P8 Why the Bible alone is the trustworthy Word of God - What I teach

2 Timothy 3:15-16 "and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness."

Introduction:

I have so appreciated the reader's patience these last several days as we have been making our journey through this series I'm entitling "Why the Bible". Though it may appear at times we are unnecessarily diving into techinicalities, yet the reader needs to know why the Bible they have is the Word of God. Today's post is partially devoted to reviewing what we have covered thus far in this series and partially devoted to moving ahead. We want to bring into the discussion the specific issue of the Bible's inspiration and consider it in relationship to all that has been already covered. Perhaps more for this blogger than anyone else, the attempt is being made to lock into the heart and mind this vast but important area for the Christian - namely showing why the Bible alone is the trustworthy Word of God.

What I teach regularly when it comes to the revelation and inspiration of the Bible.

The doctrine of revelation has to do with God communicating His Word(s) to the Old Testament prophets and New Testament apostles. Once that process began, the biblical authors, by the superintending work of the Holy Spirit, wrote down in each of their own writing styles the words of scripture by a process called "inspiration". Two chief texts provide the foundation for these two closely related truths of revelation and inspiration. 2 Peter 1:20-21 "But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, 21 for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." The word underlined in Peter's text, "moved", refers to the manner in which a ship would had been borne or "moved" along by the wind. The second text is the one mentioned at the beginning of this post, 2 Timothy 3:16 - "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness." The word translated "inspired" gives the idea of God "exhaling" his breath and words into the words that the prophets and apostles wrote. To borrow an illustration from Genesis 2:7, just as God breathed into the nostrils of Adam to make him a living soul, God breathed into the words of the scriptures to make them a living set of Divinely authoritative books. 

The very words in which the prophets and apostles wrote were superintended and preserved from error by the Holy Spirit. Consider this logical argument:

1. God cannot lie nor speak error when he reveals information (Numbers 23:19; 1 Samuel 15:29; Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18-20). 

2. The Person of the Holy Spirit is God (Acts 5:3-4; 2 Corinthians 3:17)

3. The Person of the Holy Spirit is credited as being the primary author and revealer of the words written down by the prophets and apostles. (1Peter 1:10-11; 2 Peter 1:20-21)

4. Hence the Bible is the Word of God, without error.

The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 (BFM 2000) is the particular doctrinal statement to which I subscribe and does a very good job in summarizing the entire teaching of the Bible as God's Word. Here is what it says: "The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God's revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation." Within the BFM 2000 article on scripture, the following scriptures are listed that show from whence this statement is derived: Exodus 24:4; Deuteronomy 4:1-2; 17:19; Joshua 8:34; Psalms 19:7-10; 119:11,89,105,140; Isaiah 34:16; 40:8; Jeremiah 15:16; 36:1-32; Matthew 5:17-18; 22:29; Luke 21:33; 24:44-46; John 5:39;16:13-15; 17:17; Acts 2:16ff.; 17:11; Romans 15:4; 16:25-26; 2 Timothy 3:15-17; Hebrews 1:1-2; 4:12; 1 Peter 1:25; 2 Peter 1:19-21. 

The reader can refer to these verses and see firsthand that the Bible has to say for itself in regards to its Divine inspiration and authority. This is what this blogger teaches, preaches and proclaims every week and also undergirds the entirety of this blogsite. Tomorrow we will continue consideration of the Bible alone being the trustworthy Word of God. To God be the glory. 

P7 Why the Bible? The trustworthiness of the words in the Biblical text

2 Timothy 3:15 "and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus."

Introduction:
So when we read the words above, are we reading the same words that Paul wrote in the first century? For that matter, did Paul even write those words, or was 2 Timothy the product of another author writing at a later time? Such questions, believe it or not, are hotly contested in the world of New Testament studies. Not much time will be spent in addressing the second question, since authorship issues (called in Biblical studies "higher criticism", which is concerned with authorship and development of the document itself) is not the focus of today's post. 1

The particular matter of which we are concerned about has to do with the very words of the Bible itself. Establishing whether or not the text of our English Bibles, other translations and ancient copies of the Hebrew and Greek originals are the same as those originals is of huge importance for the Christian. Why? If the Bible from whence I preach and teach and from whence Christians do daily devotions and memorize is not the wording and message that the original documents composed by the Prophets and Apostles, then the whole discussion over the Bible being God's word is a moot point. However, the aim of today's post is to demonstrate that the words originally given by God and in turn written by the prophets and apostles have been preserved in all the copies and translations. This matter deals in the area of the trustworthiness of the Biblical text or the specific area of lower or textual criticism. 

A quick tour of how we got our Bibles from original writing to modern day translations
To avoid getting too bogged down in technical details and to make this post as useable as possible to a wider audience, I will divide the history of how we got our Bibles into three stages.

