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The Bible: Integrity, Reliability and Truth
It is His will that we know Him and so He makes it possible that we have means by which to get acquainted, and even study Him. This is much as the dog follows the master around and rides in the truck, and by watching learns much of what the master will require of him. So, God lets us watch Him, not over a lifetime, but over thousands of years, so we can get a really good understanding of Him.
Again, never mistake that He has need of us knowing Him, but that we have the need. If He were alone in the universe, He would still be everything He would ever be, even if hundreds of billions of us were with Him there. On the other hand, if any of us were left alone in the universe, we would soon die, and all the better for having died. We would, while we yet lived, be such miserable and loathsome creatures that we should die all the sooner. I have met a few people in my time. Few if any would not be so.
Now realizing that He has the ability to communicate with people directly, why would He do so with a book? Part of the answer is that it allows us to have a picture that looks at more facets of His personality, and so better know Him. He can lay into our hand a means of reviewing His dealings with men for over four thousand years, instead of just being able to understand what we see in the simple and short lifespans that we have. This means that He becomes more perceivable and predictable to us. We get to know Him by the tracks He leaves in time, much as an ornithologist gets to know a certain type of bird by following his migratory trail. But the good ornithologist also takes all opportunity he can to actually live with the birds and get to know them on a different level. And so does the good Christian get to know his or her God, by following His tracks and then living His life. Not too hard to understand yet.
So, having determined that God is real, and has certain attributes that are in fact definition of God, and has goodness and a desire to relate to us and conform us into creatures more suitable to His dwelling, and that He has the ability to help us by myriad ways, we conclude that it would be foolish for Him not to exercise His ability in passing on major quantities of knowledge of Himself and His ways in the written word. We have already ruled out that God may be foolish, because, by definition, God is Wise. Ergo, it is assumable and anticipatable that God would in fact create a Bible.
If we assume that God is no fool and that He would devise means to communicate with us by the written word, what would be its greater purposes? One, as said before is that it gives us the opportunity to see more at one bite than we could see in a lifetime. But it is also efficient. What do I mean by efficient? Simple. I mean that having put it all down in print and page, He can now leave it up to us to decide if we want to know what is in the pages and this frees Him up to interact more directly with those who make such a decision. Though God is not constrained by time, we are, and this is a great time saver for both of us. It saves our time to have it available when convenient, and it also saves our time in being able to greater know Him without having to wait for Him to do some monster miracle to prove a simple point. If the constant major miracle plan was how He would relate to all of us every day it could easily get to where we could not rely upon the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God. No, He can pro ve His points by sharing His life story (so to speak) for us to review and allowing us to find those points. Since we have covered the basic "why" of the matter, lets look at some of the details as to "how" He should accomplish this. After all, we have seen that He would be a fool not to do it, and determined that He is no fool.
Well, we can assume, because of His goodness, that He would not have resorted to bragging or fairy tales. No, there are plenty of lessons in everyone's lives to make many of the points God puts in the Bible without ever having to make something up. Besides, if He were to be caught making something up, creating fiction about Himself, then the whole rest of it comes into question as per its veracity. As for how, it seems quite plain that He has communicated to many people directly, with a purpose of having it recorded. The Bible's internal evidence is so great that this is a point, which to deny is silly.
It is (for the most part) recorded by eye witnesses, and the writing style and vocabularies and political views expressed and accuracy and means of relay testify strongly to that. So, they were obviously written in specific places and specific times which amazingly enough turn out to be as they (each book) claim. Histories of ancient civilizations that have been dug up for the past hundred or two years have only proven the validity of the record within the Bible.
More so, when those other histories are found, it is obvious that the scribes and secretaries have gone out of their way to make sure that the kings have appeared in their best possible light. Outside histories virtually never record the failures of the kings and just about always justify the atrocities. In the Bible, this is not the case. It records the failures and the foibles and it denounces the oppressions. It shows the human frailty of the kings and leaders to such a degree that most of them are an embarrassment to their people. Even Moses and David turn out to have their quirks in the record. And it would have been easy to keep them out. So, it would appear that the Bible is not only more accurate than the rest, it is also more honest. But isn't that to be expected if the true King is a Good God?
