TallTexan89
Member
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2009
- Messages
- 10
The Very Real Truth About The Bible
For decades the great debate over the ominous question of “Does God exist?” has been tossed back and forth between scientists and Christians with many of the same results. The usual conclusion of most agnostic opposition is that Christians have put a blind faith in the Bible without questioning it for inaccuracy or errors and therefore have no basis on which to make their theological claims. In reality, it is not the Christian who is ignoring reason and logic when approaching the reliability of the Bible’s words. The credibility of the Bible is clearly proven by history, archaeology, and by the prophecies within its own text.
Comparatively, the Bible is the most reliable source from antiquity in existence today. Historians have three main tests that they use to apply to a source from antiquity to test its historical reliability. There is a bibliographical test, an internal test, and an external test. The bibliographical test determines how many manuscript copies are in circulation today and how much time passed between the original writing of the manuscript and its first copy. The internal test questions whether the subject matter claims to have been written by eyewitnesses. The external question deals with the evidence outside of the source that supports the accounts such as archeological or other writings of historians. JP Moreland, a distinguished professor of philosophy at Biola University, states that when putting the New Testament texts to these three tests “they show themselves to be as reliable as, or superior to, most other ancient documents”
The bibliographical test is completely objective as it deals only with numbers of copies and amount of years. Plato wrote a series of works entitled Tetralogies that dealt mostly with his discoveries of the foundations of physics. The sciences for centuries depended heavily on Plato’s work to build upon their own theories of physics and contemporary science. The original manuscript is dated to be written around 427 B.C. The very first copy of this manuscript was recorded in 900 A.D. That is a 1,200-year time gap between the original to the first copy. There exist only seven copies today. Julius Caesar, the Roman Emperor, wrote first hand accounts of the Roman Wars. These autobiographies are held up to the highest level of credibility and accepted by even the most liberal scholars as authentic. The original manuscripts were most likely written around 100 B.C. The very earliest copies of these accounts are recorded around 900 A.D., giving Caesar’s writings a 1,000-year time gap. Only 10 copies exist today. Both the writings of Plato and the writings of Caesar are readily accepted by scholars as credible historical accounts. Now compare those to how the New Testament surmounts the bibliographical test. The earliest manuscript of the New Testament is dated around 40-100 A.D. The earliest copies are recorded around 125 A.D. This means a time span of around 25-50 years between the earliest original manuscript and the first copy of that manuscript. Over 24,000 copies of the New Testament are in circulation throughout the world today. Now when looking at the credibility of other well accepted sources from antiquity, it would seem that the Bible trumps them all after taking the first test of historical accuracy.
The internal test is a more subjective test when looking at the reliability of the people writing their eyewitness accounts of the history they were living. Objections to the accounts of the four Gospels are usually centered on the slight inconsistencies in the telling of certain stories about Jesus. One major discrepancy is in the story of Easter morning when the tomb is discovered to be empty. In the Gospel of Mark, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and a woman by the name of Salome show up to the tomb to discover it open with a man clothed in white sitting in the place where Jesus was supposed to be. In the Gospel of Luke it only states that a group of women went to the tomb and found it empty. But while they stood stunned, two men in shining clothes appeared besides them. And even still in the Gospel of Matthew it says that only Mary Magdalene and some other Mary went to the tomb and upon arrival an Angel moved the stone from in front of the tomb and revealed it to be empty. These three stories show obvious differences and could possibly lend evidence to the entirety of the story being false. If the eyewitnesses can’t even get the minor details consistent than the core of the story must also be flawed. Charles Templeton, a skeptic, addressed these contradictions by saying “the four descriptions of events…differ so markedly at so many points that…they cannot be reconciled” (as quoted by Strobel, 214). However, with some background knowledge of the culture of the time, these discrepancies can be eliminated all together. Keep in mind that this is long before the printing press. Most news of the time carried across the land by word of mouth. In oral dominant cultures, like that of ancient Macedonia, when recounting a story, the storyteller had freedom with secondary details. The historical accuracy was the important part of telling the story while the names of the women or amount of angels present at the tomb had no bearing on the historical relevance of the fact that Jesus had risen. William Lane Craig, Ph.D, in an interview with Strobel made the argument that a historian, unlike a philosopher, doesn’t see discrepancies in secondary details as failing the law of contradiction which would prove the entire story to be false. Craig states that the historian would acknowledge that the story “suggests that there is a historical core…that is reliable and can be depended upon, however conflicting the secondary details might be” (as quoted in Strobel, 215).
