I have four points of introduction. In terms of the general form of this study, what I have decided to do is for any given topic of Scripture, to provide three levels of study: (a) the basic definition with a half a dozen Scriptural references, which should take approximately a paragraph and no more than half a page; (b) the doctrine of a particular topic; this should take anywhere from 1-5 pages and could be covered in a lecture in ten minutes to perhaps less than three hours; (c) the third level I will call the study of a particular topic. This last level will be a much more in depth study, exceeding ten pages in length and requiring at least five hours of lecture. Some topics, such as inspiration, lend themselves to all three levels. Other topics, such as the tree of life, barely lend themselves to levels one and two.

Secondly, as I embark on this study, I am continually reminded about Paul's statements in I Corinthians concerning the body of Christ and its interrelatedness and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Nowhere is this more clear than in a study like this. I could not begin to count the number of shoulders that I am standing upon. There are so many believers who are authors, pastors, textual critics, Greek and Hebrew scholars, etc. that without whom, I would have nothing to write. The Bibliography given only scratches the surface of the number of people who have been the basis of my training in general and this study in specific.

What I am committing to paper is not original by any means. I have drawn heavily from several sources, all found in the Bibliography. What they have done is far superior to anything that I could come up with from scratch, yet I feel by combining their works, adding a few comments of my own, that I might have a study of some merit.

Finally, as I sit here in my living room typing, I am not an author per se (I have had nothing published) nor am I a teacher of God's Word (I have taught a Sunday school class and a Christian group for a very short time decades ago), I have no idea as to where this particular study may end up. I do not know whether this will be a personal study that will die when I die, and live on in my soul as a result of the study or whether it will touch the life of any other Christian. My belief is the latter, yet I have no idea as to what extent or in what form. I do believe that I am part of the body of Christ and that sometime in the future, this study, or compilation, will continue to bolster other Christians lives as it has mine. God has a definite purpose for my life and, although I have inklings and guesses as to what it might be, as I type this, my primary direction is to write and study, study and write. I thank God that He has given me the opportunity to do that.

Addendum:

Having read a great many books on the Bible, I have found that when an author states a point and adds a Scriptural reference or two, that most of the time, these references are not ever consulted by the reader (or listener) and, tragically, often these passages do not really address the content of the point given. For this reason, I will quote the pertinent Scripture (using blue for the Old Testament, red for the New, and magenta for Old Testament passages quoted from the New). Word that I want emphasized will be in italics within these quotes, and quotes taken from other authors will also be in italics. If a particular quote is of great importance, then I will place it in bold. In each case, I will attempt to give the context and background and give a reasonable translation of the verse (depending heavily upon the New American Standard Bible for the basic text and editing as necessary). In no wise should the passages cited thought to be an exhaustive search of all related Scripture. I may be particularly exhausted after a few hours at the keyboard, but the references are merely a representative group. As I have done in the past, I could fill six or more pages of verses dealing with salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. However, in a doctrinal examination of a related subject, quoting but two or three of these passages would suffice to convey the principle.

Introduction: It is important that we understand what is meant by inspiration. After all, properly speaking, inspiration is not a Biblical word , just as trinity is not a Biblical word. This does not mean it is a false doctrine; it just means that word is not specifically found in Scripture. Furthermore, the theological term inspiration and the common use of the same word are different. People hear a motivational speaker and they are inspired. An artist spends a week in a cabin and is suddenly inspired. This is not what we mean in theology when we speak of the Bible being inspired. 2Tim. 3:16 gives us the best initial concept of Biblical inspiration. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God might be adequate, equipped for every good work. The Greek word translated inspired by God is θεόπνευστος (theopneustos) and it means God-breathed. It means to breathe out. As the New Bible Dictionary explains, the proper sense is not God breathing through the Scriptures and it is not the Scriptures breathing out God (the word is passive and not active), but the Scriptures are being breathed out by God (which, in the English, is awkward) and it sounds better as God breathed out Scripture. The simplest translation, as was stated, is God-breathed. The words found in the Bible are God's words and the thoughts which they express are God's thoughts. Inspiration and illumination are also two separate concepts. Illumination is what occurs as we are taught God's Word or as we read God's Word and we understand what is being communicated. At that point, we are illumined. We are illumined because the Scripture is inspired.

