Dear friends:

Last night I spent some time conversing with a very bright, well-read, "church-going" fellow.  The topics were the world situation and spiritual truths.

Some of his ideas were based on the Bible and true, but some of it was based on other books, and false.  It was obvious he had been reading some New Age books.  In a nice way, I countered his New Age statements with Scripture.  The sheer power of the Word of God was evident as it caused him to become silent and retreat on those issues.

Later, my wife and I  were discussing the encounter and we decided that the man loves knowledge but soaks up everything he reads, with no filter.  We must filter everything through the Word of God.  The statement is true: "Test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21, NLT).  If we do not, we can become captive to all kinds of deception and error.

This reminded me that many, or most, church-goers really do not know what the Bible says and are vulnerable.  They do not study it on their own and many get little if any Scripture at their Sunday morning service.  Most do not realize the total accuracy, authority, trustworthiness, and power of the Word of God.

For that reason, I am beginning a short series of messages titled, "The Authority of the Bible."  It is taken from my recent book, "The Top Ten Mysteries of the Bible (PublishAmerica, 2006), available at http://www.choicesforliving.com/mysteries.htm

Jim
_________________________________________

The Authority of the Bible -- Part I

The Bible is shrouded in mystery, from the front to the back.  Its basic message is designed for anyone to easily understand, yet serious seekers are offered endless opportunities for exploration and greater spiritual insights and understanding. 
 
Most people have at least one copy, maybe more, but the actual contents are a great mystery to most of them.  Many people who have a copy of the Bible have never read it.  And when they do read it, many people do not understand it.  That’s where this book will help.
 
This mysterious book, the Bible, is the best seller of all time, of all books anywhere.  It is referred to as “the Book of books.” 
 
The Bible has been translated into more languages than any book in the world -­ as of 2005, at least parts of it into 2,403 languages, with 1,640 in progress, according to Wycliffe International Bible translators.  By contrast, the widely popular, world famous movie classic, Gone With the Wind, was translated into only 35 or less languages, but this is second to The Jesus Film, a full-length movie on the life of Christ taken word-for-word from the Gospel of Luke, one of the books of the Bible.  The Jesus Film is the most translated film of any type in history­at this writing it is already in 952 languages, increasing constantly.  So far The Jesus Film has been used to bring over 6 billion exposures to the gospel in 228 countries.  This record-breaking film was a vision of my dear friend, the late Dr. Bill Bright, founder and president of Campus Crusade for Christ International. 
 
The Bible is believed to be the first book in history ever translated, from Hebrew to Greek.
 
The word Bible means “books.”  Actually, the Bible is a collection of books ­- 66 of them, all inspired by God but written by some 40 different authors.
 
Every valid belief must have a factual basis.  There are millions of opinions on almost any subject, but they are only uninformed and meaningless unless they are rooted in fact.  The Bible is the root source of the faith of a plurality of the world’s population.  This raises a major question . . .
 

Is the Bible trustworthy?

Is the Bible a factual revelation of the Creator of the universe, or just a collection of human opinions and myths? 
 
Are there objective reasons why millions of people, including many thousands of scholars, believe in the Bible’s total reliability, or is it just a matter of blind faith and emotion?  You need to know.  The entire validity of Judaism, which is based on the Old Testament, and Christianity, which is based on both the Old and New Testaments, rests upon the answer. 
 
If it is not trustworthy, it is the greatest hoax ever fostered upon the human race, and deserves our total scorn.  If it is trustworthy, it demands our utmost attention and respect.  Only one attitude is incomprehensible ­- indifference, to strangely ignore the possibility that the Bible may contain the exclusive answers to this life and the next, as it claims. 
 
One day a man asked his friend, “Do you know that the two biggest problems in this world are ignorance and apathy.”
 
The friend frowned and grumbled, “I don’t know and I don’t care.”
 
Don’t be like this poor fellow!  Don’t be ignorant or apathetic.
 
Interestingly, most people, even the apathetic and indifferent, have an opinion about the Bible, although it is often based on emotion or hearsay.  But surprisingly few have systematically examined the evidence.
 
