Why Should Anyone Trust The Bible?
This question is valid and important. Just because I believe something it does not prove that what I believe is true. All scientists are taught to test theories by experiments to see if they are reliable.
I am amazed that in my lifetime so much has been learned and yet some of the most unreasonable ideas still persist.
Hitler came to power by a popular election and twisted the world around his rage against his own Jewish ancestors. He allowed his emotions to override the truth of history. His “final solution” was to reject his Jewish ancestors who were entrusted by the Creator of this world with His Word of truth.
The damage done by that false idea and the rage associated with it is astounding.
In the middle ages, the Jews were blamed for the bubonic plague. The logic was that since most Jews were not dying from the plague, they must be the cause of the plague. Jews were cursed and persecuted. They were not allowed to own land. Thus, they were forced to survive by being craftsmen and businessmen. Is it any wonder that the great banks of France were established by Jews. Prejudice against truth forced them to not be farmers. God had given people the power to get wealth.
NAU Deuteronomy 8:18 “But you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.”
Some people chose to deny the source and by selfishness destroyed their own lives.
Going further back in history, the Jews had become idolaters like the heathen nations around them. God warned them to return to Him or be exiled from their land. They did not listen to God and about 600BC the Babylonians took them captive and destroyed their country and Jerusalem along with the temple. The Jews believed that as long as the temple was standing that they were on God’s side. The prophets warned them of their error. What did they do?? They killed the prophets and God dealt with them directly.
We can look back at history and wonder why those people blessed by God could be so stupid as to rebel against God. We are in the same danger today when we ignore the God who created this world. Tonight, I will begin to show from the Bible why we should trust the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.
1. The preservation of the Bible is remarkable. All of the early manuscripts of the Bible were copied by hand-long before there were printing presses. Scribes made copies of the original manuscripts and distributed them. Thousands of copies of such manuscripts or portions of them still survive.
The Old Testament was questioned as unreliable prior to WWII, because up till that time the oldest manuscripts dated from the 10th Century AD. In 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in Israel. They date as far back as about 200BC. It’s amazing that these two-thousand-year-old scrolls agree with the Masoretic Scrolls of the 10th Cent. AD and contain exactly the same truths as we find in the Old Testament of Bibles printed today. Powerful evidence of how reliably God’s Word has been transmitted to us!
Remarkably enough, we are much more certain about the original text of the Bible than we are about the original text of Shakespeare’s plays.
Sir Frederic Kenyon, once the director of the British Museum, in his book Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts assures us: “The Christian can take the whole Bible in his hand and say without fear or hesitation that he holds in it the true Word of God, handed down without essential loss from generation to generation throughout the centuries.”
2. The Bible is the most fully verifiable book in the world. People believe that the writings of Plato are reliable even though only a handful of old documents exist of these writings. None of these are original manuscripts. The Bible exists in thousands of manuscripts and some NT documents date to within a few years of the original documents.
The apostles first wrote much of the New Testament as letters they sent to Christian churches established after the death and resurrection of Christ (Colossians 4:16). More than 4,500 manuscripts of all or a part of the New Testament are on display in the great museums and libraries of Europe and America. Some of them date back to the second century. By comparing these early manuscripts with today’s Bible, we can readily see that the New Testament has also remained essentially unchanged since it was first written.
3. The historical, geographical and archaeological accuracy of the Bible record is remarkable. In the past many were sceptical about the accuracy of Scripture. They doubted the Bible record because they could not prove biblical events from the documents of secular history. Scripture spoke of battles, cities, and even entire civilizations, which secular historians did not mention.
Today many archaeological discoveries have dramatically confirmed the accuracy of the biblical record. Historians have discovered clay tablets and stone monuments, which have brought to light names, places, and events previously known only from the Bible.
For example, according to Genesis 11:31, Abraham and his family “set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to [the land of] Canaan.” Because only the Bible spoke of Ur, certain scholars stated that no such city had ever existed. Then archaeologists uncovered a temple tower in southern Iraq with a cylinder at the base written in cuneiform that contained the name Ur. Later finds revealed Ur as the thriving metropolis of a highly developed civilization. That city’s identity had been forgotten and lost to later historians. Only the Bible preserved its name-until the spade of the archaeologist confirmed its authenticity.