So that we have a working definition, I could not improve upon the definition which Lewis Sperry Chafer wrote in Systematic Theology: It is by the divine controlling influence of God over the human authors that the Old and New Testaments were written to include all that God wanted included, to exclude all that God wanted excluded, and to state divine truth in perfect accuracy. Inspiration may be defined as God so supernaturally directed the writers of Scripture that, without waiving their human intelligence, their individuality, their literary style, their person feelings, or any other human factor, His own complete and coherent message to man was recorded in perfect accuracy, the very words of Scripture bearing the authority of divine authorship.

Preface	Introduction	Biblical Claims for Inspiration
Apologetics	Additional Topics on Inspiration	Bibliography

Biblical Claims for Inspiration

Introduction: It is imperative that we understand what the Bible says about itself in order to build upon that. Few authors claim that their very words are the Words of God. Such claims usually come under the heading of extreme arrogance and self-delusion. Generally such claims, infrequent as they are , can be dismissed without investigation of those allegations. However, the Bible is a different matter, as we will come to find out.

General Scriptural Claims Concerning Inspiration:

1. Geisler and Nix give us three reasons for beginning here:

(a) The most practical place to begin is what is self-claimed. Why argue that the Bible is God's Word if it does not testify to that itself?

(b) Our judicial system allows a man to testify on his own behalf; certainly the same privilege should be afforded the Word of God.

(c) This embarkation is not so much a way of supporting the claim of Divine inspiration, but rather a point of departure, a jumping off point, if you will, so that we know what the Bible claims for itself. It is that viewpoint we hope to articulate and give evidence for.

2. We hold to the doctrine of verbal-plenary inspiration. That is, the very words of Scripture are inspired (verbal inspiration) and inspiration extends to the entirety of the Bible (plenary inspiration).

3. The classical text is 2Tim. 3: 16–17: Every Scripture [is] God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for convincing, for correction of error, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be well-prepared, equipped for every good work. God-breathed is the Greek word θεόπνευστος (theopneustos) and it is most often translated inspired by God. However, it is the combination of two Greek words, θεός (which means God) and πέπνευστι, which is from the Greek word πνέω (to breathe). It is found only once in the NT and I personally would have thought that this would have been a coined word by Paul. It was not. It is also found in classical Greek writings (although most of the passages seem to come from the first or second century bc). Breathing involve inhale and exhale:

(a) On the inhale, we have God the Holy Spirit providing the writers of Scripture with information, as in II Sam. 23:2–3 Isa. 59:21 Jer. 1:9 Acts 28:25).

(b) On the exhale, we have the writers of Scripture writing God's word (or speaking it; and these words are recorded).

4. Paul, in defending his authority and his ministry to the Corinthians (1Cor. 2:13), wrote: These things which we also speak [are] not in words taught by human wisdom but in those [words] taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual words with spiritual truth.

5. The New Testament constantly equates the writings of the Old Testament with the phrase the Word of God.

(a) In Mark 7:1–15, Jesus is speaking to some scribes and Pharisees, quoting Old Testament passages, interpreting them correctly, and showing them the errors in their own interpretations. In pointing out one particular error of tradition, which goes against one of the basic tenants of Scripture, our Lord says in Mark 7:13a, "[You are thus] invalidating the Word of God by your traditions which you have handed down."

(b) When our Lord was tested by Satan, He answered Satan's first temptation with "It is written: Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." (Matt. 4:4) Satan understood fully what God's Word was and began to quote Old Testament Scripture.

(c) The book of Hebrews explains to the Jewish believer and unbeliever that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. It goes further to properly interpret Old Testaments passages and events, which had been obfuscated by the confused traditions of the scribes and Pharisees. The author of Hebrews, after quoting several Old Testaments passages, writes (Heb. 4:12): The Word of God is alive and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder the soul and the spirit, the joints and the marrow, and is a critic and of thoughts and intents of the heart.

6. What the Apostles spoke and wrote is repeatedly called the Word of God:

(a) One of the first churches founded by Paul was the church at Thessalonica. When establishing a church, Paul (i) evangelized them and (ii) taught them Bible doctrine. Paul claims that what he taught them was the word of God. He wrote: And for this reason, we also constantly thank God that when you received from us the word of God's message, you accepted it not as the word of men but for what it really is, the Word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.

(b) Acts 4:4 deals primarily with John and Peter and v. 31 reads: And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak the Word of God with boldness.

7. Paul calls the Old Testament writings the Oracles of God in Rom. 3:2 as does the writer of Heb. 5:12. Paul is explaining in Romans the advantage of being a Jew to the Romans and writes that they were entrusted with the oracles of God.

