Urban Legends Part 2
The Bible is FULL OF MISTAKES
2 Tim 3:16, Mark 9:1-2, Luke 9:27-28, Matt 17:1, Isaiah 40:22 Heb 4:12
Introduction
A. I got a couple of very exciting emails this week. I don’t think we are going to have any worries that this financial recession is going to affect us here at Vineyard Community Church.
B. One email I got was from a Christian widow in Nigeria whose husband was a doctor and worked for an embassy. She said in her email that she wants to give several million dollars to a Christian cause because she is dying and childless and she heard of us from an unnamed acquaintance. I want to tell you the name of Vineyard Community Church is really getting around. I am trying to get a hold of the lawyer she told me to contact and it may cost us a few thousand dollars upfront, but that will be more than made up when we get the millions of dollars she is going to give us.
C. Not only that, but I received another email about Microsoft doing some email testing and they are going to send me a check for every person that I forward an email on to as well as money for every person that my friend forwards it on to.
D. Is this awesome or what? I am waiting on the checks now. From the looks on your faces, I would say some of you don’t believe me. Some of you saying, “Dave, you can’t believe everything you read! Those things are urban legends, myths, hoaxes. They aren’t true. There are no dying widows looking to give you millions and you aren’t going to be getting any money from Bill Gates. Don’t believe everything you read!”
E. I know you are right. But if we can’t believe everything we read, how do we make a determination about what we should believe? How do we know what we should believe or not? Now, this may not seem too important in regard to scam emails that have no bearing on our lives anyway, but should we believe the warning labels on medicine?
Safety precautions when dealing with electricity? Should we believe warnings we hear during inclement weather? I am sure all of you would say we need to trust those things, because they can have great bearing on our lives, so it is important that we learn to judge truth from legends and know the difference between things that matter and things that don’t.
F. Now, in the case of hoax emails, we can judge the truthfulness by a quick search on the internet of hoaxes. As it turns out Microsoft is not going to be sending us a check nor is this lady in Nigeria going to be giving us millions of dollars. They are hoaxes, legends.
G. Just like there are urban legends that just seem to never die and are passed around and believed by many, there are many urban legends that are believed about God, Jesus and Christianity. They are passed around without looking to find out if they are true or false. They seem to live on even though they are not true. Before passing them along it would be good to check into them to see if they are true. Today we are going to continue our semon series called “Urban Legends” as we look into another very popular ‘Urban Legend.’ This one is about the Bible. One I am sure you have all heard. It goes like this, “Why should I believe the Bible, it is full of mistakes” Anyone ever hear that or something like it? Yes, pretty popular belief, the question we want to ask today before we pass it around, is this true or false? We are going to start in 2 Tim 3:16 but before we do…
The Bible is a unique book 2 Timothy 3:16
A. The Bible is a unique book. Actually it’s a collection of sixty-six books written over a period of 1500 years by forty authors who were from thirteen countries on three separate continents (Asia, Europe, Africa). And it has been translated into about 1500 languages. Most attacked book, in history of world, berated, scrutinized, studied, and lied about yet it lives on. If it were just another religious book, with a collection of rules and regulations Satan probably wouldn’t be too bothered by it, but this is God’s book. It is amazing to me how people will continually attack this book, but no matter how much they attack it, the Bible still survives. No other book has been put to so much scrutiny and discussion. Still some people are convinced that it has mistakes in it and they deny its ultimate authority. People who have never read the Bible are told that the Bible is full of contradictions.
B. The Bible claims to be the Word of God over 2700 times. “All Scripture is God-breathed…” Maybe we should revise this passage to read, “Most of Scripture is partially God-breathed and profitable (usually) for teaching (except where they are wrong) rebuking (assuming you are certain you have the authority) correcting (if you find the inerrant parts) and training in righteousness (unless it concerns culturally prejudiced ethics) so that the man of God (possibly) may be thoroughly (?) equipped for every good work.”
