Accuracy of the Bible
Accuracy of the Bible
How were the books of the Bible chosen? If it was through a process of selection and a vote by men, how do we know they were right? see notes below
How do we know that the Bible we have today is the Bible that was written 2000 years ago? (the idea of a copy of a copy of a copy) see notes below
I don't believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. The Bible doesn't seem to make this claim. What is the Word of God? Why is the doctrine of inerrancy espoused? Self-attestation, even if it is present, doesn't seem to be the best logic for coming to this conclusion. see notes below and the fallacy of thinking that self-attestation is circular reasoning; it can never be proved that the Bible is divine --- it is a faith/trust issue to either believe or disbelieve. Ultimately, the issue is whether or not you believe the Bible is trustworthy.
The canon was voted on and decided on by men. The Bible shows however that men mess everything up that God tasks them with. If God, “led” the process, then why did Hebrews just “barely” make it in? Shouldn’t the vote have been unanimous? Who is man to vote or decide what the Word of God is? see notes below; it must be recognized that men who voted were merely recognizing the inherrent nature of the documents as being produced by those who had authority to do so (apostles; prophets); again, there is a trust that must be embraced that God can use fallible people to accomplish his purposes
Jesus said, “if you’re not for me, you’re against me” and also, “if you’ve not against me, you’re for me” --- Judas’ death is also contradicted between gospels. How can we trust a book that contradicts itself? these are very interesting observations but not necessarily contradictions; a closer comparison of these texts demonstrate that there are differences in emphasis and view point that lead to a difference in reporting. In addition, it is very likely that we don't have the "exact words" of Jesus but paraphrases. It is a common misconception (or, over empahasis) that we have the exact words. The method for recording dialogue in the ancient world relied more upon paraphrase than verbatim renderings. However, this does not take away meaning and accuracy of reporting. If meaning and emphasis is accurately reporting, the actual word are not as important. At the same time, this does not take away from the very words of Scripture being inspired and from God. An accurate paraphrase can be just as authoritative and perfect in rendering God's heart.
Matthew 16:13-20 ... Peter is declared as the rock on which Christ will build his church. Why, then, does Paul gossip about him to the Galatians? to say that Paul gossiped about him is likely not the best understanding of what Paul was doing. He was confronting a serious issue in the Galatian church. And rather than gossip, which would have been behind Peter's back for the purpose of tearing him down, he was explaining that what Peter was doing was not a reflection of the gospel. It is quite possible that Peter knew Paul would confront this ...
The twelve (ok, eleven) apostles that were with Christ His entire ministry are shadowed by this one man that had a change of heart (Paul). A man talks about not boasting, and he is the worst about that. Is he our "favorite apostle" because he came to the gentiles?
God works in ways that are beyond us and while the first twelve apostles played incredibly significant roles, God used Paul as well. Paul is often very misunderstood on the first few readings. He is often seen as misogynistic, bigoted, and arrogant. However, he was a bold, passionate, articulate man who was often put in a position of defending himself and the gospel. In addition, an understanding of culture helps clear up much of the confusion regarding Paul.
It seems that the church, in general, has a tendency to ignore hard verses … tongues, women in the church, cutting off fellowship with someone, Hebrew 6:4-6 – not being brought back. Why are things ignored? Are we just trying to be comfortable? “The road is wide that leads to destruction …” Are we missing some commandments? Hopefully, we are not doing this at all. There are hard, controversial passages in the Bible and good people take different undestandings many of these passages. On the one hand, we do not want to major on "minor" issues and at the same time, we will discuss the tough issues when we are confronted with them.
NOTES FROM JUNE 28, 2009 Doubts about the Bible, Dr. Ted Wueste (click here for audio)
The Bible claims to be a document that originated from God.
Look at 2 Peter 1:16-21
The Bible claims to be a document that originated from God but it also claims to be … the words and thoughts of God.