Another aspect of the internal test can question the integrity of the writers themselves. Given the accounts through the book of Acts, it’s evident that the writers of the Gospels upheld their beliefs to the highest values even when it brought them to brutal deaths. The consistency of the Gospels, when perceived through the eyes of the historian, is inerrant. For these four writers, the historical accuracy of their accounts was of the upmost importance if they were to withstand the scrutiny of opposition. The fact that these writings were being spread through Macedonia within the same generation as the crucifixion of Jesus meant that if there was any historical inaccuracy with the Gospels or within the book of Acts, the opposition could have then easily discounted the credibility of the writings all together. But there is no record of any Jewish or Roman authority accusing these accounts to be inaccurate or false. As Luke wrote in the introduction of the Gospel that bears his name, “Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.”(Luke, 1:1-4) The apostles went through great lengths to ensure the accuracy and historicity of what they wrote. Even the skeptic, Washington Gladden, cannot discount the credibility of Luke’s writings while within the same book Gladden argues against the Bible’s worth. After researching the historicity of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts, Gladden concludes that he “cannot doubt the honesty of the writer. [Luke’s] writings prove him to be a careful, painstaking, and veracious historian.”(Gladden, 271). Admitted by even the skeptics, the integrity of these writers is nowhere in question and the care with which they wrote their testimonies compares to the most careful historian.
The external test will require the use of archaeology and the writings of Roman historians to support the historicity of the Bible. This test now deals with anything outside of the given source, being the Bible, which can be used to support the claims of the text. Some efforts have been made to prove that there never was a Jesus of Nazareth to begin with. This would obviously undermine the entirety of the New Testament. Charles Templeton, author of Act of God, makes a claim in his book representing his own belief that “There isn’t a single word about [Jesus] in secular history…not so much as a reference by Josephus.”(Templeton, 152). Josephus was one of the most prominent historians of the Roman Empire during the time of Jesus. Claims that this historian never even made mention of Jesus would be very compelling evidence against the worth of the Bible all together. In truth, Josephus made an extremely important reference to Jesus in his historical accounts entitled The Antiquities. Josephus makes record in his accounts that “about this time there live Jesus, a wise man…for he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly.”(Josephus, The Antiquities, 18.63-64) This obviously lends clear secular evidence to the existence of Jesus and further supports the claims found within the Bible. Michael Martin decides to press the case further still. He suggests that it doesn’t make sense for Josephus to mention Jesus so lightly without more interest since Jesus was causing such a strong shift in society and could pose a credible threat to the Roman Empire. Martin challenges that “if Jesus did exist, one would have expected Josephus…to have said more about him.”(Martin, 49) The fact is Josephus wrote about John the Baptist in much greater detail. Edwin M. Yamauchi, Ph.D, points out that “Josephus was interested in political matters and the struggle against Rome,”(as quoted by Strobel, 81) so John the Baptist posed a much larger threat than did Jesus. When John preached, he criticized “Herod the tetrarch because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and all the other evil things he had done,”(Luke 3:19). So King Herod threw him in prison because John was much more of a political adversary. Jesus, when asked whether the people should pay their taxes, replied, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”(Mark 12:17). Jesus showed no opposition to the Roman Empire and therefore was of little interest to Josephus. Still, Josephus was not the only historian of the Roman Empire to write about the on goings of Jesus and his followers. Tacitus is one of the most important historians of the first century. He authored a series of historical works entitled Annals that recorded most of the history of the Roman Empire depended upon today by historians. Tacitus writes about the persecutions of Christians under the power of the Roman Emperor Nero soon following the crucifixion of Jesus. He recounts with historical accuracy how “Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of [their] prosecutors, Pontius Pilatus…”(Tacitus, Annals, 15.44). This reference to Jesus is considered one of the most important references outside the New Testament. Two secular historians gave accounts corroborating the fact that there was a Jesus who did have followers. Tacitus goes on to record that this Jesus was crucified and even after death his followers persisted in the face of persecutions by the Roman Empire. Secular history has lent its pillar of support for the historicity of the Bible.
