Is The Bible True?
I recently asked the sophomores to tell me, without using any notes, how they would respond briefly to someone who claimed that the Bible is not trustworthy. Here is a response from Rebecca H.
"The Bible can be seen and treated as a historical document. With any historical document, their reliability can be tested with three tests: the Bibliographical, the Internal, and the External. The Bibliographical compares the manuscripts of a document to others. You ask about how many manuscripts there are and how long they were written after the events they record. The Internal compares the document to itself. This test looks at the author or authors and asks how they know. The External looks at archaeology, science, and other historical documents to back up the claims made in the document.
The Bible can be proven to be true with these tests. There are thousands of manuscripts of the Bible which is much, much more than other documents which at the most may have a couple hundred. The manuscripts of the New Testament which deal with Jesus' teachings can be dated anywhere from 50-100 years after the original. (Compared to other ancient manuscripts this is a very small gap of time.) Most of the authors of the gospels were eyewitnesses of the events recorded; Matthew, John and possibly Mark. Luke, even though he didn't personally eyewitness them, researched the events very carefully. Other documents that are not Biblical at all even support the Bible. One very important point though is why these men would lie about the things they wrote about? Many of them were martyred for the cause of Christ, which is a very high price to pay to support something they knew was a lie. So what would be gained by lying?"
posted by Apolojedi at 8:22 AM
4 Comments:
I am enjoying your blog. Your articles are well-written. I would like to see some discussion of postmodernism and perhaps the emergent church.
I have recently concluded a class on Islam and found it interesting that the Koran, the Muslim Holy Book, was not even written by Muhammed, but instead transcribed by his wife. It made me ponder questions about the authenticity of the Bible through the ages (i.e has it been altered by different translators etc.). How could we defend its authenticity not just from its beginning, but throughout its compilation, translation, and the turn of many centuries?
This is well written, clearly indicating that you have considered the question far more than superficially. It sounds as though you may have read some Josh McDowell (like Evidence That Demands a Verdict).
This is well written, clearly indicating that you have considered the question far more than superficially. It sounds as though you may have read some Josh McDowell (like Evidence That Demands a Verdict).
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