The Gospel toolkit

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What is the Bible?

 

• The Bible is not just one book, but a collection of 66 books. It has 40 different authors, coming from diverse cultural and educational backgrounds. The books were written over a period of 1500 years.

 

• It contains historical accounts regarding the creation of the universe and God's loving interaction with mankind throughout history. The origin of sin (i.e, falling short of God's will for us) is revealed, as well as God's solution for sin through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus.

 

• It is divided into the Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament predicts the coming of the Christ, or Messiah, to save mankind from sin and restore them to a right relationship with God. In the New Testament, that promise of the coming Messiah was fulfilled.

 

• The ritualistic laws in the Old Testaments had symbolic meanings designed to point people to the need for the coming Christ. When Jesus became a sacrifice for mankind, the need for rituals were done away with. Yet, God's moral standards still stand. Those who surrender their lives to Jesus and trust Him for forgiveness of sins, are given power by God to live a life pleasing to Him.

 

• The Old Testament was written by Israelite prophets, priests, and kings. These books were always understood by the Jews to be inspired by God, and continued to be recognized as such by Jesus and New Testament writers.

 

• Historical evidence shows us that the New Testament was written by eyewitnesses of the life of Jesus, and also by those who recorded eyewitness accounts.

 

• The authors declared the message of the Bible to be inspired by God instead of human origin. Following these verses, we will explore if this claim holds up in light of the evidence:

 

• 2 Timothy 3:16 says: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” NIV

 

• 2 Peter 1:21: “For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” NIV

 

 

Was the Bible changed after so many years of copying?

 

• Of all the ancient literature that exists, the Bible has the most manuscript evidence. There are over 5,700 manuscripts and portions of the New Testament in Greek. There are at least an additional 19,000 ancient manuscripts that were translated into other languages.

 

• When we have thousands of manuscripts, it becomes easier to determine what the original text really said. If anybody tried to change anything, this would be easily detected and corrected by comparing the numerous manuscripts with one another.

 

• The Jews had rigorous rules and high standards in copying the texts accurately. When the Biblical manuscripts are compared, only slight, insignificant variations have been found. These variations include matters of word order and spelling that do not affect the meaning of the text. Of all the Biblical manuscripts, there is 99% agreement among them, and the remaining 1% are trivial matters that do not affect any Christian doctrine.

 

• The ancient literature with the second most amount of manuscripts is Homer's Illiad, with 643 manuscripts. Do you ever hear anyone doubt the authenticity of the Illiad or other ancient writings, which have even a lesser amount of manuscripts?

 

• With various reliable means of determining the ages of manuscripts, some manuscripts we have are believed to be copied within 50-80 years to the time of Christ. No other ancient writing even comes close to this. The closeness of these manuscripts to the time of Christ give us confidence of their reliability. The earliest manuscript of other ancient writings is from Homer, 500 years after being written. Other classical literature has over 1000 years of distance from the original.

 

 

Do the Dead Sea Scrolls support the Bible's reliability?

 

• In 1946, over 900 ancient scrolls were discovered in caves near the Dead Sea. With the exception of the book of Esther, the Dead Sea Scrolls contain parts from every book of the Old Testament.

 

• Before this finding, ancient texts being used to translate the Old Testament were dated from around A.D. 1000. Most of the Dead Sea Scrolls were written between 100 B.C. and A.D. 68, yet some are even older. One finding was a fragment from the book of Samuel, which was dated to be around 400 years before Christ.

 

• Now that we have Old Testament manuscript evidence that dates from before the birth of Christ, which proves that Old Testament prophecies predicting the life of Christ and other events were not written after the fact.

 

• For example, we have an entire book of Isaiah that was copied 100 years before Christ was born. Historical research shows us that the original writing of Isaiah was written about 700 years before Christ. Details in the chapter of Isaiah 53 clearly predict the life of Christ, 700 years before He lived on the earth!

 

• The Dead Sea Scrolls were compared with the other ancient manuscripts that were being used to translate the Old Testament, it was found that they were indeed copied throughout the years with amazing accuracy. Only minor differences such as in spelling or conjunctions have been found, which do not change the meaning or any Christian belief.

 

• When people say the Bible has been changed, there is simply no credibility to this claim. The remarkable preservation of the Bible throughout the centuries is nothing short of miraculous, pointing to God's involvement!

 

• If there's a Creator, isn't it possible He wants to communicate with His creation? Is it possible He could inspire certain people to record what He wants to speak to us? And if that is possible, then why couldn't an all-powerful Creator watch over those words to make sure they are preserved throughout history? In comparison to creating the entire universe in all it's complexity, wouldn't this be a small task for Him?