Another Standard
In the Old Testament we find 333 prophecies of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, fulfilled in minute detail, even though the prophecies were given between 400 and 4000 years before the first Christmas. One of them even gives a historical date as to when to expect to see Messiah, and that date is rooted in secular history. Also, there are hundreds of other prophecies given by the prophets that also came true. How often were they correct? One hundred percent of the time. Their prophecies have been verified by sources of history outside the Bible. But that should not amaze anyone who realizes that God established that a prophet of His would have to be 100% accurate 100% of the time or the prophet would prove himself false. The most accurate psychics in the history of the world have never been anywhere near that accurate. But that kind of accuracy is standard operating procedure for a true prophet of God. After all, He said through the prophet Isaiah that the true test of a god is that he be able to tell the future with precision.
An Historical and Medical Reality Reported
In the Gospels there is a record of Jesus having been crucified and a soldier pierces his side with a spear. From the wound (John records) "blood and water flowed". Scientists became acutely aware of the operations of the body during the Great Enlightenment, or, at least they thought so. They determined that this was not a physical possibility, and so spread that rumor. In the Twentieth Century doctors discover that if a heart is ruptured, as in a heart attack or muscle breakage, the blood within will flow into the sack surrounding the heart and that the two liquids will quickly separate. Having separated, they will not mix again without force. John records in terms he can understand; a clear liquid and a red liquid (blood) flowing and separated. John was scientifically correct in his report.
Details of a Conquest Validated
The Bible records that Jericho was brought to ruin because the walls fell down in such a way that the Israelites could run over them and attack the occupants at will and by near total surprise. The physical description is as though the walls just laid down on the ground away from the city. Guess what! Archeologist dig up the city of Jericho at a level estimated to be about 3200 to 3500 years old. They discover the foundations of the walls, just as described in the Bible and the remains of walls laid down outside the city, also just as described. No signs of a blast or an earthquake to account for the walls in the yard. Just that they were there.
Global History Recounted and Proven
The idea of a great flood is no Bible-only thing. In just about all truly ancient cultures, there is the story of Noah. The names are changed and often the reason for the flood is somewhat different from culture to culture; but the story is there. Difference is that the others appear to have been built over time from a single tale. They all contain some striking evidences and accounts of the occurrence that bear strong resemblance to a single account, but not enough to suspect that they each came from one another, nor that the one came as a compilation of the rest. No, there is one account that seems to be the original, and that is the one held to be true by Biblical record. This realization comes from a study of languages, texts, idea conveyance and structure of both language and the story.
Science Confirms It
And if archeology isn't your thing, then one must find another way to account for the fact that virtually every (and maybe every) mountain top on the planet has a clam on it. One has to do some serious mental gymnastics to get around the idea of a global flood. A few hundred years ago there were people who said if the flood story was true that there would be evidence of it everywhere. But when the mental descendants of those people have the evidence before them, they struggle to find some way of excusing it and call it "wrongly interpreted" information.
What the Bible says about itself
Yes, there is an awful lot of evidence that the Bible is correct. But what would one expect if one has realized that there is a God, that He is good, that He has an agenda for us, and that He is no fool. But, what does the Bible itself claim to be?
Well, throughout the Book there is a corpus of testimony that says it is from God. Many places it says that God said to write down these words, or something very similar. Also, there is an awful lot of Thus sayeth the Lord God. It would appear that the Book claims to be from the mouth of God. This is especially profound if one takes Paul at all at his word saying that All Scripture is God-breathed. If a person is truly interested in the truth, these testimonies really cannot be easily ignored. That would be like sitting on the jury of a murder trial and dismissing the testimony of many an eyewitness of the killing, because she wore high heel shoes or he likes plaid suits or another drives a Buick. One has to be a person in a hurry to run away in order to blow off this kind of testimony too easily. But you were possibly wanting other testimony; non-Biblical testimony.
