himself, visible to those who seek Him, and not [visible] to those who seek Him not. There is enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition.” Blaise Pascal[30]
a. In 1778 Voltaire boasted that the Bible would be extinct in one hundred years. Fifty years after his death, the Geneva Bible Society used his house and printing press to produce stacks of Bibles.[32]
b. Bernard Ramm[33]
“A thousand times over, the death knell of the Bible has been sounded, the funeral procession formed, the inscription cut on the tombstone, and the committal read. But somehow the corpse never stays put. No other book has been so chopped, sliced, sifted, scrutinized and vilified. What book on philosophy or religion or psychology or belles letters of classical or modern times has been subject to such mass attack as the Bible? with such venom and skepticism? with such thoroughness and erudition? upon every chapter, line and tenet? The Bible is still loved by millions and studied by millions.”
c. H.L. Hastings [34]
“Infidels for 1800 years have been refuting and overthrowing this book, and yet it stands today as solid as a rock. Its circulation increases, and it is more love and cherished and read today than ever before. Infidels, with all their assaults, make about as much impression on this book as a man with a tack hammer would on the Pyramids of Egypt. When the French monarch proposed the persecution of Christians in his dominion, an old statesman and warrior said to him, ‘Sire, the Church of God is an anvil that has worn out many hammers.’ So the hammers of the infidels have been pecking away at this book for ages, but the hammers have worn out, and the anvil still endures. If this book had not been the book of God, men would have destroyed it long ago. Emperors and popes, kings and priests, princes and rulers have all tried their hand at it; they die and the book still lives.”
d. When I crossed the Romanian boarder in 1988, the guards questioned my traveling companion and me about “guns, drugs and Bibles.” By 1990, Ceausescu’s totalitarian, Christian-hating government was overthrown. Now Bibles flow freely into Romania, and God’s people live there without fear.
Is there any family from the Old Testament that you would like to be a part of?
D. Biographical Test of the New Testament manuscripts (hand written copies or portions of the NT)
Uncials (capital letters)—276
Minuscules (lowercase)—2,764
Lectionaries (quotes in other writings)—2,143
Papyri (dried reeds)—88
Other languages such as the Latin Vulgate—19,000
a. Caesar’s Gallic Wars—10 manuscripts, 900 years after event
b. Livy Roman History—20 manuscripts, 400 years after event
c. Pliny History—7 manuscripts, 850 years after event
d. Homer Illiad—643 manuscripts, 500 years after event
e. New Testament—24,000 manuscripts, less than 100 years after event
a. Lectionary quotes from around AD 100
b. Papyrus copy of John 18:31-33, 37f, AD 130
c. Two full copies of the NT come from AD 350
“Back in 1990, Time had an article on the walls of Jericho titled, ‘Score One for the Bible.” It began with the debate as to whether Joshua’s capturing Jericho was a fact of myth and then went on to quote archaeologist Brian Wood, who believes that Jericho’s walls could have come tumbling down just at the right time to match the biblical account. We can be thankful that Time was willing to ‘Score One for the Bible.’ But, in the face of so much archaeological evidence that confirms the Scriptures, the caption might have read, ‘Score One for Time Magazine.’”[43]
“The Bible is either true, or it is a forgery; it is either a good book or an indescribably bad book; it is either the Word of God or the misleading, deceptive words of men.”[45]
Bibliography
Fernando, Ajith. The Supremacy of Christ, Crossway Books, 1995.
Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology, Zondervan, 1994.
House, H. Wayne. Charts of Christian Theology and Doctrine, Zondervan, 1992.
Lutzer, Erwin W. Seven Reasons Why You Can Trust the Bible, Moody Press, 1998.
Kenedy, D. James, and Jerry Newcombe. What if the Bible Had Never Been Written? Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998.
McDowell, Josh. Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Here’s Life Publishers, 1979.
McDowell, Josh and Bill Wilson. He Walked Among Us, Nelson, 1993.
McKim, Donald K. Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms, Westminster John Knox Press, 1996.
Piper, John. Why We Believe the Bible, a seminar from The Bethlehem Institute, Desiring God Ministries, 2002.
Warfield, Benjamin B. The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1948.
Wenham, John. Christ and the Bible, third edition, Baker Books, 1994.
[1] Ajith Fernando, The Supremacy of Christ, Crossway Books, 1995, 21.
[2] Donald K. McKim, Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms, Westminster John Knox Press, 1996, 235.
[3] McKim, 214.
[4] Fernando, 22
[5] quoted in Josh McDowell and Bill Wilson, He Walked Among Us, Nelson, 1993, 12.
[6] Gateway Community Church Statement of Faith available at www.gatewayboston.org, “Resources.”
[7] Bernard Ramm, quoted in Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Here’s Life Publishing, 1972, 1979, 2.
[8] H. Wayne House, Charts of Christian Theology and Doctrine, Zondervan, 1992, 24.
[9] House, 24.
[10] John Jefferson Davis, Systematic Theology I Lecture notes, 7.
[11] This helpful catechism is available from Desiring God Ministries, 1-888-346-4700.
[12] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, Zondervan, 1994, 54.
[13] Mckim, 37.
[14] Mckim, 37.
[15] Erwin W. Lutzer, Seven Reasons Why You Can Trust the Bible, Moody Press, 1998, 166-167.
[16] Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Here’s Life, 1972, 1979, 29.
[17] Luke 24:44
[18] Grudem, 59.
[19] John Wenham, Christ and the Bible, Baker Book House, 1994, 137.
[20] Josephus, Against Apion, The Complete Works of Josephus, trans. By William Whiston, Hendrickson, 1987, Book 1, 8:38-42.
[21] Wenham, 17-18.
[22] Wenham, 28.
[23] Wenham, 24-25.
[24] Interestingly, in doing so, Jesus claimed greater authority than the law and prophets.
[25] Wenham, 28.
[26] Wenham, 44.
[27] Benjamin B. Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1948, 412.
[28] Wenham, 155.
[29] Wenham, 163-164.
[30] McDowell and Wilson, 13.
[31] Lutzer, 76-80.
[32] McDowell, Evidence, 20
[33] Quoted in Lutzer, 79.
[34] Quoted in McDowell, Evidence, 21.
[35] McDowell, Evidence, 40.
[36] McDowell, 42-43.
[37] John Piper, Why We Believe in the Bible, a seminar from the Bethlehem Institute, 2002, 28-29.
[38] McDowell, Evidence, 42.
[39] Fernando, chapter 6.
[40] Lutzer, 43.
[41] Lutzer 45.
[42] Lutzer, 46.
[43] Lutzer, 74.
[44] Lutzer, 75.
[45] Lutzer, 51.