The Bible: Fact or Fiction?
The Bible is the inerrant Word of God. John Wesley said:
“The Bible must have been written by God or good men or bad men or good angels or bad angels. But bad men and bad angels would not write it because it condemns bad men and bad angels. And good men and good angels would not deceive by lying about its authority and claiming that God wrote it. And so the Bible must have been written — as it claims to have been written — by God, who by His Holy Spirit inspired men to record His words using the human instrument to communicate His truth.”
The acronym MAPS is used (since there are many maps in the back of the Bible) to make it easy to understand the truth and inerrancy of the scriptures.
The Manuscript Evidence (M.)
The Old Testament Scriptures
By as early as 125 B.C., all Old Testament books had been written, copied, and circulated throughout the world communities of Jews.
Perhaps the greatest testament to the authenticity of the Old Testament is the care in copying the sacred manuscript. According to the Talmud, there were specific rules for copying the Scriptures:
First, the parchment had to be made from the skin of a clean animal, prepared only by a Jew, and fastened by strings from clean animals.
Second, each column must have no less than forty-eight nor more than sixty lines.
Third, the ink could be no other color than black and was prepared by a special recipe.
Fourth, neither word nor letter could be written from memory; the scribe must have an authentic copy before him, and he had to read and pronounce aloud each word before writing it.
Fifth, the scribe had to reverently wipe his pen each time before writing the word God, and had to wash his whole body before writing the sacred name Jehovah.
Sixth, one mistake on a sheet condemned the sheet; if three mistakes were found on any page, the entire manuscript was condemned.
Seventh, every word and every letter was counted, and if a letter were omitted, an extra letter inserted, or if one letter touched another, the manuscript was condemned and destroyed at once.
Until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1947), the only extant (surviving) Hebrew copies of the Old Testament came from the Masoretic Jews (900 A.D.). Up until that time, the big question that was asked, first by Sir Frederic Kenyon, “Does this Hebrew Text, which we call Masoretic, and which we have shown descends from a text drawn up about A.D. 100, faithfully represent the Hebrew Text as originally written by the authors of the Old Testament books?”
Of the over 40,000 inscribed fragments from the Dead Sea Scroll find, more than 800 books have been reconstructed. The oldest complete Hebrew copies we possessed prior to the Dead Sea find were from 900 A.D. One of the Dead Sea Scrolls found was a complete copy of the book of Isaiah dated to 125 B.C. The impact of this discovery is in the exactness of the Isaiah scroll with the Masoretic Scripture over a thousand-year period. Gleason Archer states that the Isaiah copies of the Qumran community, “proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95% of the text.”
Finally, another substantiation of the Old Testament Scripture is the Greek translation of the Hebrew text called the Septuagint. Septuagint (meaning 70) was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures in Egypt between 285-246 B.C. This translation is virtually identical in meaning and content to the Masoretic Text we have today, establishing the reliability of the Old Testament transmission through more than 1,300 years.
The New Testament Evidence
The quantity and quality of the New Testament documents is even more compelling than those for the Old Testament Scripture. There are about 5,300 extant Greek copies of various gospel and epistle texts that have survived almost 2,000 years. In addition to these copies, there are approximately 20,000+ later Scripture copies written in Latin, Ethiopic, Slavic, Armenian, Syriac, Bhairic, Arabic, Old Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Gothic, Old Syriac, Persian, and Frankish.
Totally, there are over 25,000 copies of various books of the New Testament that verify the accuracy of what we know to be the New Testament today. In addition, secular historians confirm the many events, people, places, and customs chronicled in the New Testament.
It has been argued by critics that these large numbers of copies contain thousands of errors in them from one copy to another. These so-called errors have been estimated to be around 200,000 differences in Biblical manuscripts. However, these are not really “errors” but only variant readings, the vast majority of which are strictly grammatical. These readings are spread throughout more than 5,300 manuscripts, so that a variant spelling of one word in one verse in 3,000 manuscripts is counted as 3,000 “errors.”