Well, there are several writings of Rabbis who had much to say of Jesus, and from His own time. Many of the things they had to say were much as were recorded in the Gospels. Strangely though, the rabbis were denouncing Jesus for healing the sick and raising the dead. They did not however deny that it had all occurred. There are political records of the time just before Paul begins missionary work, wherein one of the emperors of Rome bans Jews (and to them at the time this included Christians as well) because of "someone called Christos (Greek for Christ) who raises people from death and about whom may disputes have broken out among the Jews." It appears (according to the studies of others) that there were Christians that were following the Master's footsteps and preaching the Gospel and performing miracles. The synagogue holding Jews though were upset because this Messiah (Christ) did not fit in with their plans. There is a record by an Egyptian ruler of a southern part of the coun try who, on the day of Jesus' death, records by scribe that "the sky grew blacker than night as though to mourn the death of the son of a god". There is a document called "According to Thomas", which was never adopted as Scripture, which records much of the same material as is found in Matthew and Mark. Luke's record is brought about from an entirely different perspective. He readily admits that he was not an eyewitness, but that he learned what he had to tell from interviewing others who were eyewitnesses. His Gospel is also considered by non-Christian ancient history scholars to be as good an historical account as can be found from that era. Luke's record is highly praised by secular scholars as being as good as it gets. But common men and women, without the background to reasonably appraise the Scripture give it their humbug. Well, I am not so easily impressed with their humbugs.
Reliability
Can you trust the Bible?
Knowing that God is real and no fool and has an agenda of proven integrity we now address the issue of whether it is totally reliable. However, this is not a doctoral thesis, but a letter. The question at hand is stated as "is it reliable", but I believe that is the wrong question. People often ask the wrong question. Someone once asked me if a kind and loving God would send people to eternal Hell. My response was, "Wrong question." The question should be, "Would a loving God, who had laid down His life and blood for us as a doorway to freedom, allow us to turn our backs on Him and refuse His gift and choose Hell?" Another related question would be, "Why would a God whom I have offended every day, shed His blood on a cross and suffer a humiliating death so that a dirtbag like me could come live with Him?" In the case of this discussion, the right question probably should be, "Why would God even think of presenting us with something that was not reliable? And wo uldn't He do whatever He could to make sure that it was exactly what was needed?" The answer is that if He were good He would never even think of giving us something less than totally reliable. And yes, He would do whatever He could to make sure that we got the whole package He intended. After all, if you raised dogs, and if your dogs could read, would you get a book for him to learn what it was that you expected from him? Would you make sure that the book was what you wanted to be, even if you had to personally write it?
There is a cult, born in America in the 1920's or 30's, called the Jehovah's Witnesses. There is, within their camp, the teaching that they are the only true church. The same is said of and by the Mormons (est. 1830). But I would have to ask if their understanding of God was not illogical. Why would a god who would allow for the whole world to go to Hell for nearly 1800 or 1900 years suddenly decide that He wanted to have something to do with us? The very premise of their exclusivity combined with the late date of the beginning of the religions does not speak of a good God as I know Him. Note, I did not say know of Him, but Know Him. Big difference.
But, back to the Bible. Considering that all of the prophets and apostles had only God for their agenda, except for their quirks as they readily display, one can but express that their purposes were noble and not self-serving at all. Most of them gained little of nothing and many died horrible deaths for taking the stands they took. We must, based upon the evidence, accept that they had integrity in their work such as would make American automobiles a thousand percent better if you could only get employees such as these. Because of their humility and the accuracy of their record, insights from which have drastically improved every aspect of our lives, including the advances of medicine, we must assume they recorded what God intended to be recorded.