8. The Bible is not a matter of human viewpoint but Scripture is written while the writer is filled by the Holy Spirit or he writes by means of the Holy Spirit or while he is carried along by the Holy Spirit (Matt. 22:42–45 Acts 4:24–25 II Peter 1:20–21). As Thieme puts it, the Holy Spirit makes use of human agencies and language. Chafer points out that the Bible is our ultimate authority...It is an act of futility to attempt to debate theology and the truths relating to it without agreeing on the foundation and source of this truth.

(a) In response to the divine release of Peter and John from prison, other disciples remarked, "O Lord, it is You who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, who, by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our father David, Your servant, said, 'Why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples devise futile things? The kings of the earth took their stand and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Messiah.'" (Acts 4:24–26)

(b) Peter writes to other believers the following words (2Peter 1:20–21): But know this first of all that all prophecy of Scripture is not from one's own interpretation for [you see], no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will but by from God men moved by the Holy Spirit.

9. During the sermon on the mount, Jesus said to His listeners, "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law until all is accomplished." (Matt. 5:18) Our Lord also said, "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter of the Law to fail." (Luke 16:17)

10. Jesus told his listeners during another sermon that "The Scripture cannot be broken." (John 10:35b)

11. The Word of God came to Jeremiah, the prophet and prior to delivering this word to the people of Judah, Yahweh admonishes Jeremiah, "Do not omit a word!" (Jer. 26:2b)

12. Sometimes theologians and people who have a particular Biblical viewpoint tend to take the Bible very literally. There is good precedence for this viewpoint. Paul, in Gal. 3:16, bases an argument on the use of a singular rather than a plural in the Old Testament.

13. The chart below shows that the New Testament writers of Scripture and Jesus Christ quoted Old Testament Scripture as unequivocally God's Word :

Old Testament Designation

The Psalmist said. . . . . . . . . . . . (Psalm 95:7)

The Psalmist said (Psalm 45:6)

Isaiah said (Isa. 7:14)

Narrator of Genesis (Gen. 2:24)

The words of Eliphaz (Job 5:13)

New Testament quotation of Same

The Holy Spirit says (Heb. 3:7)

God said (Heb. 1:8)

The Lord spoke by the prophet (Matt. 1:22–23)

God said (Matt. 19:3–6)

God's Word (1Cor. 3:19)

Specific Scriptural Claims Concerning the Old Testament:

Part I: What the Old Testament Claims for Itself:

1. Genesis :

(a) Direct quotations from God (Gen. 1:3,6,9,11)

(b) Conversations between God and various men (Gen. 3:9–19 6:13–21)

2. Exodus:

(a) God speaking directly to Moses (Ex. 3:4–22 20:1–17)

(b) Moses speaking God's Word to Pharaoh (Ex. 5:1)

3. Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy :

(a) Yahweh Elohim speaks directly to Moses (Lev. 1:1–8:2 Num. 1:1–16 5:1–6:27 Deut. 31:14–21)

(b) Moses communicates God's Word to the sons of Abraham (Num. 11:24 Deut. 2:2–9 6:1–25)

4. Joshua:

(a) God spoke directly to Joshua (Josh. 1:1–9 3:7–13)

(b) Already, God emphasizes the importance of the written word to Joshua (Josh. 1:8)

(d) Most importantly: And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God. (Josh. 24:26a)

5. Judges:

(a) The angel of the Lord (who is Yahweh Elohim) speaks to Joshua (or possibly the people of Israel) in Judges 2:1–3; to Gideon in Judges 6:12–18; the wife of Zorah (Judges 13:–5

(b) God's viewpoint is expressed in several places: Now the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord. (Judges 6:1 13:1)

6. Ruth was probably an addendum to the book of Judges (Ruth 1:1) and therefore would not require a specific claim for inspiration. However, this book does record divine activity , as Geisler and Nix put it, because it records a an important portion of the Messianic line (Ruth 4:24). However, we do not have an appearance of the Angel of the Lord nor do we have any pronouncements such as "The Lord said to..." This was a problem in terms of acceptance into the canon of Scripture, but that is another topic.

7. I and II Samuel (one book originally):

(a) Specific divine activity is recorded in I Sam. 2:21 and II Sam. 24:1.

(b) God speaks to Samuel in I Sam. 3:4–14 and to David in II Sam. 2:1.

