Bible

The Bible is Reliable Part 2

February 20, 2017

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In part one we defined why the Bible is unique but now let’s ask the question is it reliable? We don’t have to just believe because there is more evidence for the reliability of the New Testament than almost any 10 pieces of classical literature put together.

I don’t believe in blind faith or mindless religion that causes us to drop our intellect at the door and luckily Christianity doesn’t ask for that.

The historic reliability of the Bible should be tested with the same criteria used by all other historical documents using the basic principles of historiography.

The New Testament has more than 24,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament in existence today. No other document of antiquity even begins to approach these numbers. The famous Iliad by Homer, an epic Greek poem set in the time period of the Trojan war has only 643 manuscripts in existence 23,357 less than the Bible.

Before the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls the oldest complete Hebrew manuscript was dated around 900 A.D. When archaeologists found the Dead Sea Scrolls it contained the OT book of Isaiah dating 125 BC this is more than 1000 years older than the previously possessed manuscripts.

This discovery has great impact because the contents of the two scrolls, 1,000 years apart were identical in content providing more proof of accuracy.

The New Testament accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus recorded by men who were eyewitnesses and include the apostles, followers, people from the community and even the opponents of Jesus.

The author Josh McDowell wrote a book called a ready defense and went to disapprove the Bible for his dissertation for his Law degree and instead wrote a book proving its accuracy that when win in a court of law.

Another accuracy test is the Bible matching other known historical and scientific facts.

There were many of writings from 1^st century historians like Josepheus, Eusebius, or Iraneus who were contemporaries of the apostles and verified there writings in historical documents.

Another proof of the accuracy of the Bible is archaeology which provides an extremely powerful external evidence of the accuracy in biblical events that were reported and has confirmed countless passages which had been previously discredited.

The Bible contains a large body of prophecy relating to individual nations, to Israel, to all the peoples of the earth, to certain cities, and to a coming and then returning messiah.

No other book prophesied hundreds if not thousands of years in advance the coming of a leader or a prophet not Mohammed or Buddha or any other religious leader.

A compelling fact for the Bible being more than unique but truly divinely inspired book is that it accurately foretells specific events-in detail centuries, before they occur.

There are approximately 2,500 prophecies in the Bible. 2,000 of which already have been fulfilled to the letter —no errors. 100% accurate! In history clairvoyants, mediums, spiritists, and others, have spoken remarkable predictions, though rarely with more than about 60 percent accuracy, never with total accuracy.

God forecasts future events with 100% accuracy to get people’s attention. The acid test for identifying a prophet of God is recorded by Moses as 100 percent accurate in their predictions. There is no room for error.

The prophecies in the Bible are for the most part independent of one another, the odds for all 2000 of these prophecies having been fulfilled by chance without error is less than one in 10²⁰⁰⁰ That mathematical number is so huge it is 1 with 2,000 zeros written after it!

2000 prophecies detailing the rising and falling of nations and empires, captivities, the destruction and rebuilding of Jerusalem, the scattering of the Jews and the restoration of Israel and so much more.

In 700 BC one of the most significant prophecies in history was spoken and fulfilled In 1948s. The Jews, a nation dispersed for 1,900 years was reborn in a day and this said to be a sign that we are entering the last days. The last 500 prophecies yet fulfilled are all end time prophecies.

The Old Testament contains 333 prophesies regarding the Messiah at least 400 years before Christ. They include great detail of his entire life from his birth place, to the manner in which he was killed.

400 years before crucifixion was invented, both Israel’s King David and the prophet Zechariah described the Jesus death in words that perfectly depict that mode of execution that did not yet exist. Further, they said that the body would be pierced and that none of the bones would be broken, contrary to customary procedure in cases of crucifixion. All which was fulfilled with 100% accuracy.

Secular mathematicians have easily shown that the odds of all these prophesies being fulfilled by chance in one man, Jesus, is greater than the number of atoms in the universe many times over.

In regard to prophecy the Bible also foretold many scientific facts before man ever discovered them.

While scientists are still trying to sort out the complex details about fossilization, one fact is undisputed: it can be amazingly fast.

Massive catastrophes like Noah’s Flood would produce the conditions necessary to quickly bury and protect creatures so that they can fossilize. The fact that there is fossil layering indicates that there was a cataclysmic event like a flood as spoken of in the Bible.

4500 BC The Bible taught that a baby must be circumcised on the eighth day. It took us from approximately until 1939 to discover that God knew what He was doing all along when medical science discovered that blood-clotting in a newborn reaches its peak on the eighth day because Vitamin K and Prothrombin.

2.. In 1500 BC they believed they earth sat on a large animal or a giant but the Bible spoke of the earth’s free float in space: “He…hangs the earth upon nothing” (Job 26:7).

2,400 years before man discovered that the earth was not flat the prophet Isaiah told us that the earth is round: “It is he that sits upon the circle of the earth” (Isaiah 40:22).

At a time when science believed that the earth was flat, the Scriptures are what inspired Christopher Columbus to sail around the world (see Proverbs 3:6 footnote).

God told Job in 1500 B.C that light can be sent, and then manifest itself in speech. Did you know that radio waves travel at the speed of light? : This is why you can have instantaneous wireless communication with someone on the other side of the earth.

Science didn’t discover this until 1864 when it was suggested that electricity and light waves were two forms of the same thing.”

2000 years before scientists “discovered” air currents Solomon described a “cycle” of air currents in (Ecclesiastes 1:6). “The wind goes toward the south, and turns about unto the north; it whirls about continually, and the wind returns again according to his circuits”
Long before science expressed the universe in five terms Genesis 1 revealed to the Hebrews in 1450 B.C the scientific truths that the universe as time, space, matter, power, and motion.
3,000 years ago Leviticus 17:11, declared that blood is the source of life: Up until 120 years ago, sick people were “bled,” and many died because of the practice. We did not understand the great biological truth concerning the importance of blood in our body’s functions. Yet “For the life of the flesh is in the blood.”
In 1440 BC the book of Leviticus 15:13 says specifically to wash hands under “running water.” It was not until 1845, a young doctor in Vienna insisted that doctors wash their hands before examinations, and the death rate immediately dropped from 30 % to 2 %.

If we followed God’s commands as revealed in Leviticus it would have saved untold millions of lives in the devastating Black Death of the fourteenth century.