Further, many of the writings of the prophets and apostles were prophetic in nature, predicting things that would be and which came true. In each case, the prophecy was given from a position wherein there was no human way to have the knowledge, sometimes hundreds of years in advance, and the accuracy is undeniable. What is also now undeniable is that the records were actually written when they claim to have been written. Just about every biblical text has proven by outside evidence to have been written when it dates itself. And the dating of some of the events in the writing can be pinned down to the day. And this dating from outside the Bible.
Another evidence is something of a quirk itself. Regarding the accuracy of the texts and the reliability of their transmission to us with hundreds of years down the road, there is an anecdotal reality that becomes very difficult to explain. There lies within the Old Testament a collection of writings called the Torah. These are the first five books of the Bible. Within the Torah there is a cryptogram based on Biblical number significance.
Numbers in the Bible have special meanings to them as one finds them in the text. One such number is seven. Seven is the number that most turns up as related to spiritual perfection. So, a mathematician might say that perfection perfected would be perfection times perfection. In the case of Biblical numbering, this is 49. The number turns up from time to time, and that is exactly what it appears to mean.
Throughout the Torah, one can count every forty ninth letter, starting from the first as one, and every time one comes to the forty ninth write down the letter. One finds that throughout, it keeps spelling out the Hebrew letters of "Torah". Strange that there is a break in the pattern. Well it isn't really a break, but a change of word. The puzzle continues the same except for in the Book of Leviticus. Leviticus is the heart of the Torah, and the book that contains the most laws in one place and the most specific laws. In the book of Leviticus, the letters spell Y'shua, Hebrew for Jesus.
Another place where something similar occurs is in the book of Esther. This book never flatly says anything about God while His movings throughout the book are all but blatant, nor does it even use His name in the text as it is read. But, using the standard principles of copy as prescribed by and to the Jews for time out of account, the book of Esther has three places where the story of the book takes a drastic turn in favor of the Jews. At each of these major junctures in the story, with the copy done as prescribed, one finds the name of Yahweh (God) spelled out vertically. It is written up to down, but only at these crucial turnings of events in favor of the Jews.
Both of these cryptographic presences would be impossible if even one letter were changed or lost anywhere along the way. If a single word had been changed for a comparable word, they still would have no hope of working out. But they do. Why? Maybe it is because the author is not a flawed human being.
It is also interesting that although there are many that will assert that there are contradictions in the Bible, there are none who have been able to produce on their claims. Written by over forty men (most of which never met) and over a period of 1500 years, it still bears no discrepancy. Oh, there are a few copyist errors (mistakes made when making copies, which can be identified as such and are easily corrected), but no contradiction of doctrine (teaching) from front to back. But if one goes to a college and takes the same course from two teachers, who went to the same schools and belonged to the same organizations, there would be contradictions between the teachings of teacher 1 and teacher 2. This becomes more and more true as the subject leans more toward the ethereal. The less like math and the more like philosophy or political theory, the more disagreement one would find. Not so in the Bible. Why? Maybe it is because the Bible really has only one author, but several secretaries, all personally trained by the author.
Contradictions?
Not Hardly
Over half a century ago a very wealthy Christian put several hundred thousand dollars in an account that (according to his will) would belong to anyone who could turn up a single contradiction in the Bible. That money is still there and the interest rates have driven it many times a million dollars. Don't you suppose that if there really were any contradictions, that someone would have found them with that kind of incentive at stake? But if you are still looking for contradictions; let me help you get as close as anyone can get.
In the Sermon on the Mount; Jesus says, "You have heard it said, and eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I tell you ..." It would at first appear that Jesus is teaching against the Law as recorded by Moses. But if we read the teachings of the rabbis of the time, we see that they had moved the criminal code of willful injury into the realm of interpersonal relationships and into the area of accidents. They taught that you should avenge an accident and that you should take all these interpersonal relationship difficulties to court; basically because only the Sanhedrin had the judgment to make it through life. He wasn't changing the Law or mocking it, He was telling where the Law had been misapplied.