8. I and II Kings (also originally one book):

(a) Specific divine activity is recorded in I Kings 8:11 and II Kings 2:1

(b) God speaks to Solomon (I Kings 8:2–9).

(d) Isaiah encounters the word of Yahweh in II Kings 20:4–6.

9. I and II Chronicles (also one book)

(a) The word of the Lord comes to Nathan (I Chron. 17:1–14), to Gad (I Chron. 21:9–10), and to David (I Chron. 22:8–11).

(b) The Spirit of the Lord comes upon Azariah (II Chron. 15:1–7).

(d There aren't as many divine claims to authorship in chronicles as there are in most of the other books but Geisler and Nix point out that the books assume authority rather than stating or claiming . See II Chron. 36:18–23.

10. Ezra-Nehemiah (originally one book).

(a) The fulfillment of prophecy is noted in Ezra 1:1–4.

(b) Ezra returns to the land by the will of God in Ezra 7:27–28.

(c) Geisler and Nix point out that this is more of a recording of God's deeds rather than His words and it is therefore authoritative .

11. Esther is even more of an enigma to the unlearned. Not even is God's name mentioned in all of Esther. However, the Jewish religion would have been anathema at this time in Persia. However, some claim that God's name does show up in acrostic form (it is said that the use of His name would have caused problems for the Jews in captivity). I don’t buy that, as second in that kingdom was Esther, who was a Jewess. In any case, God's divine providence is seen clearly in this book, apart from any mention of Him.

12. Job unashamedly presents direct conversation between Satan and Yahweh in Job 1:7–12 2:1–6. The bulk of Job is a conversation between Job and is friends, a portion of which is correct, divine viewpoint; however, much of it is human viewpoint. God speaks to Job and acts in Job's life in Job 38:1–42:12.

13. Psalms are written by many different authors compiled over several hundred years. Since the book of Psalms is treated like a cohesive whole throughout the rest of Scripture, we shall do likewise. However, these Psalms are primarily men speaking to God in song lyrics. Therefore, we would expect a dearth of "Thus saith the Lord..."

14. Proverbs has probably more external evidence for inspiration than internal evidence (which will be covered in the next section). Like much of the Bible, its tone is unabashedly authoritative.

15. Ecclesiastes was a difficult book when it came to deciding what belonged in the canon of Scripture. This is the writing of Solomon while in and out of fellowship and while on a frantic search for happiness. Solomon had the ability to satisfy his every whim; and he was bright and well-trained. However, everything that he tried was vanity of vanities. What we have here is a mixture of human and divine viewpoint. As in Proverbs, its tone is authoritative but there is not the familiar "the Word of the Lord came to me."

16. The Song of Solomon is another book which was tough for those in the position of determining what belonged and what did not belong in the canon. It is Solomon making a fool of himself in front of a very lovely and faithful woman. There is no simple internal (or external) evidence for its inclusion in the canon, just like Ecclesiastes. Its inclusion is an example of God's control over the canon of Scripture.

17. Like Geisler and Nix, it is easiest to group all of the prophets together. Since a prophet represents God to man, their books will always be replete with messages directly from God. Lamentations is somewhat different, however. Whereas the majority of Jeremiah is God speaking to Jeremiah, Lamentations is Jeremiah speaking to God. Therefore, because of the difference in viewpoints, it will not carry the same language that Jeremiah does when it comes to self-proclaimed divine revelation. Habakkuk is similar in viewpoint to Lamentations. Daniel is a man who had enough knowledge of God's word to where he did not need to communicate directly with God in order to explain things to kings. However, God did choose him to give a number a very bizarre visions to.

(a) God speaks directly with the prophet (Isa. 8:1–11 2:2–4:12 Ezek. 2:1–3:27 Joel 2:12 Obad. 1:1–21 Jonah 3:1–2 Micah 4:6–13 Zeph. 1:1–13 Hag. 2:1–23 Zech. 2:5–13 Mal. 1:1–14)

(b) God's viewpoint or His actions are presented (Isa. 10:33 14:1–22 Lam. 2:1–8 Dan. 1:2 Hos. 4:1 Micah 6:1 Nahum 1:12–15)

(c) The word of the Lord comes to the prophet (Jer. 1:2,13 2:1 Ezek. 1:3 Hos. 1:1 3:1 Joel 1:1 Jonah 1:1 3:1 Micah 1:1 Zeph. 1:1 Hag. 1:1,3 Zech. 1:1 Mal. 1:1)