Archaeology provides physical evidence to either prove or disprove assertions made by historians. This science has ventured into 23,000 archeological digs based solely on information given in the Bible and not one has been inaccurate or able to disprove an event recorded in the Bible. The most controversial book in the Bible has been said by many New Testament scholars to be the Gospel of John. Many critics claim that this book has no historical basis for its account and reflects many ideals of Gnosticism that originated in the early second century. Therefore this book was given little credibility and cast out as not even worthy of being included in the Bible. In John 5:1-15, John records how Jesus healed a man by the Pool of Bethesda. The pool was described as having five colonnades. Alfred Loisy, a French scholar, suggested that the description of this pool could have been meant to make a theological point. These five porticoes could have merely been a metaphor “to represent the five books of the Law that Jesus had come to fulfill”(Blaiklock, 83). For decades this one story committed the Gospel of John to historical inaccuracy since no such place was thought to exist. Recently, archaeologists have discovered that such a pool existed predating 70 A.D. and matching the exact descriptions given by John. Other excavations such as the Pool of Siloam, Jacob’s Well, and Pilate’s own identity have offered support for the fourth gospel. The Gospel of John, the most scrutinized book in the Bible, has shown more than enough corroborative evidence to support its historical accuracy. While the historicity of John is now comparable to the other Gospels, the prepositioned dates of when his accounts were thought to be written still make it seem less credible. That was until the discovery of “a papyrus fragment from Dura Europos…[consisting] of fourteen fragmented lines” from the Gospel of John dating back to 170 A.D. This lends evidence to the fourth gospel being written well before the second century to have had copies of it already in places as far away as Egypt. Therefore the fourth gospel would have had to be written close enough to Jesus’ life to be counted just as credible as the other gospels. Now, with the facts known, the most opposed book in the New Testament is proven to be equal to the others in both historicity and authenticity. The Bible continues to stand upright in face of opposition with so much support from the corroborating evidence.