Stage One: Revelation and inspiration 
The Old Testament books were written in whole or in part by different authors originally in Hebrew and a few chapters in Aramaic over a period of 1,000 years. Moses wrote the Pentateuch (first five books) in 1446-1406 b.c with Malachi penning the last Old Testament book in 396 b.c. Dr. Robert Jeffress, Pastor at First Baptist Church of Dallas, mentions the following verses that proclaim the divine revelation and writing down or inspiration of the Bible: Exodus 20:1; Isaiah 1:2; Jeremiah 1:1-2; Psalm 95:7b-8; Hebrews 3:7; 2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21; Matthew 19:4-5; Matthew 24:39; Matthew 22:31-32).2

Stage Two: Transmission (copying) 
The ancient Hebrew in which those documents would had been written may had looked something like the below figure:

Hebrew is a language that reads right to left and as seen in the above example, the text would had been continuous with no breaks in between the words. After the Jews went into exile in Babylon in 586 b.c, they adopted the Babylonian language of Aramaic and its lettering style, which in turn took the ancient Hebrew lettering (called paleo-Hebrew) and made it look more like the below figure with what is called "Aramaic Square Script".
 A fragment from the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, written between the close of the Old Testament Canon (396 b.c) and the coming of Jesus. israelseen.com

Despite the change in font, the Old Testament retained the same wording as it was copied down through the ages. As the Jews kept copying the Hebrew scriptures from the time between the Old and New Testament to what is called the Middle ages (400b.c-1,000 A.D), little "dots" or vowel points were inserted to aid in knowing how to pronounce and read the text. The next picture depicts a portion of Joshua 1:1 from the famous Aleppo Codex, dated in the tenth century A.D or 1,000 years after the Dead Sea Scrolls:




People of course wonder how much the text and wording of the Hebrew Bible had changed during all those transitions and events (there is far more, but for our purposes here we'll just stick to this skeletal outline). 

The Hebrew Bibles we have today, like a page of one pictured below, contain 419, 687 words. 


For a manuscript (which is a hand-copied document) of the Hebrew Bible, like Isaiah, produced in 1,000 A.D compared to the overall Old Testament books found at the caves of the Dead Sea at Qumran (the famous "Dead Sea Scrolls), there was found to be only 5% difference, and that being mostly spelling differences or words like "and". The Old Testament as a collection of books displays this overall figure of over 95% continuity between the older manuscripts and newer ones and translations. The point? The Old Testament text is remarkable in its preservation or transmission of the original words.   

The New Testament books demonstrate an even more remarkable accurate rate of copying when it comes to comparing the manuscripts. The 27 books of the New Testament were composed 45 A.D (book of James) to 95 A.D (Book of Revelation). All of them would had been originally written on an ancient form of paper called "papyrus" and in rolls or "scrolls". Since the chief language of the New Testament era was Greek, every New Testament book would had been composed in that language, particularly the common or "Koine" Greek of the day. Below is an photograph of the famous Bodmer Papyri from the second century A.D. This aids the reader in seeing what the text of the New Testament may had looked like when it was first written.

The New Testament books came to be used and copied, first in Greek, and then in other languages. From the first century until the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg in the 1450's, over 6,000 hand-copied Greek manuscripts were produced, with an additional 20,000 ancient translations from those copies. Below is an example of a beautifully produced Greek manuscript from the fourth century, the Codex Siniaticus: 


As the New Testament was being copied, the papyrus roll gave away to what was called the "codex" (as seen in the above picture), the forerunner to modern day books. According to Greek Scholar Dr. William Mounce, The New Testament as a collection of books contains 138,162 words. As inevitable differences can occur in scribes copying the New Testament documents, the consistent testimony of conservative and liberal critics alike maintain that there is 99.5% agreement between all of those manuscripts. 

In general, much like the Old Testament text, the overwhelming majority of those differences (or variants as they are called) are minute spelling differences, use or absence of the words "the", "and" and "an". Moreover, whether talking about the Old or New Testament text, consistently and without controversy it has been shown that not one major doctrine, historical recording or scientific fact in our translations and ancient copies differs in any fashion from the production of the original manuscripts. 

Stage Three: Translation and our English Bibles
The translation of the Bible books from Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek into other languages is about as old as the transmission and copying of those texts itself. We have established that the original documents were conceived and composed by the Biblical authors as the Holy Spirit revealed and inspired their writing of them. We next established in broadbrush fashion the reliability of the copying of those manuscripts (i.e hand-written documents). But now what about translation? Is anything lost in translation? When Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:15, he was writing to a man who would had heard the Old Testament taught to him from the Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint, translated in stages from 250 b.c - right before the coming of Jesus. Moreover, Jesus and the Apostles, who would had spoken in Aramaic, undoubtedly would had used either the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew scriptures (Targums) and would had been very familiar with the Greek translation. None of the Apostles nor Jesus had issue with referring to the translations and copies of their day as "God's Holy, inerrant, infallible Word". 

