Getting into God’s Word (2)
Scott Bayles, pastor
Blooming Grove Christian Church: 1/13/2013
If you weren’t here last week, I started off this year talking about the Bible.
Like it says in your bulletin, the Bible is the most-read, most-loved and most controversial book of all time. Almost everybody has one and everybody has questions about it. If you’ve ever wanted to know more about this ancient book, I’m glad you’re here and I hope I can help answer some of those questions this month. I also want to help you discover how the Bible can make a difference in your life!
Last Sunday, I talked about our need for the Bible, the nourishment that we can derive from the Bible, and the nature of the Bible. The Bible is unlike any other book ever published or printed because the Bible contains the very words and thoughts of God. The Bible is God’s book and God’s voice in the world. The Bible “never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21 NIV).
The question today is—how do we know that?
Just because the Bible claims to be God’s Word, doesn’t mean it is. I came across a great intragram picture on Facebook the other day with a quote that said, “That problem with quotes on the internet is that it’s difficult to verify their authenticity.” And this quote was attributed to none other than Abraham Lincoln. The best part was the comment some girl made on the picture: “Did they even have the internet back then?”
There are a growing number of skeptics and scholars who believe the Bible is nothing more than a collection of myths and legends; that it’s no more reliable than internet quotes attributed to Abraham Lincoln.
I read about a new believer that had an encounter with one such person. She was flying home from a business trip to Atlanta when the fellow next to her sneered at the Bible she was reading and asked if she really believed it? “Of course,” she answered. “Even the story about Jonah getting swallowed by a whale?” he asked. “Sure,” she said. “And how exactly did a man survive in the belly of whale for three days?” he continued interrogating. “I don't know, but I'll find out when I get to heaven,” she said. “What if Jonah isn’t there?” the man retorted. And without missing a beat, she replies, “Then I guess you'll have to ask him for me!”
Max Lucado has commented, “The Bible has been banned, burned, scoffed, and ridiculed. Scholars have mocked it as foolish. Kings have branded it as illegal. A thousand times over, the grave has been dug and the dirge has begun, but somehow the Bible never stays in the grave. Not only has it survived, it has thrived. It’s the single most popular book in all of history.”
So what is that’s made the Bible so enduring? Has God really spoken? And if so, how do we know that the Bible is really God’s Word. Just as most Bibles have a collection of maps in the back to help you discover biblical locations, I’d like to give you a MAP that will help you discover the uniqueness and reliability of the Bible itself.
This MAP is an acronym I borrowed from Hank Hanegraaff that stands for Manuscripts, Archeology, and Prophecy. If you can remember the word MAP, you’ll be able to chart the authenticity and reliability of the Bible.
• MANUSCRIPTS
First, The M in MAP stands for manuscript evidence. Bahrt Erdman, in his book Misquoting Jesus, claims that the process of copying and recopying the Bible over the centuries has resulted in so many mistakes and changes that we can’t even be sure that the Scriptures we have are anything like the ones originally written. Critics of Christianity claim that the transmission of the Bible over the ages is no more reliable than a two-thousand-year-old game of telephone.
Certainly we have to admit that as fallible human beings, we make mistakes. Some of the typos that have been caught in modern printings of the Bible are even kind of humorous. For example:
• In what’s become known as the “Basketball Bible” typesetters accidentally said that “hoops” were used in the construction of the Tabernacle instead of “hooks.”
• In a 1631 edition of the KJV, the seventh of the Ten Commandments was accidentally printed: “Thou shalt commit adultery!”
• A 1964 printing, which I call the Fashionista Bible, said in 1 Timothy 2:9 that women were to “adorn themselves in modern apparel” instead of “modest apparel.”
• My favorite is one the Bible Society of South Africa reported. An early draft of their translation of the Bible into Southern Sotho (one of many South African dialects), the typesetter typed "jwala" (which means "beer") instead of "jwalo" (which is means "so"). The resulting verse in Genesis 1:9 read, “And God said: Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place. . . . And it was beer.”
The point is—none of these typos or mistakes diminish the reliability of the Scriptures in any way. And mistakes like these are easily caught and corrected by comparing them with the thousands of other Bible translations that don’t make these mistakes.
It works the same way with the ancient manuscripts of the Bible. While the original autographs have been lost in the sands of time, the Bible has been wonderfully preserved. The Jewish scribes were meticulous in their copying of the Old Testament Scriptures. They counted the number of letters in each line of the text and guarded it against error. We have more than 14,000 manuscript copies of the Old Testament, some dating as far back as 250 B.C., and the New Testament is better preserved. Today, we have more than 5,300 ancient manuscripts of the Greek New Testament. There are also more than 10,000 ancient Latin manuscripts and 9,300 other early copies or translations. Thus we have nearly 25,000 early sources establishing the reliability of the New Testament. And our earliest New Testament manuscripts dates from A.D. 125, which is less than 60 years after the New Testament was completed.
To put it in perspective by compression, Homer’s Iliad was written around the same time as Isaiah, and we have only 643 copies, the oldest of which is dates 500 years after the Homer died. The earliest copy we have of the writings of Plato date 1200 years after his death and we have only 7 manuscripts. The earliest manuscripts of Aristotle’s writings are 1400 years removed and only 49 copies exist. No other ancient writing is anywhere near as well preserved as the Bible.
The science of textual criticism has demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Bible has been accurately and reliably handed down generation to generation. The Bibles says, “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever” (Isaiah 40:8 NIV) and I believe the overwhelming manuscript evidence testifies to this fact. So, remember M stands for manuscripts. Furthermore, the A in our MAP stands for Archeology.
