Tagged: Scripture

How do I know the Bible is true? (Part 2)

This is the second in an eight-part series addressing skeptics’ claims against the Bible. Click on the “Bible” link to the right to see part 1.

Objection 2: The Bible has been copied so many times, with so many variations, there’s no way to know what was originally scripted.

Mormons and Muslims allege that the Bible’s documents were substantially corrupted in their transmission, but there is overwhelming evidence that proves these claims wrong.

Scholars of almost every theological persuasion attest to the profound care with which the Old and New Testament documents were copied.

For the New Testament, for example, the books were copied in Greek, and later translated and preserved in Syriac, Coptic, Latin and a variety of other ancient European and Middle Eastern languages. In the Greek alone, more than 5,000 manuscripts and manuscript fragments of portions of the New Testament have been preserved from the early centuries of Christianity.

As William Lane Craig explains, “The oldest of these is a scrap of papyrus containing John 18:31-33, 37-38, dating from A.D. 125-130, no more than forty years after John’s Gospel was most probably written. More than thirty papyri date from the late second through early third centuries, including some which contain good chunks of entire books and two which cover most of the gospels and Acts or the letters of Paul. Four very reliable and nearly complete NTs date from the fourth and fifth centuries” (“The Historical Reliability of the New Testament,” Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, p. 194).

While it’s true there are variations among the manuscripts, the vast majority have to do with changes in spelling, grammar, and style, or accidental omissions or duplications of words or phrases. Only about 400 have any significant bearing on the meaning of the passage, and most of these are noted in the footnotes or margins of modern translations and editions of Scripture. The only textual variants that affect more than a sentence or two are John 7:53-8:11 and Mark 16:9-20.

William Lane Craig writes, “Neither of these passages is very likely to be what John or Mark originally wrote, though the story in John (the woman caught in adultery) still stands a fairly good chance of being true. But overall, 97-99% of the NT can be reconstructed beyond any reasonable doubt, and no Christian doctrine is founded solely or even primarily on textually disputed passages” (“The Historical Reliability of the New Testament,” Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, p. 194).

Next — Objection 3: The books of the Bible were chosen arbitrarily by councils of men in highly political processes. As a result, they left out some very good books — perhaps some equally inspired writings.

Copyright 2008 by Rob Phillips

How do I know the Bible is true? (Part 1)

The Word of God This is the first in an eight-part series addressing skeptics’ claims against the Bible.

Christians believe in the reliability and authority of the scriptures. That is, we trust the Bible to be the inerrant, infallible, and inspired Word of God and the authoritative source of all we believe and practice. By inerrant, we mean the original autographs are without error because they come from God (2 Peter 1:20-21). By infallible, we mean the Bible is incapable of error because God, as its author, does not lie or make mistakes (Num. 23:19). By inspired, we mean the Bible is “God breathed” (2 Tim. 3:16) And by authoritative, we mean that the Bible, as God’s Word, is His written revelation to us and must therefore guide our thoughts, words and deeds (Heb. 4:12).

But many people do not share such a high view of scripture. In fact, some raise serious objections to claims about the Bible’s truthfulness and reliability. While there are many objections, eight of the more common objections include:

  1. No one really knows what Bible says because the original manuscripts are lost.
  2. The Bible has been copied so many times, with so many variations, there’s no way to know what was originally scripted.
  3. The books of the Bible were chosen arbitrarily by councils of men in highly political processes. As a result, they left out some very good books – perhaps some equally inspired writings.
  4. It’s silly to assume that one book – the Bible – contains all of God’s truth and that other great writings, from the Vedas to the Book of Mormon, do not come from God.
  5. The Bible is full of contradictions.
  6. The Bible can’t be true because it depicts a different God in the Old and New Testaments.
  7. There are so many translations of the Bible today, it’s impossible to know which translation is the right one.
  8. There are so many Christian denominations today, it’s clear that Christians can’t agree on what the Bible teaches.

Responding to these objections is a daunting task – in part because critics raise some valid points. For example, it’s true that we do not have the “autographs,” or the original documents. At the same time, the Bible soars above other ancient documents in many convincing ways, providing evidence of reliability and consistency that gives Christians good reasons to trust it as the Word of God. Our faith is not, as some critics say, “blind faith,” but reasonable faith based on the evidence.