C. It is extremely important for people to decide whether or not the Bible is full of mistakes. This is because the Bible is our source of most of what we know about God, Jesus Christ, all of what we know concerning salvation and how to attain it, and all of what we know concerning how we should live our lives to glorify God. This book, if true, is one that will affect every aspect of our life now as well as our life eternal.
D. Ok, so just because the Bible says it is the Word of God doesn’t make it so. Anyone or anything can make claims about itself, but that does not make it so. So what are some other things that we can look at that might help us debunk this urban legend that the Bible is full of mistakes?
Are the manuscripts accurate?
A. How can we be sure that what we are reading is actually what God intended through the Apostles? Aren’t the manuscripts we have just handwritten copies of handwritten copies? I mean, maybe over time, things were changed or altered for their own benefit.
B. The truth is that we can be very certain that we have what the apostles and prophets actually wrote. The men who copied Scripture took their job very seriously. They had all kinds of safeguards in place to make sure they produced accurate and reliable copies.
C. “Ok, so they made them as accurate as they could, but I don’t care how many safeguards you make, mistakes still get made.” True, but then we have about 25,000 New Testament manuscripts and fragments to compare together to be more assured of the accuracy of the New Testament. This is far more than other ancient books that are studied today. Most ancient documents have fewer than 25 existing copies. Some of these Bible manuscript copies were written within 35 to 160 years after the originals were written. The time between the historical events and the manuscripts is far better for the New Testament than any other ancient manuscript. For example, the first account of Buddha’s life was written 700 years after his death. The earliest copy of Caesar’s works is 950 years after being written, and the earliest available copy of Plato’s works is dated 1250 years after the original. Yet we do not question the authority of these works! The discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls has also helped confirm the accuracy of this process. Up until the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls, the oldest manuscript we had was dated about 900 AD. In the Dead Sea scrolls there was a nearly complete manuscript of Isaiah dated about 100 BC, that is 1,000 years earlier than anything we had.
F. Even more impressive is the degree of agreement in existing copies. Considering the enormous number of ancient New Testament manuscripts, there are only nominal differences in the 25,000 copies. You would think with all these manuscripts there would be more mistakes, but actually have found variances in only 40 places and these are mostly spelling variations. This compares to thousands of variances in other ancient writings.
G. The ancient manuscripts DO NOT contain mistakes or contradictions.
Are there contradictions in the Bible Mark 9:1-2, Luke 9:27-28, Matt 17:1
A. Let’s take a look at a supposed “contradiction’ in the Bible. Read Mark. Most of the other world religions have one holy book that was written by ONE man, like the Book Mormon, and the Koran. You would expect them to be consistent, since the same man did all the writing, so he should not contradict himself. But the beauty of the Bible is that it is written by forty different men, over a period of one thousand five hundred years. Now that would seem to open up the door for lots and lots of mistakes and contradictions. But there are none!
B. Here we have the four gospels, each written by four different men. Three of them tell about the same story. We call this the Transfiguration. Now read Luke.
1. Mark says 9:2 says ‘after six days”
2. Luke 9:27-28 says “about eight days after these sayings”
3. Matthew 17:1 says six days
4. If it was on Sunday that Jesus said this, He could be referring to the following Sunday and that could be either eight days including the day he spoke and the day they went up the mountain. Or it could be six days, counting the days after He spoke this, and not counting the day they went up the mountain. Both are right.
5. It would be a mistake if one said eight days and another said fifteen days. But eight or six can both be right depending on what day you start counting.
