IS THE BIBLE RELIABLE?
The preacher stood on the street corner preaching to anyone who would listen. A man approached him who looked like he had lived on the street forever. "Can I help you" asked the preacher. "I think you can" said the bum. "Would you like me to tell you about Jesus?" "No." "Would you like me to pray for you?" "No." "If you don’t want me to tell you about Jesus, and you don’t want me to pray with you, how can I help you?" "You can give me your Bible." "Why would you want my Bible if you have no interest in knowing more about Jesus?" "I noticed that the pages of your Bible are very thin; I can use the pages to wrap a cigarette (or a joint)." Wisdom came suddenly to the preacher, who said, "I’ll give you the Bible, if you will agree to read a page (of the Bible) before you smoke it." The bum agreed, took his new Bible, and left. The preacher thought he had seen the last of the bum, but he could get another Bible. Several months passed, and the preacher was on the street corner once again. A man came up to him dressed in a three piece suit. "You don’t know me, do you?" said the man. "No. I’ve never seen you in my life." "Yes you have. I’m the man you gave a Bible to (about four months ago)." The preacher couldn’t believe his eyes and ears. "What happened? Tell me what happened." "Well, I smoked Matthew, and then I smoked Mark, and then I smoked Luke -- and then John smoked me."
The Christian faith is based upon a single fact; that God has revealed himself to mankind and that His Special Revelation (the Bible) is accurate. We have all learned this truth from an early age:
Jesus loves me this I know, for the BIBLE tells me so…
Suppose that you were on an internet chat site and met someone online. The only thing that you could know about that person is what they revealed to you about themselves. Likewise, we can know a lot about God by just looking at the world around us (General Revelation), but the best way to know who God is and what He is like is to read God’s Special Revelation to us in the Bible. We know that God does not lie, so what He says to us about himself is the truth.
Psa 19:7 The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple. 8 The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes. 9 The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous. 10 They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.
Today we are continuing in our series on Hot Topics. Last week we asked the question “How can you know that God exists?” The next logical question that is often asked is this, “OK, if God DOES exists than what is He like? There are lots of different religions out there today to choose from and all say they are based on a revelation from God. How can you be so sure that you are right?” In other words, is the Bible reliable?
There are some today that believe that the Bible cannot be trusted. There are 3 common objections that come up, especially when you are talking about the New Testament and the life of Jesus:
1. The CROWDS made it all up –
Some believe that Jesus was just another prophet and a good moral teacher. They believe that He never claimed to be God but that the crowds who saw Him simply misunderstood his message and attributed divinity to him. This was not an uncommon thing in the surrounding Gentile world. Remember this story:
Act 14:8 In Lystra there sat a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked. 9 He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed 10 and called out, "Stand up on your feet!" At that, the man jumped up and began to walk. 11 When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, "The gods have come down to us in human form!" 12 Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. 13 The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them.
However, the Bible is very clear that Jesus did not claim to be just another prophet but to be God incarnate. His claims to divinity are clear:
John 8:58 "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!" 59 At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
John 10:27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father , who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. 30 I and the Father are one ." 31 Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him 32 but Jesus said to them, " I have shown you many great miracles from the Father . For which of these do you stone me?" 33 "We are not stoning you for any of these," replied the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God."
It was because Jesus claimed to be God that he was crucified. The charge of blasphemy was the only thing that, if Jesus had only been a man, he would have been guilty of.
John 19:6 As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, "Crucify! Crucify!" But Pilate answered, "You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him." 7 The Jews insisted, "We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God."
When Jesus appears to the disciples after rising from the dead he accepts Thomas’ worship:
John 20:28 Thomas said to him, " My Lord and my God !" 29 Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
According to the eyewitnesses of Jesus life, He never claimed to be just another man. He claimed to be God. Either He was lying or He was insane or He was who He claimed to be. There was no case of mistaken identity. The crowds did not simply make it up.
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. – CS Lewis
2. The DISCIPLES made it all up -
If the crowds did not make it up, some will then go on to argue that perhaps the disciples who wrote the New Testament made it all up. Perhaps Jesus never claimed to be God but the disciples simply said that He did. After His death the disciples got together and created the myth of Jesus’ divinity.
Those who wrote the New Testament were very clear that they were not just writing fiction. They were not seeking to invent a new religion around a historic figure. They were reporting the truth and they were very concerned to make sure that absolutely everything they wrote had actually occurred.
1Jn 1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched--this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
Some will argue that their claims are not trustworthy. Just because someone CLAIMS to be writing the truth doesn’t mean that they actually ARE writing the truth. For example, the Koran claims to be the truth. What is the difference? How do you know that what the disciples wrote actually happened?
For me the difference lies in the fact that the ministry of Jesus was PUBLIC. If the disciples had lied and wrote things that were not true then their testimony would have been rejected because the words and events they wrote about were heard and seen by the people who were eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus. Peter was able to say to the crowds on Pentecost that they themselves knew what had happened because they had all seen it and were eyewitnesses to the facts.
Act 2:22 Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.
There is no way that the New Testament, which was written while those who had witnessed the life of Jesus were still living, could have gotten away with error. If false events or statements had been included that were false then the living witnesses, who were hostile to the cause of Christ, would have pointed out all the mistakes. To claim that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead would be pointless if there were people living who knew that Lazarus had never died or been risen.