According to Bible scholar Dr. Donald Brake in his book: "A Visual History of the English Bible", page 16, there have been nearly 40 major English translations produced from the first (Wycliffe's 1384) to the latest (NET Bible 2005).3 This of course does not include the numerous versions and lesser known English translations and versions of the Bible not listed by him. In having studied the original languages of the Bible for 20 years and having been a regular user of English translations for an even longer period of time, this blogger can say with confidence that nothing is lost in translation. The Bible from whence I preach, read and that hopefully every Christian memorizes and lives out is the same Word of God as those inerrant words originally given by the Spirit to the Prophets and Apostles. 

Closing thoughts:
Today's post was all about introducing the reader to the subject of the trustworthiness of the words in the Biblical text. We considered this issue in three parts or stages: 1). The revelation and inspiration of the Bible. 2). The transmission or copying of the Bible 3). Translation and our English Bible. Clearly this is an enormous subject which can be either covered in too much detail or not enough. My prayer is that this particular post has proven useful to the reader. To God be the glory.

Endnotes:
1. To be brief, there are some clues that would indicate that Paul is undoubtedly the author of 2 Timothy (clues which may seem obvious to the readers of this blog, including this blogger, but for technical reasons proposed by critics, are not obvious). First of all, Paul identifies himself as the author of 2 Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:1 "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ", just as he does in his other letters that are not question by the critics. Secondly, Paul makes reference to people that we see appear in his other letters, such as Timothy (2 Tim 1:2), Onesiphus (2 Timothy 1:6, who is the same one  in his letter to Philemon and in Colossians 4:9) and the Ephesian Christians and church itself. Thirdly, the testimony of the first three centuries of church history ascribe Pauline authorship to this letter. Thus issues such as these establish in brief the authorship of 2 Timothy.

Why be concerned over who wrote 2 Timothy? Moreover, why be concerned over the matter of words period? Because authorship is important when discussing the issue of Biblical authority, since in all cases, the book in question needed to be demonstrated as having been written by an apostle or an associate of one (as with Mark and Luke). 

2. Dr. Robert Jeffress is pastor at First Baptist Church of Dallas and preached a series entitled "How can I know". The specific message consulted here can be found on the church's website: www.firstdallas.com. The reader can find the series and then the message in the website's search engine. Its well worth the listen!

3. Donald L. Brake. "A Visual History of the Bible". Baker Books. 2008. Page 16

P6 Why the Bible is worthy of our consideration - the journey ahead

2 Timothy 3:15 "and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus."

Introduction & Review

Today's post is giving the reader who has been following this current series a chance to catch their breath. In this series we are entitling "Why the Bible", we are featuring this question "why the Bible?" in posts that aim to answer it. In the past four posts we have done thus far on this subject, we have considered the following:

1. Why the Bible? Perilous times need God's Word. 2 Timothy 3:1-15

2. Why the Bible? It is unique in its authority (in three posts dedicated to each of three subjects below)

            a. Proofs of its revelation

            b. Purity of its writing

            c. Unparalled unity

Since this series carried over into this week, I felt it necessary to lay before the reader the next step in our journey. Knowing full well that the first posts laid the necessary groundwork for asserting what the Bible is and thus why we must identify it as God's Word, the next several posts will aim at defending these truths. In the upcoming posts we will deal with issues such as:

1. Why the Bible? The Bible's words are trustworthy

2. Why the Bible? The Bible's inspiration as God's Word

3. Why the Bible? The Bible is the basis for Christian living

4. Why the Bible? The Bible alone is the basis for the Gospel and reaching

5. Why the Bible alone is God's revealed book

6. Why the Bible has only 66 books - the issue of the canon

These six issues will be explored in 2 Timothy 3:15-4:5. The hope of this series is to equip the Christian reader with the basic tools needed to defend and communicate the truth of the Bible as God's Word.

P5- Why the Bible is unique in it's authority? Power to convert the human soul

2 Timothy 3:15 "and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus."

Introduction and review

We have been engaging in a series this past week that I have entitled: "Why the Bible?" We have considered thus far the following reasons why the Bible is the final authority on all matters of faith and practice:

1. It's proof of revelation

2. It's purity (i.e inerrancy)
3. It's unparalled unity

Today we continue on exploring this vital topic of "why the Bible" by considering another reason why the Bible alone is worthy of the title: "The Word of God". As we shall see, God uses the scriptures as His sole instrument in convert sinners unto salvation.

The Bible is uniquely authoritative because of it's power to convert the soul of the sinner
Notice the scriptures that speak of the Bible's ability to convert the human soul. Psalm 19:7 "The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple." Romans 10:17 "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." Hebrews 4:12 "For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart." James 1:18 "In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures." When the Bible is present, and the Holy Spirit is present and faith is present, the result is I believe and I am saved. The scriptures are necessary for salvation. No other so-called Holy book claims this authority to be  used by God in working forth conversion. 