4. Bible is amazingly is internally consistent in its teaching, written by those different and independent people. The various Bible writers lived at different times, some separated by hundreds of years. In many cases they were complete strangers to one another. Some were businessmen or traders, others were shepherds, fishermen, soldiers, physicians, preachers, kings - human beings from all walks of life. They served under different governments, and lived within contrasting cultures and systems of philosophy.
The Bible was written by 40 writers over a period of 1500 years. The Bible is actually a library of 66 books. The 39 books of the Old Testament were composed from 1450 B.C. to 400 B.C.; the 27 books of the New Testament between A.D. 50 and A.D. 100. But here is the wonder of it all: When the 66 books of the Bible with their 1,189 chapters made up of 31,173 verses are brought together, we find perfect harmony in the message they convey. As the great scholar F. F. Bruce noted: “The Bible is not simply an anthology; there is a unity which binds the whole together.” The prophet Moses began the first five books of the Bible sometime before 1400 B.C. The Apostle John penned the last book of the Bible, Revelation, about A.D. 95. During the 1,500 years between the writing of the first and last books of the Bible, at least 38 other prophets made their contributions.
Suppose a man should knock at your door and, when invited in, place an oddly shaped piece of marble on your living room floor, then leave without a word. Other visitors follow in succession until about 40 individuals have each deposited their numbered marble piece into place. When the last one has gone, you see with surprise that a beautiful statue stands before you.
Then you learn that most of the “sculptors” had never met each other, coming, as they did, from South America, China, Russia, Africa, and other parts of the world. What would you have to conclude? That someone had planned the statue and had sent to each man accurate specifications for his particular piece of marble. The Bible as a whole communicates one coherent message-just like a perfect marble statue. One mind planned it all, the mind of God. Scripture’s remarkable unity gives evidence that it is not simply human literature but indeed the Word of God. Human beings wrote down the thoughts and words, but they were “God-breathed,” inspired by God Himself. KJV 2 Timothy 3:16: All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
Most of the attacks on the reliability of Scripture are arguments from ignorance. For Example, Graf and Wellhausen published in German Geshichte das Volkes das Israelis (The History of the People of Israel) in the 1860’s. Their 8 points denying the validity of the Books of Moses have all been proven to be nothing but false speculations.
5. The witness of Bible prophecies verifies the accuracy of the Bible.
Let’s take a look at a very old prophecy in the book of Daniel. At the time of the Babylonian Empire, Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem and took captive the best of the young men from royalty to train in Babylon. This happened about 605BC. Chapter 1 gives the details of their capture and training plan. For the sake of space I will not present the entire chapter.
Daniel 1:3-5 3 Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, the chief of his officials, to bring in some of the sons of Israel, including some of the royal family and of the nobles, 4 youths in whom was no defect, who were good-looking, showing intelligence in every branch of wisdom, endowed with understanding and discerning knowledge, and who had ability for serving in the king’s court; and he ordered him to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans. 5 The king appointed for them a daily ration from the king’s choice food and from the wine which he drank, and appointed that they should be educated three years, at the end of which they were to enter the king’s personal service.
Historical records show that this event occurred in the 1st year of Nebuchadnezzar’s rule.
These young men were scheduled to be in school for 3 years. Before their training was completed a strange event occurred. This event is recorded in Daniel 2.