Every Christian should be confident the Bible is true because there are good answers to the skeptics’ objections.

Objection 1: No one really knows what Bible says because the original manuscripts are lost.

The second part of this statement is true: The “autographs,” or original manuscripts, written on a variety of degradable surfaces from parchment to papyrus, no longer exist. But the remarkable number of copies, dating back in some cases to within a generation of their authorship, makes the first half of this objection false. In fact, we have tremendous confidence in the reliability of the Bible because of its manuscript trail. Craig L. Blomberg writes, “In the original Greek alone, over 5,000 manuscripts and manuscript fragments or portions of the NT have been preserved from the early centuries of Christianity. The oldest of these is a scrap of papyrus containing John 18:31-33, 37-38, dating from A.D. 125-130, no more than forty years after John’s Gospel was most probably written” (“The Historical Reliability of the New Testament,” Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, pp. 193-94). Andreas J. Kostenberger adds, “The total tally of more than 6,000 Greek mss., more than 10,000 Latin Vulgate mss., and more than 9,300 early versions results in over 25,000 witnesses to the text of the NT” (“Is the Bible Today What Was Originally Written?” found in www.4truth.net).

So how does the Bible stack up against other ancient manuscripts? According to scholar F.F. Bruce, we have nine or 10 good copies of Caesar’s Gallic Wars; 20 copies of Livy’s Roman History; two copies of Tacitus’s Annals; and eight manuscripts of Thucydides’ History. The most documented secular work from antiquity is Homer’s Iliad with 643 copies. But the New Testament, with its thousands of Greek manuscripts alone, is the most highly documented book from the ancient world (The New Testament Documents, Are They Reliable?, p. 16).

In short, while it’s true we are lacking the “autographs” of scripture, we have every sound reason to be confident that what we read today has been faithfully preserved through thousands of copies, many of them written in close chronological proximity to the time they were originally penned.

Next — Objection 2: The Bible has been copied so many times, with so many variations, there’s no way to know what was originally scripted.

Copyright 2008 by Rob Phillips

Hard Sayings of the Bible — Download Free Bible Study

Did God really regret He created mankind, as Gen. 6:6 suggests? Why did He order King Saul to wipe out an entire race of people (I Sam. 15:18)? Who should be turned over to Satan (1 Cor. 5:5)? And what is the sin that brings death (1 John 5:16)? These are so-called “hard sayings” of the Bible.

What is a “hard saying?” Simply put, a “hard saying” is a passage of Scripture that is difficult to understand. We shouldn’t feel badly that we struggle with some Bible verses; even the apostle Peter had a hard time with some of Paul’s writings (2 Peter 3:16).

Why are some Bible passages difficult to understand?

  • They seem to contradict other Scriptures (“No one has ever seen God”).
  • They are isolated passages that cannot be cross-referenced with other Scriptures (“Being baptized for the dead”).
  • They call God’s character into question (“The Lord regretted that He had made man”).
  • Or they seem to make unreasonable – even unholy – demands of God’s people (“Go and complete destroy the sinful Amalekites”).

What are some keys to understanding these “hard sayings?”

  • Context (who, what, when, where, why and how?)
  • Key words (“The Lord regretted …”)
  • Comparison (“I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau”)
  • Genre

In this 12-part study, we will explore some of the most prominent “hard sayings” in Scripture.

Download the complete study in pdf format.

An Introduction to Christian Apologetics

What is Christian apologetics?

Christian apologetics is the field of study concerned with the systematic defense of the Christian faith. More simply put, it is a reasonable defense of Christianity. The term “apologetics” is derived from the classical Greek word apologia and was used in a legal sense: The prosecution delivered the kategoria and the defendant replied with an apologia, or a formal speech to counter the charges. The verb form, apologeomai, means “to make a defense.” The Christian apologist is engaged in defending Christianity’s claims to the truth.

In Scripture, the apostle Paul uses the term apologia in his speech to Agrippa when he says, “I consider myself fortunate … that today I am going to make a defense before you” (Acts 26:2). Paul uses a similar term in his letter to the Philippians (Phil. 1:7, 16). And Peter tells believers they should be ready to give a defense or answer for their faith in 1 Peter 3:15. The term is used in a negative sense in Romans 1:20, where Paul says those who reject the revelation of God in creation are “without excuse.”

