Hi Men,
This is the third episode in our summer series, Meeting the Worldview Challenges in a Broken Culture, in which we repeat past episodes that are vital for men leading their families in 2023. One of the arguments your family is hearing this summer is that the biblical teaching about gender and gender roles reflects the oppressive patriarchy of the OT culture as well as Paul’s patriarchal, abusive views of women. Paul and the OT, it is argued, also reflect unenlightened, culturally determined views of homosexuality as sinful and gender as binary. This argument is leading many of the rising generation down the path towards Progressive Christianity, which rejects so many biblical truths that it is not Christianity at all but a false religion. This episode explains why Christians trust the Bible as the inerrant, uncorrupted revelation of God to us—the God-breathed Word of God.
No man wants to fail at his mission to impact others for Christ. But we will, if we forget one of the commands of Peter that is a prerequisite for having such an impact—BE READY. Always be ready, writes Peter to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you (1 Pet 3:15). In other words, Peter commands every Christian to prepare ahead of time—that is what “ready” means. What are we to be prepare ourselves to do? Make a logical defense of our faith. That is what the Greek word, “defense” means. It is APOLOGIA. APO means from or since, LOGIA is the word from which we get logic. This episode helps us be prepared and prepare our loved ones to give a logical answer to a very common accusation that Christians hear: YOU CAN’T TAKE THE BIBLE LITERALLY.
Apologetics is logically defending the faith—and in case we missed the emphasis on logic, Peter commands not only be ready to make a defense—that word defense being APOLOGIA,—he repeats the reference to logic as the verse continues—to anyone who asks you for the reason—the word translated reason is again LOGIA or LOGOS. Authors, Ken Boa and Larry Moody point out two good reasons for every Christ-follower to know apologetics well. They write:
Apologetics—arguments systematically defending the Christian faith—really has a two-fold purpose. Outwardly, it defends the truth of the Christian world view and answers the objectives raised by critics. Inwardly, it strengthens the faith of believers by showing that their faith rests upon a firm foundation…Many Christians shy away from defending their beliefs, or resort to a “just take it by faith” attitude. They think the burden of apologetics is too great to be shouldered by laymen. But Peter exhorts us to BE READY to make a defense when we are called to do so.
We need to strengthen the faith of our loved ones by showing them that the Christian faith is based on a firm foundation and equip them to endure the experience of their faith being challenged by accusations that they fear do NOT HAVE GOOD ANSWERS—accusations like:
- The Bible is full of contradictions and historical errors.
- We can’t even know what the original Bible even said.
- Archeology has proven that the Bible has errors.
- The Bible is a historically unreliable collection of legends.
HOW DO WE RESPOND TO THESE ARGUENTS?
A. Let’s look first at how to answer the argument that we can’t trust the Bible historically. Let’s consider 4 ways to test the historical accuracy of any document, including today’s Bible. This test examines the transmission of the original writings to the present day by evaluating the quantity and quality of manuscripts, time span between events and the dating of the manuscript, and archeological evidence to support historical accuracy
1. Consider the Quantity of Manuscripts. In the case of the OT, there is a small number of Hebrew manuscripts because the Jewish scribes ceremonially buried imperfect and worn manuscripts. The number of NT manuscripts, however, is unparalleled in ancient literature. In museums around the world, there are 24,000 ancient manuscripts of portions of the NT. By comparison, the number of manuscripts of the writings of Plato is 7, the writings of Aristotle is 49. The second highest number of manuscripts behind the NT 24,000 is 643 copies of Homer’s Iliad. With so many copies of the NT manuscript in hand, we have a very good idea of what the original said.
2. Quality of Manuscripts. Because of the great reverence the Jewish scribes held towards the Scriptures, they exercised extreme care in making new copies of the Hebrew Bible. The entire scribal process was specified in meticulous detail to minimize the possibility of even the slightest error. The number of letters, words, and lines were counted, and the middle letters of the Pentateuch and the Old Testament were determined. If a single mistake was discovered, the entire manuscript would be destroyed. As a result of this extreme care the quality of the manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible surpasses all other ancient manuscripts (I’m Glad You Asked, Boa and Moody). The 1947 discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in caves near the Qumran community excavation revealed an intact copy of the book of Isaiah, scientifically dated to about 100 BC. These scrolls contain fragments of 65 out of 66 OT books. Regarding the NT, the sheer quantity of manuscripts do display various copying errors; but they enable scholars to have tremendous certainty about 99.5 of the original texts and no variant readings are significant enough to call into question any of the doctrines of the NT.