C. Sometimes theologians try to intimate Christians by pointing to their educational background and their ability to read/write Hebrew and Greek. Yet there are many brilliant theologians who have done the unbiased research on the accuracy of the Bible and have found it to be true and without any contradictions. Here are just a few:
1. Dr. Gleason Archer majored in Latin, Greek, French and German at Harvard University. He also taught Hebrew and Aramaic. He holds the B. Divinity from Princeton and a Ph.D. from Harvard as well as a degree in law. He also visited the Holy Land and most of the important archaeological sites. This background enabled him to become expert in the issue of alleged contradictions in Scripture. Regarding alleged errors and contradictions in the Scripture this is what he says, “I have been confronted with just about all the biblical difficulties under discussion in theological circles today. As I have studied the alleged contradictions my confidence in the trustworthiness of Scripture has been repeatedly verified and strengthened by the discovery that every so called contradiction in Scripture, from ancient times until now, has been dealt with in a completely satisfactory manner by the biblical text itself or else by objective archaeological information.” Given the fact that Dr. Archer has graduated from Princeton and Harvard, done extensive studies in archaeology and other areas relative to the biblical text, become fluent in 15 languages, received full training in legal evidences, etc., the above statement can hardly be summarily dismissed.
2. But there are many similar testimonies by other competent scholars. Dr. Wilson received his Ph.D. from Princeton. He is an Old Testament authority and could read the New Testament in nine different languages by the age of 25. In addition, he could repeat from memory a Hebrew translation of the entire New Testament without missing a single syllable and do the same with large portions of the Old Testament. He proceeded to learn 45 languages and dialects. Here is what he says, “No critic has succeeded in proving ONE error in the Scriptures yet.”
3. Another theologian, John Montgomery, who has nine graduate degrees observes, “I myself have never encountered an alleged contradiction in the Bible which could not be cleared up by the use of the original languages of the Scriptures and/or by the use of accepted principals of literary and historical interpretation.” One man studied over 900 so called contradictions and found that each one could be cleared up with unbiased research.
D. It is one thing to attack the Bible as being flawed but it is entirely a different story to prove it has any contradictions or errors. The apparent discrepancies and errors in the Bible constantly “discovered” and exploited by critics for years have been explained and reconciled long ago by conservative scholars. Critics, however, commonly ignore the resolution and continue to present the same old urban legend that the Bible is filled errors and contradictions. Some may accept that it is accurate when dealing with spiritual matters but that it cannot be trusted when dealing with historical or scientific matters.
The Bible is scientifically accurate
A. The Bible is not only spiritually accurate but it is scientifically accurate and way ahead of its time. The bible talked about scientific truths thousands of years before man ever discovered them.
B. Its teaching about creation is still better supported by unbiased scientific research than the theory of evolution will ever be. The world as we know it is best understood as the result of intelligent design rather than the result of ‘random chance.’
C. Students in most public colleges today are given the impression that numerous scientific fallacies are contained within the Bible. However, when the biblical text is carefully examined the reader will quickly discover an amazing scientific accuracy unparalleled by any document of antiquity. In virtually all ancient religious documents it is common to find scientifically inaccurate myths about the nature of the universe and the life forms on planet earth. However, the Bible is unique because of the conspicuous absence of such myths. In fact, throughout the Bible we find scientifically accurate concepts about the physical universe that were not “discovered” by modern scientists until very recent times. Consider some examples of the accuracy of the Bible when it speaks about scientific facts:
1. The stars cannot be numbered. Jeremiah 33:22
2. The stars can speak. Psalm 19:1-4
3. The universe is wearing out. Psalm 102:25-26
4. The earth is round. Isaiah 40:22 It was the so-called educated science that taught that the earth was flat. Yet they try to blame it on the religious people. The Bible clearly taught the earth was round, in several places.
5. The earth rests on nothing Job 26:7 while science of the day said it rested on the back of a giant, or elephants, or the shell of a turtle. It was not until 1543 that science finally declared that the earth rested on nothing, 3,500 after the Bible.
6. The rain cycle Job 36:27-28
7. The ocean has paths in it Psalm 8:8
D. There is no easier way for this legend that the Bible is full of mistakes than to examine the Bible scientifically. Is this legend true that the Bible is full of mistakes? NO. When the Bible speaks on Astronomy, Geology, Biology, Physics, Meterology, Medicine, and Hygiene it is correct and has always been ahead of men’s knowledge of the day.
