Why We Believe 2.4
Why We Believe 2.0-The Reliability of The Scriptures
Thank you for coming this morning. We are continuing are study of Why we Believe. Why do we believe in God, that Jesus is God, and The Resurrection to date. We believe because its true and why do we believe its true? Because of the evidence. Does the evidence prove that God exists or the Jesus rose from the dead? No. But as we discussed we don’t live our lives based on proof, because very few things can be proven to be true. We have to have faith, we have to believe in people and things in order to live this life. How do we decide who and what to believe in? The evidence.
That’s what we base our decisions on in everyday life and that should be what we base our decisions on what we believe about God, Jesus, The Resurrection and what we are going to talk about today. The Bible. Can we trust the Bible? How reliable is it? Do we know if the words we are reading today are the same words written thousands of years ago by prophets, kings, judges, shepherds, and apostles? Have you ever thought of that? How do we know it's accurate? Is it by faith, if so what kind of faith? A blind faith or is it a faith based on evidence? What if someone asks you why you believe the Bible is accurate or true or God’s word or something other than a bunch of words made up by men that could have been altered through the centuries?
What if someone who had never read the bible asked you what it is? How would you describe it? What do you see it being? Think about the Old Testament and the New Testament. Some have described it as God’s love letter to us, God’s instruction manual for living, a way to get to know him. The inspired word of God, The Truth or Gods Truth, how to get to heaven. So, the question is whether the bible is a reliable, historical document and that it has the same words as the original writings of the authors. So, this is an important question for us. For everyone really. But first for our own personal faith. For our benefit to know whether it is what it claims to be. God's written word.
Timothy 3:16-17 says “ All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
So many people miss the point of the bible. When it says we should do these things and avoid these other things, its not because God doesn’t want us to have any fun as many people believe. But it is for our benefit. Its to protect us and provide for us the best way to live. And who would know better than our creator? If we follow its teaching, it will bless us. Not the bible or the words themselves, but God who is the giver of these words. By obeying him we are reflecting God and living the way we were meant to live. We will be blessed as will others around us because of who God is. Its also one of the ways God reveals himself to us. It shows He wants us to be in the right relationship with him so we can enjoy all of the benefits that relationship offers here and now and for eternity. What are some benefits of being in the right relationship with God? What are some of the benefits or incentives of being a Christian. Things like Forgiveness, Heaven, joyful, purpose/ meaning of life, worldview, how to treat others, how to serve, are all important. If you want to get practical, those are some pretty practical incentives to believe. What about the disincentives to believe? Is there a cost to our faith? Or should there be? Denying yourself, taking up your cross, obeying God, serving others, giving our money to those who need it most, as well as possible persecution are all vital to understand and practice.
So, there are important life-altering issues found in the bible. So, knowing we are reading the accurate and true words from God is kind of important. It’s kind of a big deal. It's where we learn about The Gospel, His Plan of redemption. So, The Bible has to be a reliable document for us to have confidence in our faith. The good news is God has promised to protect and preserve his word.
Matthew 5:18 says “For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”
Matthew 24:35 says “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”
God has made it clear that His word will survive. I think it’s really interesting how God chose to preserve His word. He chose to use human language and scribes to record and preserve his words as he intended. When the world of History and Academia look at any ancient text they look for specific factors in determining its reliability or credibility.
An important factor that is considered is how close were the Authors both geographically and chronologically to the events they record. Think about the New Testament, Jesus’ life, the early church and the letters were all written by eyewitnesses or contemporaries of the eyewitnesses. If they weren’t an eyewitness like Luke, for example, they made it clear that actual eyewitnesses were the source of the information they had written.
God was very selective in who recorded his words and that they would have firsthand knowledge or access to people who could confirm the facts to them before it was written. That’s important. We know how important eyewitnesses are in a court of law.
So does anyone know where the original manuscripts called Autographs are stored? Those are the only ones truly inspired by God. Surprise! This is a trick question. There are no originals in existence. The materials used for paper and ink just did not last and would deteriorate over time. So how then can we know what we read today is accurate? So how did we get what we read today in the bible? So what are we reading today? If we don’t have the original manuscripts? We read printed copies of handwritten copies. We are kind of spoiled today if we want to preserve a document. What do we do? Save it on some sort of drive. How did they preserve the scriptures? Hand copying them. What sorts of problems do you see in using this method? Copying problems, additions, and subtractions, how do we know they are just as the originals if we don’t have the originals?