Suppose someone were to write a book inaccurately claiming that someone famous had done great miracles involving many thousands of people. Would it sell? No, because the people who knew the truth would be able to say that it never happened and that the book was a hoax. It would be like writing a book claiming that Kennedy had never been president. We see this reaction with people today who claim that the Holocaust never happened. There are those who can step forward to say “I was there in Auschwitz! Here are the numbers on my arm. I know that it happened.”
One of the greatest arguments for the reliability of the bible is that those who wrote it were willing to die for their faith. They suffered and died cruel deaths for what they believed in. You might argue that there are many people today who are willing to die for a cause that they believe in. People have burned themselves alive and blown themselves up for what they believed in. Is this really so different?
The answer is YES! The difference is that the disciples KNEW the truth. People are willing to die for something that they believe in but who wants to suffer and die for something that you KNOW is a lie.
When Jesus died on the cross their hopes and dreams died with Him. They were completely defeated. Only the resurrection of Jesus could have transformed this defeated bunch of misfits into a group that would change the entire Roman World in a single generation. If Jesus did not rise from the dead they had nothing to gain and everything to lose.
3. The EARLY CHURCH made it all up –
So if neither the crowds nor the disciples made it up then perhaps it was the early church that made it all up. Perhaps they took the true historical account of a man named Jesus who died in Jerusalem and, over hundreds of years, changed the truth into the myth and legend that we now call the New Testament.
This cannot be the case because the timeline from when the events occurred to when we have the earliest actual documents is too small. The Greek New Testament, upon which all modern translations of the bible are based, contains word for word what the ancient documents recorded. Any and all grammatical discrepancies between them are noted and taken into account. There are more than 5000 Greek copies of parts of the whole of the New Testament in existence today.
WORK WHEN WRITTEN EARLIEST COPY TIME LAPS NUMBER OF COPIES
Herodotus 488–428 BC AD 900 1,300 years 8
Thucydides c.460–400 BC AD 900 1,300 years 8
Tacitus AD 100 AD 1,100 1,000 years 20
Caesar’s Gallic War 58–50 BC AD 900 950 years 9–10
Livy’s Roman History 59 BC– AD 17 AD 900 900 years 20
New Testament AD 40–100 AD 130 30–310 years 5,000+ Greek
10,000 Latin and 9,300 others
F.J.A. Haught, one of the greatest textual critics who ever lived, said this: ‘In the variety and fullness of the evidence on which it rests, the text of the New Testament stands absolutely and unapproachably alone amongst ancient prose writings” - and no secular historian would disagree with that conclusion.
The first century Christians would meet on a fixed day to read the manuscripts so many different copies were produced. Later these manuscripts were translated into Latin (for Gaul, Spain and Italy), Coptic and Syriac.
The time between the events and the time that they were recorded is extremely close. Jesus died in about 33 AD. 1 Thessalonians was written from Corinth in AD 50. We know this because of the Jews being expelled from Rome in AD 49 and the fact that Gallio became proconsul in Achaia in AD 51 (1 Thess 3:6). As Paul was executed by Nero (according to early church historian Eusebius) then 2 Timothy must have been written between AD 63-68. Mark was the first of the Gospels written through Peter in the early 50’s. John was written by the Apostle John before AD 70 because he says "there “is” a gate in Jerusalem..."
The fact that the gospels contain the same material yet are composed differently shows that the content of the gospels were already being circulated immediately after Christ's death. The disciples had kept notes as good Jewish students would with a Rabbi. Some wonder why the gospels, while they have the same stories, place the stories in different order. This in itself shows that there was not collaboration between the authors in putting the Gospels together.
If you call together 4 eyewitnesses of a crime into a court of law their stories are different perspectives of the same event. There is often slight variation. If they all say exactly the same thing using the same words then you have to question their testimony because they may have gotten together before the trial to collaborate and make sure they all say the same thing.
By the year 100 AD, early church fathers such as Polycarp, Clement and Ignatius were quoting extensively from the New Testament. Almost the whole of the New Testament can be pieced together from their writings. If the Bible had been changed by the early church then it would have had to have been during the lifetime of the first disciples when eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus were still living.
In addition to this, there are a number of external non-Christian sources that also claim that the Bible is accurate. Ancient writings testify to the fact that Jesus actually lived. External evidence also shows that characters, places and events surrounding the writing of the Gospels are accurate.
The Koran, the Book of Mormon and other religious books are hard to prove historically because they speak of “heavenly” encounters in private. They say they are true but where is the eyewitness testimony? In the New Testament God walked amongst us and spoke in a way that was public and documented from many sources. This sets it apart.
Suppose I claimed to be God. There are lots of people today who claim to be all kinds of wild things. If I claimed to be God then you would think I was crazy. Suppose I did great miracles. Then you might be more willing to believe but you would probably still doubt somewhat. But suppose I claimed that I was going to die and that my death would be public and verified by experts. Then I claimed that after 3 days I would rise from the dead of my own accord and then reveal myself to hundreds of people to verify I was living again. That would validate my words and claims. This is what Jesus did.
Sherlock Holmes said this, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
“We are faced, then, with a frightening alternative. The man we are talking about was and is just what he said or else insane or something worse. Now, it seems to me obvious that he was neither insane nor a fiend; and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that he was and is God.” -- C.S. Lewis