The Bible is historically accurate
A. When the Bible makes reference to places in history or people groups that existed or wars that took place it has proven to be incredibly accurate as well. Archeological research continues to support history as it is recorded in the Bible without any inaccuracies or errors.
B. Jericho: bring my brick. A case in point involves the city of Jericho.
Back in 1990, Time magazine told about the archeological dig at Jericho. Jericho as you may recall was the city destroyed by Joshua and the Israelites as they entered the Promised Land. The Bible tells us that as they marched around the city on the 7th day, the people gave a mighty shout and the walls came a tumbling down. When the Israelites took the city they weren’t permitted by God to remove anything, everything was to be burned. God decreed that the city was never to be rebuilt again. Now Jericho was rebuilt nearby, but the original city was never allowed to be restored. And because of that centuries later archaeologists found a witness to the Bible’s accuracy. They found that the walls had fallen in a sudden collapse. In other words: the walls didn’t cave in nor were they torn down. Some say it was an earthquake that caused the walls to fall down, well if it was an earthquake it was perfect timing, just as the Israelites were getting ready to attack it! They fell down suddenly! Just like the Bible said. Archeologist also found bushels of grain on the site and a thick layer of soot at the site, which supports the biblical idea that the city was burned, and the city was not looted but everything was left as they were commanded by God to do.
D. In the Old Testament, the people group called the Hittites are mentioned sixty one times. Up until the start of the 20th century, critics of the Bible scoffed at the mention of the Hittite people since there was no evidence in history or archaeology that supported what the Bible said. But in the early 1900’s, evidence of the Hittite people was discovered in the area of Turkey, showing once again the historical accuracy of the Bible.
E. It is to Luke, however, that the skeptics have reserved their harshest criticisms, because he more than any other of the first century writers spoke about specific peoples and places. Yet, surprisingly, once the dust had settled on new inscription findings, it is Luke who has confounded these same critics time and again. For instance:
Luke’s use of the word Meris to maintain that Philippi was a "district" of Macedonia was doubted until inscriptions were found which use this very word to describe divisions of a district.
Luke’s mention of Quirinius as the governor of Syria during the birth of Jesus has now been proven accurate by an inscription from Antioch.
Luke’s usage of Politarchs to denote the civil authority of Thessalonica (Acts 17:6) was questioned, until some 19 inscriptions have been found that make use of this title, 5 of which are in reference to Thessalonica.
Luke’s usage of Praetor to describe a Philippian ruler instead of duumuir has been proven accurate, as the Romans used this term for magistrates of their colonies.
Luke’s usage of Proconsul as the title for Gallio in Acts 18:12 has come under much criticism by secular historians, as the later traveller and writer Pliny never referred to Gallio as a Proconsul. This fact alone, they said, proved that the writer of Acts wrote his account much later as he was not aware of Gallio’s true position. It was only recently that the Delphi Inscription , dated to 52 A.D. was uncovered. This inscription states, "As Lusius Junius Gallio, my friend, and the proconsul of Achaia..." Here then was secular corroboration for the Acts 18:12 account. Yet Gallio only held this position for one year. Thus the writer of Acts had to have written this verse in or around 52 A.D., and not later, otherwise he would not have known Gallio was a proconsul. Suddenly this supposed error not only gives credibility to the historicity of the Acts account, but also dates the writings in and around 52 A.D. Had the writer written the book of Acts in the 2nd century as many liberal scholars suggest he would have agreed with Pliny and both would have been contradicted by the eyewitness account of the Delphi Inscription.
F. Is this legend true that the Bible is full of mistakes? NO. Even historically it is correct.
The Bible is prophetically accurate
A. Could go on and on. There are over 2,000 prophecies accurately fulfilled, names and places foretold, including Jesus birth, and the type of death He would die, written thousands of years before they happened.