3. Time Span of Manuscripts. Apart from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the earliest text of the Old Testament is 895 AD due to the systematic destruction of prior texts by the Masoretic scribes. We now have some NT manuscripts dated from the first century and most of the NT from the second century. So, the time span between the actual writing of the gospels or Paul’s letters and our oldest manuscripts is less than 75 years in many cases. The contrast to the other best-known ancient writings is enormous. For example, the span between Homer’s writing of the Iliad and the oldest manuscript copy we have is 500 years, between Plato’s writing and our oldest manuscript 1200 years, between Aristotle’s life and our oldest manuscript 1400 years. The historic evidence that what our current Bible is what was originally written is unsurpassed by any other historical or religious book in the world.
4. Archeology: Because the historical narratives of the Bible are so specific, many of its details are open to archeological investigation. And today, archeology is the Bible’s best friend having proven the accuracy of the biblical writers, time and time again. It was not always this way. In the late 1900’s archeologists made many claims that seemed to completely overthrow the integrity of the Bible. Here are a few:
- For years liberal scholars used ti laugh at the Bible-believing Christians, saying “What about the Hittites?” There was zero evidence in archaeology that any such nation every existed…that is until 1906 when the Hittite capital was unearthed and a whole Hittite civilization discovered. On one college campus where Bible-believing scholars had been scorned for believing the Biblical accounts of the Hittites, a few years later a course was being offered in the Hittite language. God has a great sense of humor.
- New testament references were also attacked frequently—for inconsistency with archeological findings. For example, scholars laughed at John’s description, Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. Not only could they not find the pool, but pools never were built in the shape of a pentagon—except that when this site was later excavated, it revealed a rectangular pool with two basins separated by a wall—thus a five-sided pool. Two years ago, I looked down on the ruins of this pool in Jerusalem, by the sheep gate, five sided.
The historic accuracy of the Biblical accounts has been proven over and over again by the science of archeology. This evidence does not PROVE it is the Word of God. But there is more scientific evidence for its historical accuracy than for any other ancient book in the world.
B. Answering the argument, The Jesus story is a legend—mythology perpetuated by dishonest, power-hungry ecclesiastical leaders. This thesis lies behind books and movies like The Da Vinci Code. Tim Keller was taught this view while a student at Bucknell. He explains what he was taught:
The real, ”historical Jesus” was a charismatic teacher of justice and wisdom who provoked opposition and was executed. After his death, they said, different parties and viewpoints emerged among his followers about who he was. Some claimed he was divine and risen from the dead, others that he was just a human teacher who lived on spiritually in the hearts of his disciples. After a power struggle, the “divine Jesus” party won and created texts that promoted its views. They allegedly suppressed and destroyed all the alternative texts showing us a different sort of Jesus. Recently, some of these suppressed, alternative views of Jesus have come to light—like the “Gnostic” gospels of Thomas and Judas (Reason for God.)
Keller realized that this view of the New Testament’s origin’s strikes at the root of our confidence in everything Jesus taught and did. He continues,
As a student I was initially shaken by this. How could all of these prominent scholars be wrong? Then, however, as I did my own first-hand research, I was surprised by how little evidence there actually was for these historic reconstructions. To my encouragement, the evidence for this older, skeptical view of the Bible has been crumbling steadily for the past thirty years, even as it has been promoted by the popular media through books and movies such as The Da Vinci Code (Ibid).
There are numerous reasons for rejecting the idea that the Jesus story is a made-up legend. But let’s look at just one. The timing of NT documents is way too early for the gospels to be legends. The gospels of the Bible were written at the very most 40-60 years after Jesus’ death. Paul’s letters, written just 15-25 years after Jesus’ death provided an outline of the events of Jesus life found in the gospels—his miracles, claims, crucifixion, and resurrection. This means that the biblical accounts of Jesus’ life were circulating within the lifetimes of hundreds who had been present at the events of his ministry. Repeatedly the gospel writers spoke about eye-witness testimony and often named those witnesses in the text.