It's pretty incredible how God ensured the accuracy of the words and the safe transmission of His word over the centuries. Think about the task God had to do using humans to do this without the printing press. So how did he do it? He called an entire nation of people who took the Book of the Law very seriously. Deuteronomy 6:6-9 says “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”
The attitude of the Jewish People toward the Law of God became such a part of their identity and culture that a class of Jewish Scholars called the Sopherim, (meaning scribes) arose between the 5th and 3rd Centuries BC. This group became the custodians of the ancient manuscripts and dedicated themselves to preserving and producing copies. This group was followed by the Talmudic Scribes 100-500 AD and the Masoretes Scribes from 500-900 AD. These just aren’t your run-of-the-mill scribes. They had a whole ceremony and meticulous process for copying each manuscript. Their day started by a ceremonial washing of their entire body, then garb himself in full Jewish dress before sitting at his desk. There was an entire set of rules for the scribes to follow:
- The scroll must be written on the skin of a clean animal.
- Each skin must contain a specific number of columns equal throughout the entire book.
- Each column must extend no less than 48 lines & no more than 60.
- The column breadth must consist of exactly 30 letters.
- The space of a thread must appear between every consonant.
- A breadth of 9 consonants had to be inserted between each section
- A space of 3 lines had to appear between each book.
- Every word had to be copied letter for letter.
- The scribe had to count the number of times each letter occurred in each book and compare it to the original.
- If a manuscript was found to have just one error, it was discarded.
They took it very seriously. It is amazing how God inspired those scribes to do such great work but we really had no way of confirming the accuracy of their work until fairly recently. Before 1947 the oldest complete Hebrew manuscript dates to 900 AD. So, what happened in 1947? Anyone? What was discovered? The Dead Sea Scrolls. Does anyone know how they were discovered? There were 223 manuscripts in the caves on the West side of the Dead Sea. Paleographers dated them around 125 BC. These manuscripts were 1000 years older than any previously known manuscript. That’s not even the best part. Once they were translated and compared to modern versions of the Old Testament, they were proven to be identical, word for word in more than 95% of the text. The 5% variation was mainly of spelling or style variations, none of which altered the meaning of the text or brought the integrity of the manuscript into question. So, think about this. 1000 years of copying by hand created nearly perfect copies. That fact is indisputable. Do you think God had a hand in that? This is hard evidence why we can believe the scriptures to be the same as God gave the early Israelites. So that’s the way God preserved the Old Testament.
So, what about the New Testament? Hebrew scribes did not copy the New Testament. But it’s interesting how God preserved The New Testament. The way that Secular Historians & academics evaluate the textual reliability of ancient literature is according to two standards: 1. What time interval is between the original and the earliest copy and 2. How many manuscripts are available to be examined? Here are some examples of ancient literature:
Author Book Date Written Earliest copies Gap Copies
Julius Caesar Gallic Wars 100-44BC AD900 1000 years 10
Homer Iliad 800BC 400BC 400 years 643
Plato Writings 400BC AD900 1300 years 7
Herodotus History 480-425BC AD900 1350 years 8
So looking at these examples and considering the criteria used for reliability which ancient text would you consider the most reliable? So the question is how does the New Testament compare to the other known ancient texts?
Author Book Date Written Earliest Copies Gap Copies
Various New Test AD40-100 Portions 100-150 25-50 years 24,000
So you can see that the Bible is in a different league than any other ancient texts known to man. So, what about this question? If we don’t have the original documents of the New Testament, how do we know it is accurate? (mind experiment) The Bible has had its enemies throughout the years. Skeptics have tried to refute it, and Dictators burn it, but God’s word has survived and thrived. It is the most widely distributed and bestselling book in the history of the world. It was the first book to be printed on the printing press.
The Bible has been translated into 2200 languages and able to be communicated to over 90% of the world’s population. God is clearly involved in the preservation and transmission of His word through the generations. The point is that even by secular scholarship standards it is the most reliable and credible ancient document in history.