The final evidence in proving the absolute credibility of the Bible as a source of not only historical accuracy but also of truth, is the prophetical evidence found within the Bible itself. Thomas Paine wrote, “Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system.” Here he is clearly stating that anything that seems to be implausible even to the mind of a child is certainly impossible. This seems to be a reasonable objection to the prophecies of the Bible. Had Paine lived to see history and archeology both undergird the text of the Bible to be proven more credible than not only any other religious text but also any other source from antiquity, he may have formed a different opinion. Joseph Lewis is one skeptic who holds strong opposition against many of the Old Testament prophecies and agrees strongly with the assertions made by Paine. Specifically, he attacks the prophecy of Jesus being born of the Virgin Mary. As Lewis himself states that, “it is unnecessary for [him] to show the falsity of the prophecy”(Lewis, 191) he goes on to quote an explanation for the prophet Isaiah that Paine proposed. Paine states that Isaiah was ‘prophesying’ only to gain favor with the king. He therefore, in order to not be accused as a false prophet, took “measures to make this sign appear” and went out “to find a girl with child, or to make her so…”(Paine, Age of Reason). Especially for a great mind like that of Thomas Paine, this is a disappointing opposition to the truth of the Old Testament prophecies. For now I’ll concede to this opposition in order to strengthen the rebuttal against it. Besides the fact that Isaiah lived almost seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, let’s say Isaiah did go out and find a girl with a child in order to make his prophecy come true. There are still dozens of other prophecies concerning the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that neither Isaiah, nor any other prophet could have had any control over their fulfillments. Prophecies foretelling where, when, to whom, in what lineage, and under what circumstances Jesus would be born were completely out of reach for any prophet to conjure up from himself. Most prophecies about the life of Jesus were made hundreds of years prior to his birth. For example: Psalm 22 goes through great detail about the exact way Jesus was to be killed. It described how his hands and feet would be pierced but how no bone in his body would be broken. It describes how his shoulder joints would be dislocated and how his killers would gamble over his clothing. In all four gospels the crucifixion of Jesus matches the exact description given in Psalm 22. Now a skeptic might say that the psalmist could have been writing a description of a crucifixion in general and the specific details pertaining to Jesus’ execution were either inserted or misinterpreted later. Except this psalm was written six hundred years before crucifixion was even invented and used in the Roman Empire.
Hundreds of prophecies concerning the Messiah are found throughout the books of the Old Testament. The Bible was written over a time period of 1,500 years, by forty different authors, on three different continents, and in three different languages. To spell it out, this means that the authors of the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament didn’t get together on this project. Which further means the Old Testament authors had no opportunity to get in coordination with the New Testament authors either. Yet the only prophecies in the Bible that have yet to be fulfilled are those concerning the end of time. The only plausible way a book physically written by man could be this prophetically consistent given these circumstances of time and distance is most effectively explained in 2 Timothy 3:16. Paul writes this epistle to his student Timothy and within it explains “all scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness…”. Someone did the math and came to the conclusion that “the probability of just eight prophecies being fulfilled is one chance in one hundred million billion…if you took this number of silver dollars, they would cover the state of Texas to a depth of two feet.”(Strobel, 183) Louis S. Lapides, M.Div., concluded after studying the prophecies of the Old Testament that, “the odds alone say it would be impossible for anyone to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies…yet Jesus–and only Jesus throughout all of history¬–managed to do it.” It seems that the authors and prophets of the Old Testament somehow were given a supernatural look into what future events would hold in store, most abundantly in the life of the Messiah. Jesus fulfilled every single prophecy regarding the Messiah according to the biographies written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Now these biographies have been shown to be authentic accounts of the original manuscripts and historically credible. The authors themselves have been proven to be tenacious historians with trustworthy integrity. So it would be conclusive to say that with the given evidence, the Bible is a book of prophetic truths supported by its credible historicity as a document from antiquity.
Agnostic opposition has ascertained that Christians refuse to look beyond their unquestioned faith in the Bible. This has always been a foundation for the argument that Jesus was not the Messiah, Jesus did not exist, or God does not exist. Critiques from Thomas Paine in the 1800s to Michael Martin of today have attacked any weak points in the text of the Bible to further advance their challenge. The challenge has been accepted with open arms and an open mind and the Bible has been put to the test. Through the use of the three tests of historiography, the Old and New Testament have been proven to be authentic copies of their original manuscripts. These copies, through archeological excavations, have been proven to be accurate historical accounts written by credible eyewitnesses. And through prophetical evidence throughout the Bible itself, it has proven itself to be a truly reliable, authentic, and credible source. Given the evidence of the Bible’s stunning performance against these challenges, there is only one question left to ask. Can you trust the Bible? William F. Albright, after leading over a hundred Biblical excavations through Palestine stated, "The reader may rest assured that nothing has been found [by archaeologists] to disturb a reasonable faith, and nothing has been discovered which can disprove a single theological doctrine. We no longer trouble ourselves with attempts to 'harmonize' religion and science, or to 'prove' the Bible. The Bible can stand for itself."