• ARCHEOLOGY
Some years ago a little group of freethinkers in Scotland decided on a plan whereby they might reveal, as they put it, the inaccuracies of Scripture and thus convince people that the Bible was not really the Word of God. One member was given the task of going to Asia Minor, southern Europe, and the islands of the Mediterranean to gather evidence that would disprove the historical account given in the books of Luke and Acts. The young man chosen for this task was renowned archeologist and historian Sir William Ramsay. In the course of his investigation, he not only found every historical fact absolutely accurate as presented in those two books, but he returned to Scotland a committed Christian and spent his life writing in defense of the Scriptures! He wrote, “Luke’s historical accuracy, supported by archeological evidence, provides credibility to his depiction of Jesus Christ and the accuracy of his writings… the book of Luke is unsurpassed in respect to its trustworthiness.”
The Bible says, “For we were not making up clever stories when we told you about the powerful coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We saw his majestic splendor with our own eyes” (2 Peter 1:16 NLT). The archeological evidence continues to confirm that Peter and the rest of the apostles weren’t just making up clever stories.
Just recently (July 2011), archeologists unearth the city of Gath, home to the bad guys of the Bible—the Philistines. Included in the discovery were the remains of temple just like the one Samson destroyed in Judges, and the famous name of Goliath.
A century ago the Hittites were unknown outside of the Old Testament, and critics claimed that they were a figment of biblical imagination. In 1906, however, archaeologists digging east of Ankara, Turkey, discovered the ruins of Hattusas, the ancient Hittite capital, as well as its vast collection of Hittite historical records.
Scholars also rejected the existence of the Pool of Siloam, mentioned by Jesus in John 9:6 until 2004, that is, when it was accidentally unearthed by construction workers repairing a large water pipe south of Jerusalem. A biblical story once considered pure fiction, is again shown to be grounded in history.
These discoveries, and literally thousands more like them, demonstrate that the people, places, and particulars of the Bible are rooted in real-life history. Contrast that with other books that claim to be from God and a clear distinction arises.
Take the book of Mormon for instance. The book of Mormon claims to comparable to the Bible and the “most correct book on earth.” It was supposedly written in reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics and tells the story of two great civilizations that migrated to America from the Middle East and settled in the land of Moron. The problem? No archeological evidence for a language such as reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics, no archeological evidence that these two civilizations existed, no archeological evidence for the land of Moron, no anthropological evidence that native American’s migrated from the Middle East. In short, there’s not a shred of evidence to support a single claim made by the book of Mormon.
Yet, the archeologist’s spade continues to accumulate evidence for the trustworthiness of Scripture! Finally, the P in our MAP stands for prophecy.
• PROPHECY
The final test of the Bible’s reliability is Prophecy, or predictive ability. The Bible records predictions of events that could not be known or predicted by chance or common sense. Let’s face it, we can barely predict the weather; the ability to accurately predict future events decades or even centuries before they occur is proof positive of the Bible’s divine inspiration.
One of the most amazing prophecies of the Bible is found in the book of Daniel. In chapter 2, King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream which Daniel offers to explain for the King. He says, “There are no wise men, enchanters, magicians, or fortune-tellers who can reveal the king’s secret. But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and he has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in the future” (Daniel 2:27-28 NLT). Daniel then explains that the dream prophecies the rise and fall of four subsequent nations—Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. He also predicts that God would establish and everlasting Kingdom during the reign of the fourth empire. The next five hundred years of history played out exactly as Daniel predicted.
Daniel then predicted exactly when the Messiah would come—after the temple in Jerusalem was rebuilt, but before it was destroyed for a second time, roughly five hundred years later. In fact, since Christ is the culminating theme of the Bible, it should not surprise us that the majority of Old Testament prophecies are about Jesus. More than one hundred prophecies found in the Old Testament point toward the coming Messiah, and Jesus fulfilled every single one of them—being from the family of David, being born in Bethlehem, entering Jerusalem on a Donkey, being betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, crucified, buried in a rich man’s tomb, and countless others.
In the book Science Speaks, statistician Peter Stoner calculated the probability of just eight of these prophecies being fulfilled by one person by chance or coincidence. Based on the laws of chance and probability, the odds are 1:1017 (a one with seventeen zeros following it)! You have better odds of hitting a jackpot in the Illinois State Lottery… twice in a row! Predictive Prophecy is proof of the Bible’s divine inspiration that ought to convince even the most hard-boiled skeptic! In the words of Jesus, “I have told you these things before they happen so that when they do happen, you will believe” (John 14:29 NLT).
Conclusion
I hope you can commit this MAP to memory—manuscripts, archeology, prophecy—so that you can be confident that when you read the words of Scripture, you aren’t just reading the words of men, but the words of God. One of the most convincing proofs that the Bible is God’s Word is the difference that it makes in people’s lives.
Every Sunday, people assemble for worship whose lives have been transformed by the Word of God. They are living proof of the truth of God’s Word. They have learned the Bible is addressed to them and they’ve built their lives on its teaching. It’s addressed to you too.
Next week, we’ll have a guest preacher—Chance will be here to talk to us about the mission in Sierra Leone Africa. But the week after that, we’ll talk about how to read the Bible for all it’s worth.
Invitation
In the meantime, I want to invite you to get into God’s Word this week and discover how the Bible can make an impact on your life. When you get into God’s Word and get God’s Word into you, you will never be the same. If you need help with that, then come talk to me while we stand and sing.