What’s also interesting is There are also other ancient writings from non-Christian historians of the time that support some of the important people and events in the New Testament. For example, A Roman Historian Tacitus (AD 55-117) notes facts like: 1. Nero’s actions against the Christians, Jesus crucified under Pilot, followers persecuted. Jewish Historian Josephus (AD37-100) described the death of John the Baptist, and the execution of James, the brother of Jesus, and referred to Jesus as a wise man. Josephus notes a lot of information about Jesus. If you read his materials you’ll find that Jesus was: 1. A historical person, 2. A wise teacher, demonstrated power, condemned and died under Pilot, followers claimed he rose from the dead, and claimed he was the Messiah. That’s a lot of information from a non-Christian, source. Both confirm some of the scriptural accounts of Jesus including that he was crucified by Pontius Pilot and his followers claimed he rose from the dead. Does this information prove the Bible is the Word of God? No. But what is it? it is evidence that supports the claim. And remember evidence is what we really base all of life’s decision upon. Any questions or comments so far?
What about archaeology? Is There Archaeological evidence that supports the bible. Oh yea. A lot of it. At one time so-called scholars stated that Moses couldn’t have written the first five books because writing hadn’t been invented but the Black Stele stone that had writing carved into it was discovered that proved writing had existed at least 3 centuries before Moses. 2. There was no hard evidence that David ever existed until in 1993 an excavation unearthed a 9th Century Tablet that referred to the House of David. Other artifacts confirmed Pontius Pilot as the Roman Governor during the first century. There had never been any physical evidence of people being crucified until some discoveries of bone boxes with spikes embedded in the heel bones of skeletons were discovered. The bone box of Caiaphas the Jewish High Priest mentioned in the bible has also been found. There way too many to mention examples of biblical archeology that support the bible. So, archaeology doesn’t prove anything in the bible, but when it shows the bible to be accurate it gives it credibility and reliability of it being true. When people and places of secular history are found in the bible and then are documented in archaeology it is a big deal.
What about Prophesy? I think it’s a legitimate argument to make. We know the prophecies about Jesus in the Old Testament were written hundreds of years before his appearance in the 1st Century. We know some of those prophesies came true. And there are hundreds of prophecies that were made about Jesus. There isn’t evidence that all came true, but some.
When I think about Biblical Reliability, I think of the Acronym MAP. Manuscript evidence, Archaeology and Prophesy. Easy way to remember the evidence.
Think about this. A book written over a 1500-year time span, by 40 different authors from Kings in palaces to prisoners in dungeons on three different continents in three different languages, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek with a miraculous continuity of theme. The story of the bible is really miraculous in itself.
This is where we get our worldview. It reveals our true identity, purpose and meaning in life. I read a quote recently that goes “Christians don’t achieve our identity we receive our identity. “ The Bible answers the big questions of life. Who Am I, where did I come from, where am I going?
So now how would you answer the question why do you believe the bible is real, true or reliable? How does this information help us in our faith? Does this mean that we can prove the bible to be the true word of God and that everything in it happened as we believe it did? No but what does it show?
Well we know it’s very accurate from the original writings, we know it hasn’t changed over time, it was written early with no time for myths or legends.
Some think that Christians can’t use the New Testament as evidence that Jesus was a real historical figure, and who he says he was. Not true. The New Testament should be looked at as any other ancient text against the same standards of reliability, and if met should be considered as such. It was just a collection of writings by individuals. No, it doesn’t prove the things in the bible happened, but it’s very good historical ancient text that far exceeds any other ancient document. We have very good reason to believe that which was written by the original authors is what we read today. That might not seem like a lot, but it is. That’s confidence that we are reading and understanding what God wants us to understand.
Remember how some people answer the question about why they believe. Some talked about a personal experience, and we have kind of shied away from this trying to focus on evidence. But there is no reason to discount personal experience. We all have seen God work in our lives and others lives. We have all seen how God has changed us and others. I’ve seen firsthand many times how he can take a homeless suicidal drug addict and turn him into a follower of Christ that is transformed into a new person that you would trust your life to. That’s the power of God, through his Gospel message to us that comes from the bible. That’s evidence too and may be the most powerful evidence we can show. It’s how God has changed us. Personal testimony is subjective, yes, but it can be powerful to hear how God has changed a life. So, remember there is evidence for why the bible is a reliable book. That is another reason why We Believe.