Another place where one may think there is a contradiction is that in the Old Testament, the Law says that men should not cut the corners of their hair. A Jew is to have a beard and not be shorn like a marine. In the New Testament (Corinthians), Paul says that men ought to have short hair. But in the Old Testament passage, the people are entering a land where the priests of the pagans wore goatees and shaved their heads or cut decorations into the hair. In the New Testament passage, Paul is writing to a church in a city known for its heathen worship prostitution practices. These prostitutes (male and female) were distinctive in their haircuts. The women wore virtual crew cuts and the men wore longer hair to appear more womanly. In each case, though the details are opposite, the message is exactly the same: "You are representatives of God; do not look like the priests of the enemy." It is the same reason why He forbids the wearing of clothes of fabric from multiple kinds, the cross breedin g of animals and cross seeding of fields. Not because these things are inherently bad or evil, but because they are or were the practices which the pagans used to identify themselves with and give glory to their gods. So, there is not a contradiction here either.
Medicines of the Day
Is the Bible Medicine, Mystery or Myth?
Another thing that may be considered is whether the Bible has medicinal validity? After all, if its author were God, one would expect that any medical advice given would be useful.
Strange, and you may or may not be aware of it, but doctors did not always wash their hands. Watching "Doc" on Gunsmoke would lead you to believe that doctors have always washed, but they haven't. In fact, it did not become a faithful practice until a Brooklyn nurse saw that there was a very low survival rate in a hospital where she worked, where the doctors regularly went from patient to patient, from flu patient to labor and delivery ward.
This nurse saw in her Bible that the priests had a practice of washing between every exercise that involved contact with either meat, blood, bread or wine. Also, she noticed what a large a role ashes and animal fats (the basic ingredients of lye soap) played in the practices. Because of her suggestions, the washing of hands with lye became the practice at that hospital and the death rate began to drop drastically. It then became normative practice through all the medical world. Why? Because a nurse in the days of Abe Lincoln learned something from God. While this may be no big deal today, and washing is so common a practice and such a simple answer, it is a real scientific insight for friends of Moses. The standard Egyptian cure (at the time of Moses) for an infected thorn puncture wound was to pack it in a poultice of donkey dung. Moses obviously did not get his cleanliness formulations from the land of his raising. Where did he get it? He claims to have gotten it from God. And why should that surprise a nyone since his methods would be validated by human wisdom only 3200 years later. Go figure.
Also, the Law suggests that one not soak meat in milk. Everyone knows that this is the easiest way to make batter stick to meat when frying. But what nobody knew until the past twenty or thirty years is that the lactic acid of the milk greatly devalues the proteins of the meat, and that the enzymes of the meat destroy a great part of the calcium value in the milk. So, 3300 years in advance of anyone knowing why, God tells His people that this food combination is not a good idea. But, what would one expect from a God who Knows, Can Tell, and Wants To?
Archeology and Anti-Bible Argument
The city of Nineveh plays a large role in the Bible and the history of the Jews. In Jonah it is said to be a city of "three day's journey". That means that it would take about three days to walk around it. And there were many people who said that because archeologists had not found Nineveh, a prominent player so large, that the validity of the Bible fell into doubt and even dispute. They also said that since there was no archeological evidence of the Hittite people, the Bible fell further into disrepute. Then something happened. Nineveh was discovered. It turned out to be about as big as all of San Antonio, Texas and suburbs. There were discovered the cities of Nuzi, Byblos and (in Nineveh) the palace of Ashur Bannipal. These sites revealed massive quantities of information about the Hittite people and of the customs and cultures of the surrounding lands and kingdoms of the area. Some of these customs had been written off by a great many people as being so absurd as to put the Bible into a level of reliability equal to that of a fairy tale. But these things turned out to be standard practice of their day. Ashur Bannipal particularly records many of the moving of nations in coordination with the Biblical record.