(d) The prophet receives visions from God (Dan. 8:1–27 12:1–13 Amos 1:1 Obad. 1:1 Nahum 1:1 Hab. 1:1 Zech. 2:1–4)

(e) "Thus says the Lord..." (Amos 1:3 2:1)

(f) What the prophet recorded was the very words of God (Jer. 36:6)

(g) God commanded the prophets to write their words down (Isa. 30:8 Jer. 36:28 Hab. 2:2)

18. My hope was to give a representative sampling of a few verses in each book of the Old Testament which declare clearly that at least a portion of the book is directly from God. There were certainly a half a dozen books where this is not as clear as it is in the others, but there are other evidences for their self-proclaimed authority as God's Word. An exhaustive study of all such verses would be tedious and unnecessary. All any individual needs to do is pick up the Bible and begin reading and, with the few exceptions previously noted, within a few pages he will find a portion of Scripture which claims divine revelation for itself.

Part II: What the Old Testament claims for other portions of the Old Testament:

1. As a point of introduction, this again is an abbreviated examination of what the Old Testament claims for itself. However, in this section, we will see what one portion of the Old Testament has to say about another portion.

2. The Pentateuch was taken as a cohesive whole by the Jews, and by far the easiest portion of the Bible to give internal evidence for its divine authorship. That is, it not only continually claims for itself divine authorship, but Old Testament writers, priests, and prophets also took it as authoritative (e.g., II Kings 14:6) Moses writings were taken to be from God immediately; a portion of Josh. 14:2 reads:...as the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses. It was called the book of the law (Josh. 8:31 II Kings 22:8,11), the law of Moses (I Kings 2:3) or the book of Moses (II Chron. 35:12 Neh. 13:1). Prior to its use in II Chron. 35:12, God's Word had been lost and recently found and read as authoritative by King Josiah (II Chron. 34:30). A group of priests follow the authority of the book of Moses when they begin to set up an altar to God and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles (Ezra 3:2–5). Daniel, in a prayer to God, quotes from the Law of Moses as authoritative (Dan. 9:13). God encourages the readers of Malachi to remember the law of Moses (Mal. 4:4).

3. The Psalms: David, who wrote a large number of the Psalms, is said to have been used by the Spirit of God when he wrote and spoke (II Sam. 23:1–2).

4. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon: In direct communication with God, Solomon asked for wisdom and God was so pleased that he granted this desire and made Solomon the wisest man who ever lived (I Kings 3:6–14 4:29). By extrapolation, that would extend to his writings.

5. The Old Testament is separated into two parts by some (the Law and the Prophets—Matt. 5:17 Luke 24:27) and into three parts by others (the Law, the Prophets and the Writings—Luke 24:44). The writings include the Psalms, Job, Ruth, Esther and the three historical books, Daniel, Ezra/Nehemiah and Chronicles. This three-fold division is found in the Hebrew Bible and alluded to only once in the New Testament. However, when taken as a cohesive whole, we have covered some of the Scriptural references to their authority in points 3 and 4.

6. The prophets of God are given a blanket authority acknowledgment in II Chron. 20:20, which says , in part: "...Listen to me, O Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, put your trust in Yahweh, your God, and you will be stabilized and strengthened. Put your trust in His prophets and succeed." Zechariah voices a similar recognition of the prophets speaking God's Word, when he wrote: "And they made their hearts like flint so that they could not hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets; therefore, great wrath came from the Lord of Hosts." (Zech. 7:12). The Prophets are the servants of God (Jer. 7:25 Ezek. 38:17 Dan. 9:6,10). Certain men are recognized as prophets in other books of the Bible: Isaiah (II Kings. 20:1,11,14), Jeremiah (II Chron. 36:12 Ezra 1:1 Dan. 9:2), and Haggai and Zechariah (Ezra 5:1 6:14).

Part III: What the New Testament claims for portions of the Old Testament:

Introduction: In the first two columns, we will give a partial list of Old Testament quotations quoted (generally, authoritatively) in the New; and then examine the blanket authority given the Old Testament by the New.

Old Testament Passage........