I once asked myself the question about the trustworthiness of the Bible, and then spent the next 40 years discovering the answer.  I’ll tell you my conclusion and will summarize the extensive research generally agreed upon by thousands of scholars. 
 
Is the Bible trustworthy?  The answer is a resounding yes, for the compelling reasons below.
 

The Bible is unique

Scholars who have studied the sacred writings of the various religions report that the Bible is unique and distinctive for many reasons.  Here are a few:
 
·        It was written over a period of about 1,600 years, or about 40 generations.
 
·        It was written in different places on three different continents: Asia, Africa, and Europe.
 
·        It was written in three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
 
·        Its 40 authors were from different walks of life, including kings, fishermen, scholars, statesmen, and peasants.
 
·        It includes hundreds of subjects.
 
Yet with the above incredible diversity, it has an amazing unity.  This continuity and consistency, along with other characteristics and content as described below, make the Bible logically beyond human ability to accomplish.  The presence and influence of an external Guiding Hand are necessary.
 
Another unique and undoubtedly miraculous feature is the Bible’s survivability.  It has withstood attacks not given to any other book, vicious attacks from despots, doubters, and skeptics throughout the ages and around the world. 
 
Despots hate the freedom it gives to the human spirit and the worship it reserves for God instead of the state or its leader.  From the days of the Roman emperors to present-day fascists, communists, and religious tyrants, the Bible has been outlawed and attempts have been made to stamp it out.  Over 200 years ago, the famous French writer Voltaire predicted the Bible’s soon demise.  After his death, the Geneva Bible Society used Voltaire’s printing press to publish more Bibles! 
 
“God cannot be mocked,” the Bible says.  Ironically, sometime after he died, Voltaire’s body was stolen and placed on a garbage heap, his brains and heart missing.  But the Bible’s popularity only flourished.
 
Doubters are often motivated by the Bible’s moral imperatives.  One popular modern-day intellectual and professor admitted the Bible’s truth but then said he was forced to reject it because to accept it would condemn his “lifestyle.”  It was known by some of the students that he was involved with immorality.  That professor has since passed on into eternity.
 
Intellectual pride is a factor and has become institutionalized, permeating many universities, including theological seminaries.  Peer pressure forces almost blind adherence to the false hypotheses of “higher criticism” to try to prove the Bible writers as either ignorant or liars.  Upon receiving solid evidence from an unusually bright student that a popular such theory was in error, one theology professor agreed but then shockingly replied, “But I have been teaching it too long to change.” 
 
Human pride causes much opposition.  The idea is abhorrent to many that their moral condition would cause the need for mercy from the Supreme Being, a need of every human, according to the Bible.  They see their outwardly ethical behavior as qualifying them for favor from Almighty God, in a sense making them His moral equal, or Him their debtor.

In spite of these unparalleled attacks to destroy it, the Bible has survived as the most authentic and accurate ancient document in existence, based on both age and number of original manuscripts available.  For example, Homer’s Iliad has 643 manuscripts available, with the earliest copy written about 400 years after the original.  The book, Natural History, by Pliney Secundus, has seven manuscript copies available with a 750-year gap between the earliest copy and the original text.  There are only about 10 good manuscripts of Caesar’s Gallic Wars available and the earliest was written over 900 years after the original.  By contrast, there are currently 24,970 manuscript copies of the New Testament available, with one early fragment written only 50 years from the original, whole books with only a 100-year gap, and the entire New Testament with only a 225-250-year gap from the original text to the earliest available copy.
 
Shakespeare’s 37 plays are only about 200 years old but there are said to be about 100 significant textual variants that are a subject of scholarly dispute.  By contrast, the New Testament is about 1,900 years old and it is estimated that there are only 20 or less such passages.  Do we ever hear doubt of the reliability of Shakespeare’s work?  The Bible critics blatantly use a double standard.
 
Little-known fact: If the same tests were applied to all available ancient literature, the Bible would clearly be hailed as by far the most reliable, or else all other ancient literature, including the classics, would have to be rejected as unreliable!


To be continued...