The famous textual scholars Westcott and Hort estimated that only one-sixtieth of these variants rise above “trivialities.” This would leave a text, which is 98.33% pure. In the words of the renowned textual scholar F.F. Bruce:
”If the great number of MSS (copies) increases the number of scribal errors, it also increases proportionately the means of correcting such errors, so that the margin of doubt left in the process of recovering the exact original wording is not so large as might be feared; it is in truth remarkably small. The variant readings about which any doubt remains among textual critics of the New Testament affect no material question of historic fact or Christian faith and practice.”
Finally, Sir David Dalrymple, a Scottish historian who lived from 1726-1792, examined copies of all the existing works of the church Fathers of the second and third centuries. He found that the entire New Testament could be reconstructed from the citations of the early Church Fathers from the first three Christian centuries.
Archaeological Proof (A.)
Over and over again, comprehensive field work (archaeology) and careful biblical interpretation affirms the reliability of the Bible. It is telling when secular scholars must revise their biblical criticism in light of solid archaeological evidence.
For example, the archaeological confirmation of the Flood of Noah’s time is enormous. In Babylon, tablets have been discovered that mention one of the Babylonian kings enjoying the writings of those who lived before the flood. Arguments that writing did not even exist in the time of Moses have now been answered with the knowledge that five hundred years before Moses, in the time of Abraham, there were libraries with thousands of volumes. We know that well over a thousand years before the time of Abraham, in fact, writing was practiced, and now we have records of those who wrote even before the Flood.
Another Babylonian tablet gives an interesting confirmation. Noah was the tenth generation from Adam according to the Bible, and this Babylonian tablet names the ten kings of Babylon who lived before the Flood. Another tablet names all the kings of Babylon, and after the first ten, there are the words: “The Deluge came up….”
Other archaeological finds in the Old Testament include the discovery, by William Albright, of large quantities of relics of a period dating between 2500 and 2000 B.C., with evidence of a dense population which for some reason ceased abruptly around 2000 B.C. The evidence would indicate a massive earthquake and explosion. This discovery was made in the Southeast corner of the Dead Sea, the general location of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The Scriptures tell us that the Pharaoh oppressed the Hebrews and caused them to build the cities of Pithom and Raamses. We remember the story of how the Hebrews first built with mortar and straw. Then they had to gather their own straw, and finally they had to build the bricks without any straw at all (Exodus 5). When Sir Flinders Petrie later discovered the sites of Pithom and Raamses, he noted that some of the buildings were built with mortar—something found nowhere else in Egypt. Moreover, the lower layers were built of brick in which was stubble instead of straw. The second and upper layers were made from bricks without straw.
In 1994, a team of archaeologists found a remarkable inscription from the ninth century B.C. that refers both to the “House of David” and to the “King of Israel.” “King of Israel” is a term frequently found in the Bible. However, this discovery may be the oldest extra-Biblical reference to Israel in Semitic script. This inscription proves that both Israel and Judah were important kingdoms at this time.
In the New Testament, the evidence is just as compelling. One of the most notable archaeologists of the nineteenth century was an atheist by the name of Sir William Ramsay. He gave his whole life to archaeology and was determined to prove that the Bible was wrong. He set out for the Holy Land and decided to disprove the Book of Acts. After more than twenty-five years, he was incredibly impressed by the accuracy of Luke in his writings and finally declared that Luke was exact, down to the minutest details. In his attempt to disprove the Bible, Sir William Ramsay uncovered hundreds of things, which confirmed the historicity of the Book of Acts.
Finally, in 2020, a stone was found, engraved in Greek at el-Taiyiba in the Jezreel Valley in the Upper Galilee. It had originally been part of the lintel of a Byzantine (5th-century A.D.) church. The church was part of the religious authority of the metropolis of Bet She’an, which included el-Taiyiba. Dr. Leah Di-Segni, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, deciphered the dedication. It read, “Christ born of Mary.” The stone was found where it had been repurposed and placed in one of the walls of a majestic building, from the late Byzantine or early Islamic period. The inscription on the stone was a greeting to visitors, supporting researchers’ conclusions that it had been a dedication to this particular building, which was likely a church.