 

 

How can we know if what the Bible says is true?

 

• There is historical evidence outside of the Bible that also confirms the teachings and events contained within, including the deity of Jesus, His crucifixion and resurrection. Some first century historians who affirmed Biblical events include Papias, Irenaeus, Josephus, and Tacitus, among others, who were not all Christians.

 

• There have been thousands of archaeological findings that match up with the Biblical accounts of places, people, and events. In fact, there have been accounts in the Bible that were once accused as being inaccurate, only to have those historical records proven correct by later archaeological findings.

 

• There has never been any findings that have disproved the Bible. The overwhelming amount of archaeological evidence affirms the Bible's trustworthiness, which in turn should open us to consider the possibility of it's trustworthiness on spiritual matters.

 

 

What proof is there that the spiritual claims of the Bible are true?

 

• Internal consistency:

A number of controversial subjects is covered, yet the Bible's 40 different authors from different backgrounds and eras have written about these topics in astounding harmony with one another. This points to divine inspiration in it's writing, due to the fact it would be nearly impossible to have even 10 people, of the same time period and same background, be in agreement about even 5 controversial topics.

 

• Prophecies:

There are a number of religious books that are claimed by their followers to be divinely inspired. Yet, these books contradict one other in their claims about God and how to reach Him, so they could not all be true. Is there anything that makes the Bible stand out from among them? Yes!

 

• The Bible is the only spiritual book containing over two thousand messages predicting future events that have actually become fulfilled, without error! No other religious book can even come close to this claim. These predictions are called “prophecies,” which are messages given to man from God. Let's explore this matter, to see if the Bible's prophecies really point to a divine authorship.

 

• The Bible contains around 2,500 predictions of future events which were not yet fulfilled at the time of their writing. Since then, around 2,000 of the prophecies have been fulfilled throughout history to the minutest detail, and the remaining ones involve end times events and the return of Christ.

 

• 300 of the fulfilled prophecies involve the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Here are just a few:

 

• Jesus would be born in Bethlehem: Predicted in Micah 5:2, Fulfilled in Matthew 2:1; Luke 2:4-7.

 

• There's no way that a baby had any control over where he would be born! This refutes the idea that Jesus tried to purposely fulfill prophecies.

 

• Jesus would be born of a virgin: Predicted in Isaiah 7:14, Fulfilled in Matthew 1:21-23.

 

• If you wonder if something like this could be possible, just consider that if an all-powerful Creator could create the entire universe, then obviously He has the power to perform any miracle He so desires!

 

• Jesus would be sold for 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12; Matthew 26:14-15)

 

• Lots were cast for His clothing (Psalm 22:18; John 19:23-24)

 

• Jesus' hands and feet would be pierced (Psalm 22:16; Matthew 27:31; John 20:25-29)

 

• Crucifixion as a means of execution was not even created yet when Psalm 22 was written. It was not developed until 800 years after the time of its writing, yet verse 16 refers to the piercing of hands and feet that occurred during Christ's crucifixion!

 

• Jesus would rise from the dead: Predicted in Psalm 16:10; Fulfilled in Mark 16:6 & Acts 2:31.

 

 

How do we know the books in the Bible are supposed to be there?

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• The books of the New Testament were readily accepted among Christians long before it was declared official in AD 367. Historical research shows us that even from the first century, there was great consensus among Christians about which books were inspired by God.

 

• The Old Testament was already accepted as the word of God by the Jews. Jesus often quoted from it, and the New Testament writers also make numerous references to it. For the New Testament, there was a standard among early Christians that they used to determine what writings were truly inspired by God, and to reject false teachings.

 

• • The source of the writing had to be connected to an eyewitness somehow. Writings that were not associated with eyewitnesses of the life of Christ were rejected.

  • The writing had to come from the era that the apostles lived in. (Books from later centuries were rejected).

  • The writings could not contradict other teachings about Jesus.

  • The writings had to be widely recognized in the early churches.

 

• From overwhelming evidence, it is safe to conclude that the Bible is a trustworthy collection of historical documents. In addition, the accurately fulfilled prophecies point to the divine origin of it's message.

 

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Information compiled from:

 

Why Trust the Bible by Rose Publishing, 2008 & resources from www.josh.org found under Resources > Apologetics > Videos.

 

For a more in-depth study of the evidences for the Bible, the following books are recommended:

 

More Than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell.

The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.

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