Christian apologists throughout the centuries have appealed to eyewitness accounts (specifically having to do with the person and work of Christ), as well as to scripture, history, philosophy, archaeology and other scientific disciplines. Many have suffered martyrs’ deaths, not because they clung foolishly to a blind faith, but because they were fully convinced of the truth of Christianity based on careful examination of the evidence.

 Key passages of scripture

  • 2 Cor. 10:4-5: …since the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments and every high-minded thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.
  • 1 Thess. 5:21: …but test all things. Hold on to what is good.
  • Titus 1:9: …holding to the faithful message as taught, so that he will be able both to encourage with sound teaching and to refute those who contradict it.
  • 1 Peter 3:15: …but set apart the Messiah as Lord in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.
  • Jude 3: Dear friends, although I was eager to write you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write and exhort you to contend for the faith that was delivered to the saints once for all.

 Why should I care about apologetics?

  • Your faith depends on it. William A. Dembski, research professor in philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and author of The Design Revolution, comments: “It’s worth remembering that until two centuries ago, most people in the West saw the Resurrection of Jesus in historically the same light as other events of antiquity, such as the murder of Julius Caesar. The Resurrection and Caesar’s murder were both regarded as equally factual and historical. Unfortunately, in the two hundred years since the Enlightenment, Christians have steadily retreated from seeing their faith as rationally compelling. Instead of being apologists for the faith, we have become apologetic about it” (Foreword to 5 Minute Apologist, p. 11).  The Bible tells us to love God with all our “minds” (Matt. 22:37). Emotions and experiences are important gifts of God, but they are not compelling reasons for trusting in Christ, Muhammad, the Buddha, Krishna, Joseph Smith, or anyone else. We should be as the Bereans, who, upon hearing of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection, “welcomed the message (of Paul and Silas) with eagerness and examined the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so…. Consequently, many of them believed” (Acts 17:10-12).

  • Your witness depends on it. Every major world religion and every major cult has a significantly high view of Jesus, yet fails to properly answer the question Jesus asked in Matthew 16:15: “Who do you say that I am?” Islam, for example, teaches that Jesus was a prophet, but denies His deity and substitutionary death on the cross. Many Hindus readily accepts Jesus into their pantheon of 330 million gods yet refuse to accept His uniqueness as the eternal Son of God. Mormonism insists that Jesus was a man who became a god. If we truly believe, as Peter did, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matt. 16:16), we need to know what that means and why it’s true.

  • Your future depends on it. Christianity today is under attack on many fronts – from atheists who mock it (The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins; God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens) to charlatans who fleece the flock rather than feed it (see 1 Peter 5:2-3; 2 Peter 2). The apostle Paul warned that in the days before Christ’s return people would “depart from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons” (1 Tim. 4:1). He further warned that a time is coming when people will “not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will accumulate teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear something new. They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths” (2 Tim. 4:3-4). In fact, Paul said there would be widespread apostasy (a standing apart from the truth) before the return of the Lord (2 Thess. 2:3). Jesus even wondered aloud whether He would find faith on the earth at His second coming (Luke 18:8).

“Never do we see a call to obedience and worship grounded merely on an appeal to blind, isolated faith,” writes Scott Pruett. “It is always set in the context of historical actions and objective knowledge; and God has given us an ample and defensible testimony of these things in which we are to invest our faith” (What is apologetics? www.lifeway.com/apologetics). William Dembski summarizes well: “Yes, our salvation is ultimately due to the grace of God. But every act of divine grace presupposes the means of grace by which God makes His grace real to us. Christian apologetics is one such means of grace” (Foreword to 5 Minute Apologist, p. 12).

 Where can I learn more?

Suggested resources include:

  • www.4truth.net (the apologetics site of the North American Mission Board)
  • 5 Minute Apologist by Dr. Rick Cornish, NavPress
  • The Apologetics Study Bible, B&H Publishing Group
  • Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics by Norman L. Geisler, Baker Academic
  • Holman QuickSource Guide to Christian Apologetics by Doug Powell, B&H Publishing Group

Rob Phillips 12/21/07