Prophetic Proof (P.)
The Bible records hundreds of predictions of events that could not be known or predicted by chance or common sense. Surprisingly, the predictive nature of many Bible passages was once a popular argument (by liberals) against the reliability of the Bible. Critics argued that various passages were written later than the biblical texts indicated, because they recounted events that happened sometimes hundreds of years later than when they supposedly were written. They concluded that, subsequent to the events, literary editors went back and “doctored” the original, non-predictive texts.
But this is categorically wrong. Careful research affirms the predictive accuracy of the Bible. For example, the book of Daniel (written before 530 B.C.) accurately predicts the progression of kingdoms from Babylon through the Medo-Persian, Greek, and then the Roman Empires, culminating in the persecution and suffering of the Jews under Antiochus IV Epiphanes, his desecration of the temple, his untimely death, and freedom for the Jews under Judas Maccabeus (165 B.C.).
Old Testament prophecies concerning the Phoenician city of Tyre were fulfilled in ancient times, including prophecies that the city would be opposed by many nations (Ezekiel 26:3); its walls would be destroyed and towers broken down, and its stones, timbers, and debris would be thrown into the water (26:12). Similar prophecies were fulfilled concerning Sidon (Ezekiel 28:23; Isaiah 23; Jeremiah 27:3-6; 47:4) and Babylon (Jeremiah 50:13, 39; 51:26, 42, 43, 58; Isaiah 13:20, 21).
Since Christ is the culminating theme of the Old Testament and the Living Word of the New Testament, it should not surprise us that prophecies regarding Him outnumber all others. Many of these prophecies would have been impossible for Jesus to deliberately conspire to fulfill — such as His descent from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Gen. 12:3; 17:19); His birth in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2); His crucifixion with criminals (Isaiah 53:12); the piercing of His hands and feet on the cross (Psalm 22:16); the soldiers’ gambling for His clothes (Psalm 22:18); the piercing of His side and the fact that His bones were not broken at His death (Zechariah 12:10; Psalm 34:20); and His burial among the rich (Isaiah 53:9). Jesus also predicted His own death and resurrection (John 2:19-22).
Scientific Proof (S.)
The Bible contains many specific scientific statements. For example, the fact that the earth is spherical is found in scripture. The prophet Isaiah wrote, “He [God] sits enthroned above the circle of the earth…” (Isaiah 40:22).
The fact that the earth is suspended in space is found in the book of Job, which is thought to be one of the oldest books in the Bible. We find in Job 26:7, “He spreads out the northern [skies] over empty space; He suspends the earth over nothing.”
The fact that the stars are innumerable was first stated in Genesis 13:16. The fact that the human bloodstream carries life throughout the body is testimony to the verse in Leviticus 17:11 which states, “For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I [God] have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar.”
The facts involved in the two laws of thermodynamics. Apart from gravity itself, two of the most solid and immutable laws in all physics are the first and second laws of thermodynamics. The first law states that although energy can change forms, it cannot be either created or destroyed, so the sum total remains constant. Thus, no energy is now being created or destroyed anywhere in the known universe. Passages describing this law are found in Genesis 2:1-3; Psalm 33:6-9; 102:25; & Hebrews 4:3, 10.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics describes energy deterioration. This law states that when energy is being transformed from one state to another, some of it is turned into heat energy which cannot be converted back into useful forms. In other words, this universe may be looked upon as a wound-up clock that is slowly running down. Passages describing the Second Law include Psalm 102:26; Hebrews 1:10-12; 2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1-5.
References
Norman Geisler, Christian Apologetics (Baker Book House).
Norman Geisler and William Nix, From God to Us (Moody Press).
Josh and Sean McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict (Thomas Nelson).
D. James Kennedy, Why I Believe (Word Publishing).
Henry Morris, Many Infallible Proofs (Master Books).