For decades the great debate over the ominous question of “Does God exist?” has been tossed back and forth between scientists and Christians with many of the same results. The usual conclusion of most agnostic opposition is that Christians have put a blind faith in the Bible without questioning it for inaccuracy or errors and therefore have no basis on which to make their theological claims. In reality, it is not the Christian who is ignoring reason and logic when approaching the reliability of the Bible’s words. The credibility of the Bible is clearly proven by history, archaeology, and by the prophecies within its own text.
Comparatively, the Bible is the most reliable source from antiquity in existence today. Historians have three main tests that they use to apply to a source from antiquity to test its historical reliability. There is a bibliographical test, an internal test, and an external test. The bibliographical test determines how many manuscript copies are in circulation today and how much time passed between the original writing of the manuscript and its first copy. The internal test questions whether the subject matter claims to have been written by eyewitnesses. The external question deals with the evidence outside of the source that supports the accounts such as archeological or other writings of historians. JP Moreland, a distinguished professor of philosophy at Biola University, states that when putting the New Testament texts to these three tests “they show themselves to be as reliable as, or superior to, most other ancient documents”
The bibliographical test is completely objective as it deals only with numbers of copies and amount of years. Plato wrote a series of works entitled Tetralogies that dealt mostly with his discoveries of the foundations of physics. The sciences for centuries depended heavily on Plato’s work to build upon their own theories of physics and contemporary science. The original manuscript is dated to be written around 427 B.C. The very first copy of this manuscript was recorded in 900 A.D. That is a 1,200-year time gap between the original to the first copy. There exist only seven copies today. Julius Caesar, the Roman Emperor, wrote first hand accounts of the Roman Wars. These autobiographies are held up to the highest level of credibility and accepted by even the most liberal scholars as authentic. The original manuscripts were most likely written around 100 B.C. The very earliest copies of these accounts are recorded around 900 A.D., giving Caesar’s writings a 1,000-year time gap. Only 10 copies exist today. Both the writings of Plato and the writings of Caesar are readily accepted by scholars as credible historical accounts. Now compare those to how the New Testament surmounts the bibliographical test. The earliest manuscript of the New Testament is dated around 40-100 A.D. The earliest copies are recorded around 125 A.D. This means a time span of around 25-50 years between the earliest original manuscript and the first copy of that manuscript. Over 24,000 copies of the New Testament are in circulation throughout the world today. Now when looking at the credibility of other well accepted sources from antiquity, it would seem that the Bible trumps them all after taking the first test of historical accuracy.
The internal test is a more subjective test when looking at the reliability of the people writing their eyewitness accounts of the history they were living. Objections to the accounts of the four Gospels are usually centered on the slight inconsistencies in the telling of certain stories about Jesus. One major discrepancy is in the story of Easter morning when the tomb is discovered to be empty. In the Gospel of Mark, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and a woman by the name of Salome show up to the tomb to discover it open with a man clothed in white sitting in the place where Jesus was supposed to be. In the Gospel of Luke it only states that a group of women went to the tomb and found it empty. But while they stood stunned, two men in shining clothes appeared besides them. And even still in the Gospel of Matthew it says that only Mary Magdalene and some other Mary went to the tomb and upon arrival an Angel moved the stone from in front of the tomb and revealed it to be empty. These three stories show obvious differences and could possibly lend evidence to the entirety of the story being false. If the eyewitnesses can’t even get the minor details consistent than the core of the story must also be flawed. Charles Templeton, a skeptic, addressed these contradictions by saying “the four descriptions of events…differ so markedly at so many points that…they cannot be reconciled” (as quoted by Strobel, 214). However, with some background knowledge of the culture of the time, these discrepancies can be eliminated all together. Keep in mind that this is long before the printing press. Most news of the time carried across the land by word of mouth. In oral dominant cultures, like that of ancient Macedonia, when recounting a story, the storyteller had freedom with secondary details. The historical accuracy was the important part of telling the story while the names of the women or amount of angels present at the tomb had no bearing on the historical relevance of the fact that Jesus had risen. William Lane Craig, Ph.D, in an interview with Strobel made the argument that a historian, unlike a philosopher, doesn’t see discrepancies in secondary details as failing the law of contradiction which would prove the entire story to be false. Craig states that the historian would acknowledge that the story “suggests that there is a historical core…that is reliable and can be depended upon, however conflicting the secondary details might be” (as quoted in Strobel, 215).