Let’s read the first 12 verses of this story:
Daniel 2:1-12 Now in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; and his spirit was troubled and his sleep left him. 2 Then the king gave orders to call in the magicians, the conjurers, the sorcerers and the Chaldeans to tell the king his dreams. So they came in and stood before the king. 3 The king said to them, “I had a dream and my spirit is anxious to understand the dream.” 4 Then the Chaldeans spoke to the king in Aramaic: “O king, live forever! Tell the dream to your servants, and we will declare the interpretation.” 5 The king replied to the Chaldeans, “The command from me is firm: if you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you will be torn limb from limb and your houses will be made a rubbish heap. 6 “But if you declare the dream and its interpretation, you will receive from me gifts and a reward and great honor; therefore declare to me the dream and its interpretation.” 7 They answered a second time and said, “Let the king tell the dream to his servants, and we will declare the interpretation.” 8 The king replied, “I know for certain that you are bargaining for time, inasmuch as you have seen that the command from me is firm, 9 that if you do not make the dream known to me, there is only one decree for you. For you have agreed together to speak lying and corrupt words before me until the situation is changed; therefore tell me the dream, that I may know that you can declare to me its interpretation.” 10 The Chaldeans answered the king and said, “There is not a man on earth who could declare the matter for the king, inasmuch as no great king or ruler has ever asked anything like this of any magician, conjurer or Chaldean. 11 “Moreover, the thing which the king demands is difficult, and there is no one else who could declare it to the king except gods, whose dwelling place is not with mortal flesh.” 12 Because of this the king became indignant and very furious and gave orders to destroy all the wise men of Babylon.
Was the king reasonable in his expectations of his “wise men”? I believe it was the first sensible thing these men had been expected to do. After all, they claimed to really be wise and understand things. Yet they said the kings request was impossible.
Well…. The next job was to round up all the “wise men” including the students so they could be killed. The purge was ordered.
Daniel 2:13-16 13 So the decree went forth that the wise men should be slain; and they looked for Daniel and his friends to kill them. 14 Then Daniel replied with discretion and discernment to Arioch, the captain of the king’s bodyguard, who had gone forth to slay the wise men of Babylon; 15 he said to Arioch, the king’s commander, “For what reason is the decree from the king so urgent?” Then Arioch informed Daniel about the matter. 16 So Daniel went in and requested of the king that he would give him time, in order that he might declare the interpretation to the king.
Daniel was granted a little time. He called a prayer meeting.
Daniel 2:17-18 17 Then Daniel went to his house and informed his friends, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, about the matter, 18 so that they might request compassion from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his friends would not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.
What was the result of the prayer meeting? A time of great thanksgiving!!
Daniel 2:19-23 19 Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven; 20 Daniel said, “Let the name of God be blessed forever and ever, For wisdom and power belong to Him. 21 “It is He who changes the times and the epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings; He gives wisdom to wise men And knowledge to men of understanding. 22 “It is He who reveals the profound and hidden things; He knows what is in the darkness, And the light dwells with Him. 23 “To You, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, For You have given me wisdom and power; Even now You have made known to me what we requested of You, For You have made known to us the king’s matter.”
Whenever, we see God blessing us or others, we should give thanks and praise to God.
Daniel 2:24-28 24 Therefore, Daniel went in to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon; he went and spoke to him as follows: “Do not destroy the wise men of Babylon! Take me into the king’s presence, and I will declare the interpretation to the king.” 25 Then Arioch hurriedly brought Daniel into the king’s presence and spoke to him as follows: “I have found a man among the exiles from Judah who can make the interpretation known to the king!” 26 The king said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, “Are you able to make known to me the dream which I have seen and its interpretation?” 27 Daniel answered before the king and said, “As for the mystery about which the king has inquired, neither wise men, conjurers, magicians nor diviners are able to declare it to the king. 28 “However, there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will take place in the latter days. This was your dream and the visions in your mind while on your bed.
The most important part of this message is in verse 28. Let’s read it again.
“There is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will take place in the latter days.”
People may read tea leaves or cards or palms, but only God in Heaven knows the future accurately.
Daniel 2:29-30 29 “As for you, O king, while on your bed your thoughts turned to what would take place in the future; and He who reveals mysteries has made known to you what will take place. 30 “But as for me, this mystery has not been revealed to me for any wisdom residing in me more than in any other living man, but for the purpose of making the interpretation known to the king, and that you may understand the thoughts of your mind.”
Daniel says that God had a special interest in the concerns of Nebuchadnezzar. I will say that we will not be studying all of the book of Daniel. If you will read chapters 3 through 6 you will become aware of just how much God cares for both His people and even pagans.
God is always trying to communicate with men. Our problem is that we often just are not listening. I challenge you to join me in listening more carefully to God.
