Thursday, September 23, 2021
Discover The Evidence Behind The Bible
Is not my word like fire,” declares the LORD, “and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?” Jeremiah 23:29
Ignorance can be a wonderful thing. It saves you from having to think. Therefore, you avoid the consequences of facing what you don’t know, right? Dead wrong! That lump that you thought was nothing was cancer, but you didn’t really want to know and it didn’t go away. When you could avoid the issue no longer, you faced serious consequences—all of which could have been avoided had you faced the issue head-on.
There’s also a strange, willful ignorance today when it comes to the authority of the Bible. Some folks just don’t want to know, thinking that this lets them off the hook when it comes to what Jesus Christ said and did.
Let me back up for a minute. There’s been a misconception that’s been with us for a long time that says the biblical manuscripts have been passed down from generation to generation, and like a whisper that goes around the room at a party, it’s not the same at the end as at the beginning. Thus, if the source is discredited, the whole structure comes down.
Today there are more than 5,800 ancient manuscripts of the Bible of prime importance. Of these, 4400 are over 1000 years old. Additionally there are more than 13,000 fragments of biblical writings including orders of service (called lectionaries) and sermons of the early church fathers, mostly written in Latin, quoting Scripture, which gives us the biblical text at that given period of history. To that massive body of history, add 1400 manuscripts of the Gospels alone more than 1,000 years old, with portions of them going back to the year 125 AD, shortly after the last New Testament book was written.
Now compare this vast body of documents—all of which are biblical texts—with one copy of the Roman historian Tacitus, 23 manuscripts of Plato more than 1000 years old, and 10 copies of Caesar’s Gaellic Wars. But nobody bothers to assail either the historicity of Tiberius Caesar, Tacitus, or any of the other historical figures of the first century.
The science of studying these various manuscripts, striving to determine what is the pure text as it was given when the author first wrote it, is called textual criticism, and rather than being destructive, it has given us tremendous confidence that the Greek and Hebrew texts which are the source of our modern translations are accurate, completely accurate for all rights and purposes.
The materials upon which the biblical manuscripts were written also tell a story, along with the penmanship—whether it was flowing handwriting or block letters, and understanding all of this has been aided by scientific analyses such as carbon dating and even DNA which identifies the protein structure of the materials upon which Scripture was written.
At times, God raised up schools or groups of men who dedicated their lives to preserving the Word of God. Fearing that the New Testament was about to displace the thirty-nine books we call the Old Testament, Jewish rabbis in both Tiberias and Babylon dedicated themselves to preserving the Jewish Scriptures which make up the Old Testament in your Bible. Massoretes, they were called; and between the fifth and tenth centuries these dedicated scholars preserved and codified the Old Testament Scriptures.
So what’s the bottom line? The evidence demolishes the argument of ignorance that we can’t be sure the Bible has authority and credibility. Find out for yourself.
Resource reading: Jeremiah 23:29-49
https://www.guidelines.org/devotional/discover-the-evidence-behind-the-bible/
Sakto | TeleRadyo (23 September 2021)
Wednesday, September 22, 2021
What You Can Learn From The Bible
Your word, O LORD, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens. Psalm 119:89
There are two kinds of people who are ignorant—those who have never had an opportunity to learn, and those who are willfully ignorant because they refuse to get the facts. There are millions of people in the world trapped by poverty and economic stagnation, who are ignorant because they have no choice, but the latter category includes some who have Ph.D.s and advanced degrees by the handful. Those who refuse the truth purposefully, are not only ignorant, they are to be pitied.
I couldn’t help thinking of that when I had a conversation with a brilliant scientist, a man who has been honored by several countries for outstanding achievements in his chosen discipline. In our conversation I quoted the words of John 11 when Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live” (John 11:25, NJKV). “How do we know Jesus ever said that?” was his response.
Answering that question is important. Have you ever wondered how certain we are that some of the statements found in the Bible are authentic, say, as opposed to someone adding them or putting words in someone’s mouth that suits their purpose?
“What do you know about manuscripts or textual criticism?” I asked. The answer was: nothing. “If I read anything that makes a case for the credibility of the Bible,” he argued, “to be fair, I would have to read those who opposed biblical authority.” But the point is that he had read nothing. Willful ignorance is to be pitied.
Focusing on the one statement of Jesus which is found in John’s Gospel, I pointed out that John wrote this Gospel in the last decade of the first century, yet we have a portion of that same Gospel, known as Ryland’s Papyri P52, now in the library of the University of Manchester in Britain which dates to 125 AD—only 30 years after it was written.
The science of studying and collating biblical manuscripts is known as textual criticism, and it’s a fascinating study. Today literally thousands of biblical manuscripts have been found, coming from all over the Middle East. We now know that as the early Christians scattered under persecution, four major centers were established where the emerging New Testament was preserved and collected: Alexandria in Egypt, Caesarea in Palestine, Rome in Europe, and Constantinople in Turkey.
The rules by which biblical scholars have determined what is authentic are interesting. For example, if they had three manuscripts which came from, say, Alexandria and two of the three had longer renderings of a passage, they would generally choose the shortest of the three as valid. Why? We have a tendency to add what we think would clarify the text, thus, helping God out.
By comparing the various manuscripts and translations, biblical scholars have resolved the issue of integrity when it comes to transmitting the Bible from generation to generation.
Dr. Kenneth Kantzer, one of the foremost biblical scholars of the past century, has said that in his opinion we have recovered 99.9% of the words in the original manuscripts.
Where does this leave the scholar who refuses to consider the authority for this book? Pretty much taking refuge in ignorance that is a pretty thin veneer of comfort.
Don’t take my word on the issue. Find out for yourself how this unique book has been preserved through the centuries.
Resource reading: 2 Peter 1:2-21
https://www.guidelines.org/devotional/what-you-can-learn-from-the-bible/
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