A story about a conversation with a Muslim about the Quran and as to whether or not it can convert the human heart
To prove this, let me tell a quick story about a conversation I had with a Muslim man years ago. For four years I had developed a working relationship with a Muslim man. This individual was a serious devotee to the Muslim religion. He had studied Arabic (the language of the Quran, the religious book of Islam), and did all of the necessary requirements. He could quote the Quran at will and was saving up money to make a pilgrimage to Islam's most holy spot: Mecca. One day he and I were talking and I asked him: "Can the Quran, if read aloud, be used by God to change a person's heart." He looked at me puzzled and then thought for a little bit. His reply was that a person simply chooses to be Muslim on the basis of their will alone. The Quran does not possess any inherent quality nor is it used by God to convert anyone. 

Closing thoughts
When we read Paul's words in 2 Timothy 3:15 "and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus", we are seeing testimony of the scripture's power to convert sinners. No other book in the world can do this. 

P4 - Why the Bible is unique in its authority? Its unparalleled unity

2 Timothy 3:15 "and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus."

Introduction and Review

By using the word translated "holy" or "sacred" in 2 Timothy 3:15, we began unfolding two days ago the answer to the question: why the Bible is uniquely authoritative? Thus far we have looked at the fact of:

a). The Bible's character as revelation b). The Bible's purity 

Today we once again approach this question by considering the Bible's unparalleled unity.

The Bible's unparalleled authority as the Word of God
If historically verified fulfilled prophecy functions as the chief proof of the Bible's Divine revelation, then it's unity runs a close second place. Some may question the authority of a book that is 2,000-3,500 years old and which took over 1500 years to complete. Moreover, some may scoff that multiple human authors could in anyway compose such a group of books that are unified in both theme and thought. Such concerns are warranted if we are dealing with only a humanly contrived book. However the Bible as a collection of books are not just human documents, but as labored over the past few days, the books of the Bible are Divinely inspired human written documents. 

Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:15 "and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." Notice how the underlined words convey the idea of a collection of writings. Can it be possible that the 66 books of the Old Testaments are not just unified in thought and theme, but uniquely unified? If it can be shown that no other book claiming to be a book of God demonstrates the unity of the Bible, then it only stands to reason that the Bible alone is uniquely authoritative due to its unparalleled unity. Consider the following facts that we know:

1. The Length of the Bible's composition is unparalleled.

The Bible is a collection of books written over a period of 1500 years. The 39 Old Testament books took 1,000 years for completion, with 400 years separating them from the New Testament books. In turn, the New Testament is a collection of 27 books taking roughly 50-60 years to compose. When you compare say the Book of Mormon or the Quran, each of those books took a few years to be composed. There is no comparison in terms of length of composition. Notice secondly....

2. The variety of human authors is unparalleled

When we add up the total human authors of the 66 books of the Bible, we tabulate around 40 in all. Such diversity included farmers (like Amos), priests (like Samuel), scribes (like Ezra), shepherds (Moses, David), prophets of course (like Isaiah), physicians (like Luke), fishermen (like Peter), unknown people (like Hebrews) and well known kings (like Solomon). Such a diversity would under normal circumstances produce a disaster of a book. Yet when we see the themes of God's glory and salvation in Jesus Christ, the Bible can be none other than the Word of God. 

Meanwhile when we compare the Book of Mormon and the Quran, both of those volumes were written each by one man. Despite the expected outcome of complete unity, both books possess disunity and inconsistencies in both development of themes and message. 
For brevity's sake these assertions are being made in the general sense. Having presonally ready through the Quran and Book of Mormon myself, the comparison to the Bible is really no comparison. The unity of not only thought, but also progression and forward moving of overall plot is present only in the Bible. 
  3. The Bible alone is written in multiple languages
The Bible can truly be considered a transcultural book. The nearly 500,000 words underlying the Old Testament were written mostly in Hebrew, with 2-3% written in Aramaic. Hebrew was the language of the Jews prior to their exile and Aramaic became their spoken tongue following their return from exile in Babylon. The New Testament was written in the common Greek language of the first century. No other so-called holy book can claims such a diversity of languages. Herein again we find the Bible books to be completely unified despite their diversity of languages. In having studied all three of these languages, this blogger can testify first-hand that the English Bibles we have in our possession today are just as much the Word of God as any Hebrew/Aramaic Old Testament or Greek New Testament. 

These three facts could under normal circumstances making it impossible to produce a collection of books unified in theme, in thought and authority. Nonetheless, the Bible alone is unique in its authority and shows itself as the Word of God by sheer power of its unity in terms of its length of composition, diversity of authorship and make-up of original languages.