- Luke claims that he got his account of Jesus’ life from eye-witnesses who were still alive (Luke 1:1-4). Mark says that the man who helped Jesus carry his cross was “The father of Alexander and Rufus” (Mark 15:21). There is no reason to include the names unless the readers know or have access to them.
- Paul appealed to eye-witnesses of the resurrection Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive (1 Cor 15:6). You can’t write that in a document designed for public reading unless there really are witnesses whose testimony agreed and who would confirm what the author said.
- It was not only Christ’s supporters who were still alive when the NT books were written. Also, still alive would be many bystanders officials and enemies of Christ who witnessed these events. They would have been especially ready to challenge any legendary fictions perpetrated on the masses. Logic tells us:
For a highly altered, fictionalized account of an event to take hold in the public imagination, it is necessary that the eyewitnesses (and their children and grandchildren) all be long dead. They must be off the scene so they cannot contradict or debunk the embellishments or falsehoods of the story. The gospels were written far too soon for this to occur (Ibid).
THE BIBLE’S CLAIM TO BE GOD’S WORD IS PROVED BY ITS FULFILLED PROPHECIES
In the writings of neither Buddha nor Confucius is there any hint of predictive prophecy. Nor does the Koran contain any predictive prophecy, except the self-fulfilling prophecy that Mohammad would return to Mecca. In contrast, history shows hundreds of specific Biblical prophecies that have been fulfilled. Here are just two.
1. City of Tyre: Here is part of the prophecy:
Behold, I am against you, O Tyre, and will bring up many nations against you, as the sea brings up its waves. They shall destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers, and I will scrape her soil from her and make her a bare rock. She shall be in the midst of the sea a place for the spreading of nets, for I have spoken, declares the Lord God. And she shall become plunder for the nations, and her daughters on the mainland shall be killed by the sword. Then they will know that I am the Lord. “For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will bring against Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon…. Your stones and timber and soil they will cast into the midst of the waters. And I will stop the music of your songs, and the sound of your lyres shall be heard no more. I will make you a bare rock. You shall be a place for the spreading of nets (Ezekiel 26:3-7, 12-14).
A few years after Ezekiel made this prophecy, the great Nebuchadnezzar brought his army to Tyre and laid siege to it for thirteen years. Finally, the walls of the city crumbled enough for the hordes of the Babylonian army to pour into the city on the mainland and put its remaining inhabitants to the sword, just as Scripture predicted. But thousands fled to an island a half mile out in the Mediterranean. The prophecy was fulfilled only in part; for 250 years the ruined walls of the mainland city still stood jutting into the sky. Millions of tons of stone, rubble and timbers were left, and yet God had said that the city would be scraped clean like the top of a rock—that the stones and timbers and the very dust of the city would be cast into the sea. It appeared that Ezekiel got some of the details of his prophecy wrong.
But then a new conqueror, Alexander the Great, arose. He came to New Tyre, the city a half mile from the mainland. He ordered its inhabitants to surrender. When they laughed, Alexander and his chief engineer, Diades, decided to erect a causeway across the half mile to the island. But why could they do that? Where were all the stones, timber, and soil they needed? The ruins of old Tyre. Alexander issued an order to his men: “Tear down the walls (from the ruins of the old Tyre). Take the timbers and the stones, the rubble and the logs, and cast them into the sea.” These are the very same objects, stones, timber, and soil mentioned by Ezekiel’s prophecy that would be cast into the midst of the waters. History tells us that Alexander’s army scraped the ruined city itself to get everything they could to build this highway in order to destroy the New Tyre. When the causeway was completed, New Tyre was besieged, destroyed, and leveled. But what about the detail about fishing nets? One pastor noted, “A member of my church recently visited the city of Tyre and returned with pictures of New Tyre. They showed nets spread out on a flat rock that once had been the proud city of Tyre” (D. James Kennedy, Why I Believe) Tyre had become a fishing village.