.......cited in the New Testament

Authority granted in general

Gen. 1:27 2:24 5:2

Gen. 7:7

Ex. 20:13–14

Ex. 21:24 Lev. 24:20

Lev. 19:12 Num. 30:2

Deut. 8:3

Deut. 6:16

II Sam. 23:2

1 Kings 19:10,18

Job 5:13

Psalm 6:8

Psalm 78:2

Prov. 3:11–12

Isa. 7:14

Isa. 40:3

Jer. 31:15

Jer. 31:31–34

Dan. 9:27

Dan. 12:3

Hos. 6:6

Hos. 11:1

Joel 2:28–32

Amos 5:26–27

Jonah 1:2

Micah 5:2

Micah 7:6

Hab. 2:3–4

Zeph. 1:3

Zech. 11:12–13

Matt. 19:4,5ª

Matt. 24:38ª

Matt. 5:21,27ª

Matt. 5:38ª

Matt. 5:33ª

Matt. 4:4ª

Matt. 4:7ª

Matt. 22:43–45ª*

Rom. 11:3–4

1Cor. 3:19

Matt. 7:23ª

Matt. 13:35ª

Heb. 12:5–6

Matt. 1:23*

Matt. 3:3

Matt. 3:18

Heb. 8:8–12 10:16–17

Matt. 24:15ª

Matt. 13:43ª

Matt. 9:13 12:7ª

Matt. 2:15*

Acts 2:16–21

Acts 7:43

Matt. 12:40ª

Matt. 2:6

Matt. 10:21,35ª

Heb. 10:37–38

Matt. 13:41ª

Matt. 27:9–10

1. "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For dogmatically I say to you until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law until all has been accomplished." (Jesus Christ speaking to the multitudes during the sermon on the mount in Matt. 5:17–18)

2. After His resurrection from the dead, Jesus told some of His disciples: "All things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." (Luke 24:44b)

3. Many of the Old Testament Scriptures were Messianic; that is, they predicted the coming of our Lord and His dying on the cross on our behalf. This is the thrust of the previously quoted Matt. 5:17–18 and Luke 24:44. Jesus, in John 5:39, speaking in the temple, said, "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me." (See also Mark 15:28 John 13:18 17:12 19:24,28)

4. Jesus accused the Jews of shedding righteous blood from Abel (found in Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew canon) to Zechariah (his death is recorded in II Chron 24:20–22; and II Chron. is the last book of the Bible in the Hebrew canon). This is a way of including the entire Hebrew canon minus the Apocrypha under the divine revelation.

5. Jesus Christ asserts that the "Scriptures cannot be broken." (John 10:35b)

6. Jesus tells the Sadducees that "You are wrong because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God." (Matt. 22:29)

7. Jesus Christ continually quoted the Scriptures, as seen in the table above, properly interpreting them (since their meaning had become lost in the legalism of the Pharisees), and in one of His many corrections of their viewpoint, specifically their misunderstanding of the Messiah, he said, "Have you never read in the Scriptures the stone which the builders rejected became the chief cornerstone?"

8. The authority of Scriptures include the Law, or the books of Moses (Mark 12:26 Luke 2:22–24 Acts 13:39 1Cor. 9:9); the Law and the prophets (Matt. 7:12 Luke 24:27 Acts 28:23); the Law, the prophets and the Psalms (Luke 24:44); the prophets (Mark 1:2 Luke 4:17 Rom. 1:2); and the Psalms (writings) (Luke20:42 Acts 1:20).

ª spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ * quoted as spoken by the Lord or through the Spirit of God (sometimes by the agency of a prophet)

We need to make a quick, parenthetical examination of the Writings of Scripture; that is, the Psalms, Job, Proverbs, etc:

1. Most of the New Testament, with the sole exception of Luke 24:44, seem to set up a two-fold division of the Bible into the Law and the Prophets.

2. The Hebrew Bible does, for all intents and purposes, subdivide the Bible into three sections, the Law, the Prophets and the Writings, which include the poetical books (Job, Psalms and Proverbs), the Five Rolls (or the Megilloth, which includes the Song of Solomon, Ruth, Ecclesiastes, Esther and Lamentations, the first four of which are read each year at a given Feast day), and the historical books (Daniel, Ezra/Nehemiah and Chronicles).

3. The reading of four books of the Megilloth during specific Feast days indicates that the Jews saw these books as inspired.