Strange that though the Bible proves valid on all measurable levels, and shares knowledge that is precisely validated and verified by the best of human science several thousand years later, speaks into the future of its times with such accuracy as none other has ever duplicated it and that the record can be validated for its accuracy of keeping, there are still people who make rash claims as to its claim to what it is. If the Bible stood accused by a jurisdiction of being the Word of God, the prosecution could prove it in a court of law "guilty as charged", by the standard of Law; beyond a reasonable doubt.
Another Doubter Bites The Dust
There was a gentleman named McDowell, whose life seemed to be getting overcrowded with Christians. They kept making claims as to the reality of the Bible being the Word of God and to the testimony of the Gospels concerning Jesus. He was so certain that all this was bunk that he once said, "If a Christian every had an original thought, it would die of loneliness." He said a great many other severely unkind things about his friends and family who had embraced Christianity. Finally, he decided that he would apply all of his resources to proving beyond a doubt, that all this Bible and Jesus stuff was nothing but a cruel hoax. And he had the resources to do it, if it could be done.
He felt certain that he was the man to bring Christianity to its knees by the simple light of reason. And he had an agenda that he made very clear. He was a humanist and wanted to prove that all his humanist theories were correct and that Man was indeed the greatest thing ever, with all the potential to do all the good. And he was sure that there really was no God to answer to, so that there was no need for a Savior such as Jesus Christ claimed to be. He was a staunch supporter of the evolutionist agenda, for it validated his theories in other areas. His goal was to kill Christianity if he could, or at least save as many as he could from its clutches. So he and several of his friends and many employees and professional researchers set out to investigate the record first and then this Jesus guy next.
After literal millions of hours of research by lots of colleagues, and the spending of millions of dollars (some of his own and some of it contributed by folk who would support any new endeavor with such zeal and goals) he wrote several books on what he had discovered. You might wish to pick up a copy of some of them: "Evidence that Demands a Verdict", "More Evidence that Demands a Verdict", "Many Infallible Proofs", "Liar, Lunatic or Lord" and "More Than a Carpenter" are among the list. The first four are a direct result of his honest research. But, honest research is hard to come by from people with such a slant against God to begin with. But Josh wanted to make certain that any case he would make would not be shut down because someone would find holes in it. He set out to make an ironclad case, and he did. Read one, if you dare.
He lost a great many friends over the result of all this work, many of whom said that he should doctor his results to reflect answers more fitting to his original goals. Some of them did the honest thing and followed him accepting the evidence they had worked so hard to amass, realizing that it did not support the original agenda. They basically said that they would not defraud the evidence and discredit themselves. Interesting results, eh? At least they should be.
The Faithful Find Further Faith in Facts
The same thing happened when Albert Einstein was challenged to support his convictions about the Bible. Now, Albert was already a Christian, but his scientific cronies were giving him the razz about buying into all this "pie in the sky - sweet by and by", so he set out to see if he could indeed support his theology and bibliology with fact. The result of extensive and careful examination of available facts was that he told many of his colleagues that he could more definitely support every tenet of the Bible better than he could support any of the works of science that he had been involved in. A time frame: He was about to start working (Consulting) on the Manhattan Project. This is no man of opinion, but a man of incredible ability to research and assimilate information, and one comes to the conclusion that what he has long believed or strongly suspected is undeniably true and valid.
These are not examples of people who bought one side of the discussion. They did not listen to the jeering of voices who called it all silliness, even when the voice was their own, but rather pursued the evidence to its end and made sound judgment based on all the facts that could be amassed. Theirs was true integrity, willing to accept the realities of the evidence, regardless of whether it was what they wished to hear, regardless of if they liked the result of their inquisition, regardless of their personal feelings. Yes, these were real men. They looked at all the evidence, often bent on an agenda of opposition, and relented, yielding to the reality that God's Word had been proved.
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Copyright Keith Jenkins 1997
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