2. City of Babylon. This was perhaps the greatest city of ancient times. It consisted of 196 square miles of spectacular architecture, hanging gardens and palaces, temples and towers. Yet God said through the prophet Isaiah, And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the splendor and pomp of the Chaldeans, will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them (Is 13:19). More specifically, the prophet Jeremiah made these prophecies about Babylon
- Jeremiah 50:39: Therefore wild beasts shall dwell with hyenas in Babylon and ostriches shall dwell in her. She shall never again have people, nor be inhabited for all generations. Babylon today is a trackless wasteland inhabited by jackals and scorpions.
- Jeremiah 51:42-43: The water has come up on Babylon; she is covered with its tumultuous waves. Her cities have become a horror, a land of drought and a desert, a land in which no one dwells, and through which no son of man passes. This appears to contain two contradictory prophecies—that Babylon will be covered with water and that it will be a dry desolate land. A visitor to the site of Babylon points out, “For the space of two months each year, the ruins of Babylon are inundated by the annual overflowing of the Euphrates so as to render many parts of them inaccessible.” After the subsiding of the waters, the site of Babylon becomes a dry waste, a parched plain. D James Kennedy writes, God said Babylon would never be built again—a prophecy totally contrary to the expectations of the past where every city of the Near East that had been destroyed had been built again. Babylon was situated in the most fertile part of the Euphrates valley and yet 2500 years have come and gone and Babylon to this day remains an uninhabited waste (Ibid).
God’s Word is TRUTH and the Bible is God’s Word.
For Further Prayerful Thought:
- What would you say to someone who says, “I think it tells spiritual truth, but the events it records are not always real historical events”?
- How would you answer the objection, “We don’t even really know what the original writers of the Bible really said. Bible translations disagree”?
- What is your biggest doubt about whether the Bible is really God’s Word?
CHILDREN’S LESSON
Introduction
Sometimes people say that faith is the opposite of evidence. Look up 1 Peter 3:15. Do you think Peter would agree or disagree with that statement
A. Let’s understand how we know that the Bible we hold in our hands accurately tells us what the original writers actually said.
- How many actual parchments do we have in museums around the world of parts of the New Testament?
- No school-teacher doubts Plato or that we know what he taught. How many ancient documents do we have proving this? How does this compare to the New Testament?
- Before the printing press and Internet were invented, some people’s job was to copy the Hebrew Bible. They were called Mazarites. They were extreme perfectionists. They threw away any copy they were working on if they made a single mistake.
- Archeology is a science. It is the study of human history through the excavation of sites through the analysis of artifacts and other physical remains. Part of the thrilling story of the way the Bible’s accuracy is confirmed through this science is told by Josh McDowell in Chapter 4 Part 2 of his book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict.
B. A legend is an untrue story usually of famous person, coming down from the past. For example, consider the Legend of Paul Bunyan, a giant lumberjack, mythical hero of the lumber camps in the United States, a symbol of bigness, strength, and vitality. ... The tales describe how Paul, who fashions lakes and rivers at will, created Puget Sound, the Grand Canyon, and the Black Hills.
Some people say that the Bible is just a book of legends, exaggerated stories about heroes made up by their admirers and followers. But everyone knows legends are exaggerations—they are not true.
In contrast, we know that the writings of the New Testament are not legends. They are the opposite of made-up stories. They are more like a series of courtroom eye-witness testimonies. The NT writers constantly referred to eyewitnesses who could verify their stories who were still alive then they were writing the parts of the NT. Here are two examples:
- From the beginning of Luke’s gospel. Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning (Lk 1:1-3).
- After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living (1 Cor 15:6).
C. The biblical prophesies that have been fulfilled prove that the Bible is God’s Word. In the stories of the two cities that would be destroyed because of their evil, Tyre and Babylon, which details of the fulfilled prophecies do you think are the coolest?
The exciting story of fulfilled prophecy can be found in Evidence that Demands a Verdict, chapters 9 and 11 and in Why I Believe, chapter 1.
Resources Used
- The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, Timothy Keller.
- I’m Glad You Asked: In Depth Answers to Difficult Questions About Christianity, Kenneth Boa and Larry Moody
- Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Josh McDowell
- Why I Believe, D. James Kennedy