Look at 2 Timothy 3:14-17
This idea of “God breathed” is the idea is that spoke through the human authors. He breathed His words through them … He used their unique personalities to reveal Himself to mankind … essentially, here is what the Bible claims about itself: mankind is in darkness when it comes to understanding who God is – he is unable on his own to understand … the Bible claims to be God’s revelation of Himself to mankind. Unlike most faith systems which rely upon the enlightened thoughts of individuals – the Bible claims to be revelation from God.
One of the first things that people say at this point is that this is circular reasoning – how do you know its divine? Because it says so --- there is a sense in which you have to decide whether or not you believe that … you put your faith in that … how? You look at the evidence and make a decision … we’ve already looked at the fact that the miraculous is possible … it is possible that God inhabited human flesh – it is possible that he has communicated to us … you have to interact with the questions and decide to trust or not trust ---
Ultimately, can I trust what the Bible says about itself?
The first issue …
1. Can we trust the Bible historically?
Does it represent who Jesus really is? In the last few years, this has become a significant question in popular media in our country … The DaVinci Code book and movie popularized the idea that the Bible was written really far after the fact and it is the followers of Jesus who made Him divine and a savior --- over the last few years, several books have been written by a man named Bart Ehrman … in a CNN.com article last month, he said this about where the resurrection came from …
“My best guess is that what happened is what commonly happens today when someone has a loved one die – they sometimes think they see them in a vision. I think some of the disciples had visions … I have friends who teach medieval English. They don’t believe in Chaucer. But they think Chaucer is important.”
One of the things that is important to appreciate is that none of these ideas are new – they’ve been around for 200 years – historical criticism … there is certainly more, but let me give you a couple of reasons why we can trust the gospel accounts about Jesus as historical and not fiction …
- They were written within the lifetime of eyewitnesses … rely upon eyewitness testimony …
Luke --- after I carefully investigated and talked to eyewitnesses
1 Corinthians 15. It is as though Paul is saying, "please, check this out! Talk to the eyewitnesses."
Philippians 2 – within 30 years of Jesus (affirms the belief in the deity of Christ)
What is suggested by those who claim that the gospels are fiction is that this would be a huge conspiracy bigger than anything we have ever seen in the history of humanity --- and only people in the last 200 years were smart enough to figure it out --- this is possible, but is it probable?
In the last few years ---- Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses … details the issue of eyewitness testimony … if it was made up and the first people reading the accounts couldn’t talk to the eyewitnesses – it would make very little sense …
- The gospels are too counterproductive to be fiction … (Keller makes this point in The Reason for God) if it wasn’t true, it wouldn’t make sense to include a lot of things … Jesus asking to get out the crucifixion, “why have you forsaken me?” – women at the tomb … the disciples are made out to be foolish cowards. If I was starting a religion … I probably wouldn’t put that …
You might think – what about the rest of the Bible … because Jesus is the center of the faith – this is where you have to start … and this is where the criticism is on the popular level … if they can be trusted … it settles some things … (ask …)
The second issue is:
2. Can we trust the formation of the Bible?
Here’s the reality of how we got the New Testament we have. It was written over a 40-50 year period in the last part of the 1st century. However, the New Testament collection of 27 books as we know it was not officially recognized until several church councils in the 300s. So, some have argued like in The DaVinci Code that these men had an agenda and destroyed the original writings in order to replace them. The problem with this line of thinking is two fold … first, there is no evidence of destroyed gospels … there is no evidence for these kind of claims. Second, it is a misunderstanding of what was going on at these councils … look at what Biblical scholar Bruce Metzger wrote:
“The slowness in determining the final limits of the canon is testimony to the care and vigilance of early Christians in receiving books purporting to be apostolic . . . in the most basic sense, neither individuals nor councils created the canon; instead, they came to perceive and acknowledge the self-authenticating quality of the writings, which imposed themselves as canonical upon the church.”
