The Bible is the most important document ever written. More copies of it have been sold then any other book in history. However many still question its validity. While hundreds of books have been written to prove the Bible to be true. Over the next 2 blogs I will give you some evidence to back the accuracy of the Bible.
Everything else we talk about in Christianity 101 is going to be based on the Bible so we need to begin this journey of knowing what we believe with the Bible
How do we know the Bible is true?
1) The Bible says it is true
2 Timothy 3:16,17
16All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
Matthew 24:35 Jesus words
35) Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
In the Old Testament God said this about the stability and consistency of His word.
Isaiah 59:21
21“And as for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the Lord: “My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children’s offspring,” says the Lord, “from this time forth and forevermore.”
But it is kind of rough to say the scripture is true because it says that it is! If you are a believer that is enough but what do we say to our skeptic friends? What do you say when you are having a hard time believing scripture?
2) Manuscript evidence
-these are recorded written items that prove the Bible
First, there are 5,366 copies of assorted manuscripts of our New Testament. Dating from as early as the 2nd century all the way until the 5th century, of which there is a 99.5% accurate to the original. Those inaccuracies are nothing that would affect the original intent (mainly things like misspellings of names and places and word order i.e. Jesus Christ is the savior of the whole world, Christ Jesus is the savior of the whole world, Jesus Christ the savior of the whole world)
That is more manuscript evidence than there is for any other ancient document.
Which includes even things like the writings of Plato (7 manuscripts), Homer’s Iliad (643 manuscripts), the stories of Cesar (10 manuscripts) and Alexander the great. It is also more manuscript evidence than we have for the declaration of Independence.
In addition if we took the writings of just 7 of the early church fathers
Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Eusebius.
These men were alive between 150 and 200 AD. 86,000 exact verse quotations from the New Testament were in their writings. (there are only roughly 8000 verses in the New Testament)
In fact even if we did not have all of the manuscript evidence we could reconstruct the New Testament with all but 11 verses just based on the information from these early church Fathers.
Information that verifies the Bible was spoken of and recorded in the writings of non-Christian writers of the era
1. Flavius Josephus (AD 37?-101?, a Jewish historian) mentions John the Baptist and Herod - Antiquities, Book 18, ch. 5, par. 2
A. "Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness."
2. Flavius Josephus (AD 37?-101?) mentions Jesus - Antiquities, Book 18, ch. 3, par. 3.
A. Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, (9) those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; (10) as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.
3. Flavius Josephus (AD 37?-101?) mentions James, the brother of Jesus - Antiquities, Book 20, ch. 9.
4. Flavius Josephus (AD 37?-101?) mentions Ananias the High Priest who was mentioned in Acts 23:2
5. Tacitus (A.D. c.55-A.D. c.117, Roman historian) mentions "Christus" who is Jesus - Annals 15.44
A. "Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular."
i. Ref. from http://classics.mit.edu/Tacitus/annals.mb.txt
6. Thallus (Circa AD 52, eclipse of the sun) Thallus wrote a history of the Eastern Mediterranean world from the Trojan War to his own time. His writings are only found as citations by others. Julius Africanus, who wrote about AD 221, mentioned Thallus' account of an eclipse of the sun that had taken place at Jesus crucifixtion.
A. "On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun."
i. Is this a reference to the eclipse at the crucifixion? Luke 23:44-45, "And it was now about the sixth hour, and darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45 the sun being obscured; and the veil of the temple was torn in two."
7. The oddity is that Jesus' crucifixion occurred at the Passover which was a full moon. It is not possible for a solar eclipse to occur at a full moon. Note that Julius Africanus draws the conclusion that Thallus' mentioning of the eclipse was describing the one at Jesus' crucifixion.
8. Pliny the Younger mentioned Christ. Pliny was governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor. Pliny wrote ten books. The tenth around AD 112.
A. "They (the Christians) were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food but food of an ordinary and innocent kind."
9. The Talmud
A. "On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Any one who can say anything in his favor, let him come forward and plead on his behalf." But since nothing was brought forward in his favor he was hanged on the eve of the Passover!"
i. Gal. 3:13, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree."
ii. Luke 22:1-2, "Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is called the Passover, was approaching. 2And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how they might put Him to death; for they were afraid of the people."
iii. This quotation was taken from the reading in The Babylonian Talmud, transl. by I. Epstein (London: Soncino, 1935), vol. III, Sanhedrin 43a, p. 281 as cited in Habermas, Gary R., The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ, (Joplin, MO: College Press Publishing Company) 1996.
iv.
In my next blog we will look at some archeological evidence. Once again these are by no means an exhaustive proof of the Bible but will give you something to think about.
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