Daniel 2:31-36 31 “You, O king, were looking and behold, there was a single great statue; that statue, which was large and of extraordinary splendor, was standing in front of you, and its appearance was awesome. 32 “The head of that statue was made of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze, 33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. 34 “You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and crushed them. 35 “Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed all at the same time and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. 36 “This was the dream; now we will tell its interpretation before the king.
Let’s review the dream before we read the interpretation.
A statue with different metals for different parts:
Head = Gold
Shoulders = Silver
Thighs = Bronze
Legs = Iron
Feet = Iron mixed with Clay
Stone = hit image and destroyed it then became a mountain
What is the interpretation?
Daniel 2:37-38 37 “You, O king, are the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the strength and the glory; 38 and wherever the sons of men dwell, or the beasts of the field, or the birds of the sky, He has given them into your hand and has caused you to rule over them all. You are the head of gold.
Head of Gold = Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom
Daniel 2:39 39 “After you there will arise another kingdom inferior to you, then another third kingdom of bronze, which will rule over all the earth.
Shoulders of Silver = An inferior kingdom after Babylon = Medo-Persia
Thighs of Bronze =A third kingdom over all the earth = Greek
40 “Then there will be a fourth kingdom as strong as iron; inasmuch as iron crushes and shatters all things, so, like iron that breaks in pieces, it will crush and break all these in pieces.
Legs of Iron = A strong kingdom = Rome
Daniel 2:41-43 41 “In that you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it will be a divided kingdom; but it will have in it the toughness of iron, inasmuch as you saw the iron mixed with common clay. 42 “As the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of pottery, so some of the kingdom will be strong and part of it will be brittle. 43 “And in that you saw the iron mixed with common clay, they will combine with one another in the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, even as iron does not combine with pottery.
Feet and toes = Divided Kingdom = Divided Europe
Daniel 2:44 44 “In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever.
Stone = God’s Kingdom
Daniel 2:45 45 “Inasmuch as you saw that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold, the great God has made known to the king what will take place in the future; so the dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy.”
Let’s review history to verify if this dream is actually true.
Beginning with Babylon we see: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, followed by divided kingdoms. The only thing left unfulfilled is the destruction of human governments by the action of God Himself.
It would have been fairly easy to predict that Babylon would be succeeded by another kingdom or two. After all, Babylon had succeeded Assyria. But to tell exactly how many kingdoms would come to be followed by a divided time is not humanly possible.
What was the response of Nebuchadnezzar?
Daniel 2:46-49 46 Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and did homage to Daniel, and gave orders to present to him an offering and fragrant incense. 47 The king answered Daniel and said, “Surely your God is a God of gods and a Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, since you have been able to reveal this mystery.” 48 Then the king promoted Daniel and gave him many great gifts, and he made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief prefect over all the wise men of Babylon. 49 And Daniel made request of the king, and he appointed Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego over the administration of the province of Babylon, while Daniel was at the king’s court.
What is the appropriate response for us? I believe that God is powerful and wants us to be close to Him. He wants us to experience His direct guidance in our lives.
Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a great revival began to sweep over atheistic Russia. Millions accepted the Bible as inspired by God and became Christians. Galena, a woman in Nizhni Novgorod, formerly Gorky, attended the meetings of an American evangelist. With tears running down her cheeks, she told him, “Before I came to these meetings, I was an atheist. I didn’t believe in God. Now I have accepted Jesus, and I am a brand new person inside. The truths you have been teaching us from the Bible have opened my eyes.”
God’s Word is not a book of one race, one age, one nation, or one culture. Although written in the East, it also appeals to men and women in the West. It enters the apartment of the humble and the mansion of the wealthy. Children love its exciting stories. Its heroes inspire young people. Parents find in it wisdom to instruct their children. The sick, the lonely, and the aged discover in it comfort and hope for a better life.
Because of time limitations, I am only going to spend one more lecture directly in the Book of Daniel. That will be a most amazing exact time prophecy. Our next meeting will be dealing with that prophecy and its implications for us.
© Copyright 2006 Richard Noel
Translation into English of this post is available at http://noelrt.com/?p=558
Перевод на русский язык см. здесь Почему можно доверять Библии?