Another aspect of the internal test can question the integrity of the writers themselves. Given the accounts through the book of Acts, it’s evident that the writers of the Gospels upheld their beliefs to the highest values even when it brought them to brutal deaths. The consistency of the Gospels, when perceived through the eyes of the historian, is inerrant. For these four writers, the historical accuracy of their accounts was of the upmost importance if they were to withstand the scrutiny of opposition. The fact that these writings were being spread through Macedonia within the same generation as the crucifixion of Jesus meant that if there was any historical inaccuracy with the Gospels or within the book of Acts, the opposition could have then easily discounted the credibility of the writings all together. But there is no record of any Jewish or Roman authority accusing these accounts to be inaccurate or false. As Luke wrote in the introduction of the Gospel that bears his name, “Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.”(Luke, 1:1-4) The apostles went through great lengths to ensure the accuracy and historicity of what they wrote. Even the skeptic, Washington Gladden, cannot discount the credibility of Luke’s writings while within the same book Gladden argues against the Bible’s worth. After researching the historicity of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts, Gladden concludes that he “cannot doubt the honesty of the writer. [Luke’s] writings prove him to be a careful, painstaking, and veracious historian.”(Gladden, 271). Admitted by even the skeptics, the integrity of these writers is nowhere in question and the care with which they wrote their testimonies compares to the most careful historian.
The external test will require the use of archaeology and the writings of Roman historians to support the historicity of the Bible. This test now deals with anything outside of the given source, being the Bible, which can be used to support the claims of the text. Some efforts have been made to prove that there never was a Jesus of Nazareth to begin with. This would obviously undermine the entirety of the New Testament. Charles Templeton, author of Act of God, makes a claim in his book representing his own belief that “There isn’t a single word about [Jesus] in secular history…not so much as a reference by Josephus.”(Templeton, 152). Josephus was one of the most prominent historians of the Roman Empire during the time of Jesus. Claims that this historian never even made mention of Jesus would be very compelling evidence against the worth of the Bible all together. In truth, Josephus made an extremely important reference to Jesus in his historical accounts entitled The Antiquities. Josephus makes record in his accounts that “about this time there live Jesus, a wise man…for he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly.”(Josephus, The Antiquities, 18.63-64) This obviously lends clear secular evidence to the existence of Jesus and further supports the claims found within the Bible. Michael Martin decides to press the case further still. He suggests that it doesn’t make sense for Josephus to mention Jesus so lightly without more interest since Jesus was causing such a strong shift in society and could pose a credible threat to the Roman Empire. Martin challenges that “if Jesus did exist, one would have expected Josephus…to have said more about him.”(Martin, 49) The fact is Josephus wrote about John the Baptist in much greater detail. Edwin M. Yamauchi, Ph.D, points out that “Josephus was interested in political matters and the struggle against Rome,”(as quoted by Strobel, 81) so John the Baptist posed a much larger threat than did Jesus. When John preached, he criticized “Herod the tetrarch because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and all the other evil things he had done,”(Luke 3:19). So King Herod threw him in prison because John was much more of a political adversary. Jesus, when asked whether the people should pay their taxes, replied, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”(Mark 12:17). Jesus showed no opposition to the Roman Empire and therefore was of little interest to Josephus. Still, Josephus was not the only historian of the Roman Empire to write about the on goings of Jesus and his followers. Tacitus is one of the most important historians of the first century. He authored a series of historical works entitled Annals that recorded most of the history of the Roman Empire depended upon today by historians. Tacitus writes about the persecutions of Christians under the power of the Roman Emperor Nero soon following the crucifixion of Jesus. He recounts with historical accuracy how “Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of [their] prosecutors, Pontius Pilatus…”(Tacitus, Annals, 15.44). This reference to Jesus is considered one of the most important references outside the New Testament. Two secular historians gave accounts corroborating the fact that there was a Jesus who did have followers. Tacitus goes on to record that this Jesus was crucified and even after death his followers persisted in the face of persecutions by the Roman Empire. Secular history has lent its pillar of support for the historicity of the Bible.