B. Prophecies about historical leaders and events accurately foretold. No book has ever been this accurate.
C. The Bible even told of a day when one event could be seen across the entire world at one time. This was impossible at time it was written 2000 years ago, but now with satellite TV no problem!
D. Is this legend true that the Bible is full of mistakes? NO. The thousands of prophecies that have been fulfilled prove it is correct.
E. There are so many reasons person can trust the book but when you boil it all down, here is the main reason.
There are over 2,000 accurately fulfilled predictions in the Bible including over 300 specific details about the life, death, and resurrection of the Messiah that Jesus literally fulfilled. For example, Isaiah 53 beautifully described the life of Christ, 700 years before it took place! Even the town of Jesus’ birth was foretold and there are no prophetic failures. Jesus’ crucifixion was prophesied 1000 years before crucifixion invented. The odds of Jesus, one man just fulfilling 8 prophecies would be 1 in 10 to the 1017 power. in Ps.22:16.
Alexander the Great, and his world conquest was prophesied of in great detail hundreds of years before he was born. It was prophesied that he would be a great warrior from the West, he would have an early death and that his empire would be divided up.
The rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Jewish temple by a King named Cyrus was prophesied 100 years before Cyrus’ was even born! And it was given 100 years before Nebuchadnezar even destroyed Jerusalem. Isaiah 44:28.
The destruction of the great city called Tyre was years before it ever happened. And it was done in great detail: that it would be made bare as a rock, that it would become a place where fisherman dry their nets, and that the rubble from the destroyed city would be throne into the sea and never rebuilt. Every bit of this prophecy was fulfilled.
The Bible prophesied that there would come a day that one event could be seen across the world at one time. This was an impossibility then but now it is easily possible through TV and satellites. The first TV was invented in 1923, 1,900 years after this prophecy was written.
It also contains thousands of other fulfilled prophecies about various men and nations down through the ages. It is truly one of the most powerful works of literature ever written.
The Bible has the power to change human beings. Heb 4:12
A. This book is alive. “The word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
B. Just look around this room. We have people here today that have overcome drug addictions, left careers, restored marriages, and experienced incredible fulfillment because they have continued to grow in their relationship with the Lord through His Word.
C. The Bible is a living tool. It is as sharp as finest surgical scalpel. It has the ability to penetrate our hearts. It has the power to reach into our very souls and expose our hidden thoughts and motives and lay bare our sins and excuses.
The summary
A. You may choose at the end of your investigative processes of the New Testament to say, ‘I choose not to believe it.’ But you may not reserve the right to say, ‘Because there is not enough evidence to believe it.’ There is much evidence to put to rest the urban legend that the Bible is full of mistakes. It is not full of mistakes, and has not contradictions or errors in it anyway. It is correct spiritually, scientifically, historically, medically and prophetically.
B. To deny any portion of God’s Word opens the door to a total breakdown of your faith, if you can’t believe one section of if one section is ‘outdated’ today, what is to stop you from declaring that about other sections of the Bible. This is what is at the root of much of the debate in churches today when it comes to teaching of evolution, the leadership roles of women, spanking children, homosexuality, and divorce. Even though God’s word speaks directly to these issues many people feel that God’s word is outdated, not culturally relevant anymore, full of mistakes, and as a result Christians begin to make up their own rules.
C. Bible inerrancy is not an option if you intend to live a full and abundant Christian life. But you must be prepared to be mocked, looked at as ‘uneducated’ ignorant and just foolish. But if that is all the persecution I have to endure for following Christ, bring it on!
D. Challenging the truth of God’s word is not a new thing. It started back in the garden with Eve and the serpent. Wrestling in doubt over what the Bible teaches is an unnecessary anguish and, in all likelihood, a fruit of the enemy of God who inspired the first doubt in God’s Word with, “Did God really say…?” (Gen. 3:1).
