The answer could be short. Just read 2Ti 3:16 “All scripture is given by inspiration of God,…”
Now I can hear you say “But brother, Paul was talking about
the Old Testament, not the New Testament!
I say: “The Bible is a reliable collection of historical
documents, written down by eye-witnesses, during the lifetime of other
eye-witnesses. They report to supernatural events that took place in fulfillment
of specific prophesies, and claimed to be divine rather than human in origin.”
Really? Yes. Lets turn to 2 Peter 1:16
2Pe 1:16 For we
did not follow cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power
and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, (It’s a reliable collection of
historical documents) but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. (written
down by eye-witnesses)
Let’s also bring in 1 John 1:1-3b: That which was from
the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes,
that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life (and
the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto
you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested
unto us); that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also…
Can you see? Eyewitness accounts! Led by the Holy Spirit!
Now you say: “Oh, but you see, there’s been so many
translations, and you see, what they’ve done through the years is, they have
made so many reductions to streamline and make everything fit together, so we
have what was written by the later community! You see there were these
overzealous monks that changed things so they LOOK as though they fit together.
So what we have, wasn’t written that early, it was written much later!”
Well, let me point out just three problems in particular they
would have faced!
Firstly, if we talk only about the New Testament, they would
have had to find some 6000 manuscripts, or parts of manuscripts.
Secondly, they then would have had to make all these changes
so carefully that their ink work wouldn’t show, and made sure that all these
manuscripts looked exactly the same.
Thirdly, they would have had to go and hide these 6000
manuscripts, each in the correct place where they had found it in the first
place, before anyone saw that they had stolen them! Not a mean logistical feat,
keeping in mind there was no technology to co-ordinate such a collaboration!
Let's compare the number of available manuscripts with a few
other historical, universally accepted, accounts.
Julius Caesar’s Gaelic wars – 10 manuscripts
Aristotle’s Poetics – 5 manuscripts
Herodotus – less than 10
New Testament? – 6000 manuscripts!
What about when they were written? You say “They were
written so late, they’re unreliable.”
Well, we’ve got manuscripts or portions of manuscripts that
can take us back as early 120-150 AD.
“Oh, that’s a long time after the originals!” Really?
With
Julius Caesar, it’s about 900 years after the Gaelic wars.
With Aristotle’s Poetics
we have about 1300-1400 years.
With Homer? About 2100 years!
Those are the
earliest manuscripts we could lay our hands on! The New Testament? Within the
lifetime of eye-witnesses!
So far we’ve just talked about it as a history book. It gets
better though. They report to us about supernatural events!
2Pe 1:17 For he
received from God the Father honour and glory, when there was borne such a
voice to him by the Majestic Glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased:
2Pe 1:18 and this
voice we ourselves heard borne out of heaven, when we were with him in the holy
mount.
This is supernatural stuff! We read about withered hands
growing back, someone born with nothing in his face to see with, blind from
birth, given the ability to see, someone who’s been paralyzed his whole life,
withered legs, being told to take up his bed and walk, and he did! Jesus telling
his disciples to take their boat and go across the Sea of Galilee, and He’ll
follow them. And He did! He walked on water! Or my favourite: Friday afternoon – A DEAD BODY! Sunday morning – THE RISEN LORD!
If we lived say, 2000 years ago, and we were speaking
Aramaic, and we were doing a bit of scripture studying (they had no bibles, so
they didn’t do bible study, but they did study scripture.) So, if I should
say, ask you to open your scroll at Psalm 22, I couldn’t! They had no numbers
then. I’d have to ask you to open the Psalm by it's title! So, I’d have to ask you to
open the Psalm called "Eli Eli Lama Sabagtani!" ‘My God my God, why hast Thou
forsaken me?’ A Psalm about the crucifixion, written a thousand years before
Jesus was born, giving details about it, by a man who didn’t know about crucifixion,who'd never ever witnessed a crucifixion, because it hadn’t
been invented yet!
Now we get to the best part, they claimed that they wrote it
under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, not by their own volition.
2Pe 1:21 For no prophecy ever came by the will of man:
but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit.
You say “No, no, brother, the Bible was written by men, not
by God, therefore it is unreliable!” Really?
If you believe that, then if you
get a question wrong in an exam for instance, you just go ahead and tell the teacher “Oh no, you can’t mark
that as wrong, because your information comes from books written by men! They
can’t be reliable!”
In fact , we should then just get rid of all the books in
all of the world, because they were all written by men! So, you’d have to do
better than that.
You say, “Well. I can. I’ll believe that stuff if you can
prove it to me scientifically!” If that’s your argument, you do not even deserve to
be in this conversation!
You not only have no idea about the authority and historicity
of the bible, but you have no idea about the scientific method! If you did, you
would know that in order for something to be proven scientifically, it has to
be observable, measurable and repeatable! So, if your argument regarding the proof of history is true, you can’t
prove to me that George Washington was the first president of the United
States! In fact, you’ll have to burn all history books! No historical events
can be proven that way!
Now we’ve settled it that you have a problem with
history itself, and you have no idea about the scientific method of proof, and
that you have no place in this conversation, I will however, graciously allow
you to stay in the conversation!
So, let’s go back to the original issue.
The only way you can
disprove something that is written, is:
- 1 If there’s no corroboration, or
- 2. If there’s internal inconsistencies.
In the Bible, we can’t find any internal inconsistency, and
we have multiple corroboration!
- 1. We’ve got three languages, Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic.
- 2. We have 3 continents, Africa, Asia and Europe.
- 3. We have over 40 authors, most of whom had never met each other, because they wrote over a period of some 1600 years.
If you look in your dictionary, that would be the definition
of corroboration! So, unless you have anything that would negate what we find
in the bible, you have to accept the fact, based on the evidentiary method, not
the scientific method, that The Bible is a reliable collection of historical
documents, written down by eye-witnesses, during the lifetime of other
eye-witnesses. They report to supernatural events that took place in fulfillment
of specific prophesies, and claimed to be divine rather than human in origin, which
means that what we have here, is indeed, the word of God!
SOLA SCRIPTURA!