Archaeology provides physical evidence to either prove or disprove assertions made by historians. This science has ventured into 23,000 archeological digs based solely on information given in the Bible and not one has been inaccurate or able to disprove an event recorded in the Bible. The most controversial book in the Bible has been said by many New Testament scholars to be the Gospel of John. Many critics claim that this book has no historical basis for its account and reflects many ideals of Gnosticism that originated in the early second century. Therefore this book was given little credibility and cast out as not even worthy of being included in the Bible. In John 5:1-15, John records how Jesus healed a man by the Pool of Bethesda. The pool was described as having five colonnades. Alfred Loisy, a French scholar, suggested that the description of this pool could have been meant to make a theological point. These five porticoes could have merely been a metaphor “to represent the five books of the Law that Jesus had come to fulfill”(Blaiklock, 83). For decades this one story committed the Gospel of John to historical inaccuracy since no such place was thought to exist. Recently, archaeologists have discovered that such a pool existed predating 70 A.D. and matching the exact descriptions given by John. Other excavations such as the Pool of Siloam, Jacob’s Well, and Pilate’s own identity have offered support for the fourth gospel. The Gospel of John, the most scrutinized book in the Bible, has shown more than enough corroborative evidence to support its historical accuracy. While the historicity of John is now comparable to the other Gospels, the prepositioned dates of when his accounts were thought to be written still make it seem less credible. That was until the discovery of “a papyrus fragment from Dura Europos…[consisting] of fourteen fragmented lines” from the Gospel of John dating back to 170 A.D. This lends evidence to the fourth gospel being written well before the second century to have had copies of it already in places as far away as Egypt. Therefore the fourth gospel would have had to be written close enough to Jesus’ life to be counted just as credible as the other gospels. Now, with the facts known, the most opposed book in the New Testament is proven to be equal to the others in both historicity and authenticity. The Bible continues to stand upright in face of opposition with so much support from the corroborating evidence.
The final evidence in proving the absolute credibility of the Bible as a source of not only historical accuracy but also of truth, is the prophetical evidence found within the Bible itself. Thomas Paine wrote, “Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system.” Here he is clearly stating that anything that seems to be implausible even to the mind of a child is certainly impossible. This seems to be a reasonable objection to the prophecies of the Bible. Had Paine lived to see history and archeology both undergird the text of the Bible to be proven more credible than not only any other religious text but also any other source from antiquity, he may have formed a different opinion. Joseph Lewis is one skeptic who holds strong opposition against many of the Old Testament prophecies and agrees strongly with the assertions made by Paine. Specifically, he attacks the prophecy of Jesus being born of the Virgin Mary. As Lewis himself states that, “it is unnecessary for [him] to show the falsity of the prophecy”(Lewis, 191) he goes on to quote an explanation for the prophet Isaiah that Paine proposed. Paine states that Isaiah was ‘prophesying’ only to gain favor with the king. He therefore, in order to not be accused as a false prophet, took “measures to make this sign appear” and went out “to find a girl with child, or to make her so…”(Paine, Age of Reason). Especially for a great mind like that of Thomas Paine, this is a disappointing opposition to the truth of the Old Testament prophecies. For now I’ll concede to this opposition in order to strengthen the rebuttal against it. Besides the fact that Isaiah lived almost seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, let’s say Isaiah did go out and find a girl with a child in order to make his prophecy come true. There are still dozens of other prophecies concerning the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that neither Isaiah, nor any other prophet could have had any control over their fulfillments. Prophecies foretelling where, when, to whom, in what lineage, and under what circumstances Jesus would be born were completely out of reach for any prophet to conjure up from himself. Most prophecies about the life of Jesus were made hundreds of years prior to his birth. For example: Psalm 22 goes through great detail about the exact way Jesus was to be killed. It described how his hands and feet would be pierced but how no bone in his body would be broken. It describes how his shoulder joints would be dislocated and how his killers would gamble over his clothing. In all four gospels the crucifixion of Jesus matches the exact description given in Psalm 22. Now a skeptic might say that the psalmist could have been writing a description of a crucifixion in general and the specific details pertaining to Jesus’ execution were either inserted or misinterpreted later. Except this psalm was written six hundred years before crucifixion was even invented and used in the Roman Empire.