Why wait so long? Before this time – they couldn’t meet openly … persecution///
Were there books left out? Absolutely …
They merely recognized the inherent nature of these writings and affirmed them. There were legitimate tests to determine whether each book would be recognized …
Tests for Canonicity …
1. Authored or backed by an apostle
2. Agreement with the Old Testament
3. Agreement with the Apostle’s teaching
4. Reception by the church
5. Internal evidence
It is claimed that at the Council of Nicea in 325 --- church leaders made up the idea of Christ’s divinity.
For example, in The DaVinci Code, referring to the Council of Nicea --- “My dear,” Teabing declared, “until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet … a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless. A mortal.”
We have a fragment of John 1 (in the beginning was the word … word was God) from 170 AD …
So – can we trust the historical nature of the Bible? Can we trust its formation? And, the third issue:
3. Can we trust what we have today?
Bart Ehrman …
“Not only do we not have the originals, we don’t have the first copies of the originals. We don’t even have copies of the copies of the originals, or copies of the copies of the copies of the originals.”
The question here is like the old telephone game … you tell one person who tells another and by the end of the line – what was first said (those jeans are cool) was nothing like what was finally heard (there’s a problem with your gene pool) … this is perhaps one of the most significant issues and it is also one of the most verifiable … we have thousands of manuscripts or copies of the New Testament … a little bit more than 20,000 parts of the New Testament …
Go back to Ehrman’s quote … he might be right but that’s not the issue … the way things were copied --- it is likely that the originals were still around when you got to the 4th and 5th generation of copies --- you could compare … unlike the telephone game … and no – we don’t have the originals, but we know they weren’t destroyed. They were likely buried ---
The number of the manuscripts we have of the New Testament is absolutely incredible. And, the quality is amazing … the agreement between these manuscripts is about 99.5% with the .5% having to do with copyist errors that can easily be detected. And, none of the .5% has to do with critical issues of theology or history – it usually has to do with spelling or a word being added that doesn’t change the meaning or word order. One of the reasons that the manuscripts are of such great quality is because of the Jewish scribal tradition … they had a meticulous process that was passed on to the scribes who copied the NT.
Finally, the dating is remarkable … the time span between the events of the New Testament and the manuscripts is very close … just a few years ago, a fragment of the New Testament was found that was dated to be at around 85AD … in addition, many copies of the New Testament are from 125 AD.
But even if we didn’t have all these copies … the early church fathers from the 2-3rd centuries quoted the New Testament writings to the extent that almost the whole New Testament could be reproduced just from their writings.
Listen to what one scholar said about these copies …
“The interval, then, between the dates of the original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as firmly established. Sir Frederic G. Kenyon, The Bible and Archaeology
If we were to compare the Bible with other religious writings – nothing else stands up to these tests … what we know about Buddha was written 2 centuries after the fact …
So, the copies of the Bible that we have – rather than causing problems – actually bolster the claims of the Bible …
The final issue:
4. Can we trust its relevance?
One of the most common things you hear is that the Bible has contradictions … it contradicts what we know to be true about life (it’s not relevant – it was written in the bronze age) … the reality is that the Bible is remarkably consistent … Christians have believed weird things over the years but the Bible doesn’t say that the world is flat … it might use figures of speech that are outdated but so do we … (sunrise/sunset) … archaeology … Ninevah? No one believed until 1850’s …
Then, there are the contradictions where the Bible contradicts itself … I would suggest to you that there are things that are hard to understand --- but these contradictions are perceived contradictions are usually due to …
a misunderstanding of the Biblical background or context
(for example … people will often cite Leviticus and pull out some obscure passage and say, but you don’t obey the regulation to not wear clothing with mixed fabrics. But, this was a regulation for the priests)
or, a misunderstanding of view point … four gospels …
Differences in the Gospel accounts are always due to perspective & purpose of the writer. However, differences are never contradictory.
Finally, often the Bible contradicts us … we don’t like what it has to say … for example, maybe we don’t like what it has to say about the differences between men and women OR homosexuality or all kinds of things …
But, if this is a divine book – it only makes sense that it would contradict us … in fact, that is what we see the Bible doing over and over again as we study the cultures that it was originally written to …
Be patient … allow it to challenge you … wrestle with it!