Hundreds of prophecies concerning the Messiah are found throughout the books of the Old Testament. The Bible was written over a time period of 1,500 years, by forty different authors, on three different continents, and in three different languages. To spell it out, this means that the authors of the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament didn’t get together on this project. Which further means the Old Testament authors had no opportunity to get in coordination with the New Testament authors either. Yet the only prophecies in the Bible that have yet to be fulfilled are those concerning the end of time. The only plausible way a book physically written by man could be this prophetically consistent given these circumstances of time and distance is most effectively explained in 2 Timothy 3:16. Paul writes this epistle to his student Timothy and within it explains “all scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness…”. Someone did the math and came to the conclusion that “the probability of just eight prophecies being fulfilled is one chance in one hundred million billion…if you took this number of silver dollars, they would cover the state of Texas to a depth of two feet.”(Strobel, 183) Louis S. Lapides, M.Div., concluded after studying the prophecies of the Old Testament that, “the odds alone say it would be impossible for anyone to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies…yet Jesus–and only Jesus throughout all of history¬–managed to do it.” It seems that the authors and prophets of the Old Testament somehow were given a supernatural look into what future events would hold in store, most abundantly in the life of the Messiah. Jesus fulfilled every single prophecy regarding the Messiah according to the biographies written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Now these biographies have been shown to be authentic accounts of the original manuscripts and historically credible. The authors themselves have been proven to be tenacious historians with trustworthy integrity. So it would be conclusive to say that with the given evidence, the Bible is a book of prophetic truths supported by its credible historicity as a document from antiquity.
Agnostic opposition has ascertained that Christians refuse to look beyond their unquestioned faith in the Bible. This has always been a foundation for the argument that Jesus was not the Messiah, Jesus did not exist, or God does not exist. Critiques from Thomas Paine in the 1800s to Michael Martin of today have attacked any weak points in the text of the Bible to further advance their challenge. The challenge has been accepted with open arms and an open mind and the Bible has been put to the test. Through the use of the three tests of historiography, the Old and New Testament have been proven to be authentic copies of their original manuscripts. These copies, through archeological excavations, have been proven to be accurate historical accounts written by credible eyewitnesses. And through prophetical evidence throughout the Bible itself, it has proven itself to be a truly reliable, authentic, and credible source. Given the evidence of the Bible’s stunning performance against these challenges, there is only one question left to ask. Can you trust the Bible? William F. Albright, after leading over a hundred Biblical excavations through Palestine stated, "The reader may rest assured that nothing has been found [by archaeologists] to disturb a reasonable faith, and nothing has been discovered which can disprove a single theological doctrine. We no longer trouble ourselves with attempts to 'harmonize' religion and science, or to 'prove' the Bible. The Bible can stand for itself."
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