4. The New Testament freely quotes from these books, often calling their authors prophets (Daniel in Matt. 24:15; David in Acts 2:30 and David by self-proclamation in II Sam 23:2 and I Chron. 28:19; Solomon was granted wisdom by God and had visions from God, so this would lend divine credence to his writings (cp Num 12:6 and I Kings 11:9, also see ***)

5. The gospel writers, in fact, particularly Matthew, and Paul in his epistles, quote the Psalms a great deal, giving credence to their divine authority (Matt. 11:9 12:10–11,36 Rom. 4:10–18 6:7–8)

6. As was noted in the table above, many of the books which fall into this category of the Writings are quoted in the New Testament with the same authority as any other book.

7. By the nature of these books, the Psalms being often praises made toward God, Lamentations being a payer of Jeremiah, Esther being an historical book written and preserved in a time when the mention of Yahweh could have caused the book's destruction, it would be contrived to occasionally include the phrase "God saith..." because these are authors, as moved by the Holy Spirit, speaking to God or recording historical events. In the case of Solomon, some of his writings were done in looking back to false concepts which he had and his frantic search for happiness apart from God.

8. Luke's three-fold division puts the third portion of the Old Testament on equal footing with the Law and the Prophets in Luke 24:44.

9. The explanation often given by theologians is that these writers had the gift but not the office of prophet. After having read that explanation in books by authors that I greatly admire, this does not cover Jeremiah, who wrote Lamentations and clearly had the gift and office of prophecy. Daniel was clearly a prophet, yet not specifically to Israel except by way of the foretelling of tribulational event. Ruth and Esther were not prophetesses, yet this does not mean that they, or the authors of their books could not write Scripture. As long as we recognize a prophet as being a person who spoke on behalf of God prior to the completion of the canon of Scripture, then the writers of all these books could b considered prophets. Whether they were specifically called prophets during their day or not is irrelevant.

10. Therefore, the writings are different in nature from much of the rest of the Old Testament, yet they are equally inspired.

9. Jesus Christ, Paul and other writers of New Testament Scripture, continually said (or wrote), "It stands written...", "As the Scripture has said...", "...according to the Scriptures." (Luke 4:4,8,10 19:46 John 7:42 19:37 Acts 7:42 Rom. 4:3 9:17 1Cor. 15:3–4 Gal. 4:30). Their appeal for a particular viewpoint was always to the Scriptures as the final authority.

10. Paul's use of the Scriptures indicated that they were a common source of authority for himself and the unregenerate Jews (Acts. 17:2,11 18:28) and as a source of authority to newly saved Gentiles (Rom. 4:3 9:17 Gal 4:30..

11. Paul stated the simple and profound, All Scripture is God-Breathed in 2Tim. 3:16.

12. I will quote Peter as the final point, but, for the fullest understanding of his opinion, it's best that we understand the word prophecy. We tend to connect prophecy exclusively with the unveiling of future events. The prophet certainly did that, but not just as a matter of satisfying or perking intellectual curiosity. The prophet was God's representative to man who spoke God's truth to man prior to the completion of the canon of Scripture. Prophecy is, therefore, God's truth, which includes but is not limited by the revealing of events to occur in the future. A simple reading of the message of any prophet will show that the prophet intended for his words to provoke a response or to have an effect on the readers or listeners. Anytime you read the word prophecy, understand that this is God's truth spoken by a prophet. That being said, Peter wrote: But understand this first of all that no prophecy of Scripture is a [matter of] personal unraveling because no prophecy ever originated by human impulse but [rather] men spoke from God, having been carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2Peter 1:20–21)

13. Conclusion: You can draw no other conclusion than the Old Testament presented itself as God's Word, God's Truth and God's Law. This position is taken throughout the entirety of the Old Testament. Furthermore, in looking back, later Old Testament Scripture recognized the authority of previously recorded Scripture. And finally, the writers of the New Testament, the Apostles and Jesus Christ continually affirmed the veracity of the very words of Old Testament Scriptures. We can take any stand that we want and believe anything that we want concerning the accuracy of the Old Testament; however, there should be no confusion now as to how the Old Testament writers viewed their own writings and viewed the writings in the rest of the Old Testament; nor should we have another viewpoint on how Jesus Christ or any of the Apostles viewed the Old Testament; their opinion should be clear.

Part IV: The New Testament Recognizes the Authenticity of the Old Testament:

Introduction: We will eventually deal with the false concepts of the mechanics of inspiration and the meaning of inspiration. However, an important point is did Jesus or any of the Apostles recognize the Scriptures as divinely inspired, yet cast aspersions upon some of the OT stories. That is, did they interpret the Bible literally as Christians do, or did they understand that some of the stories in the Bible were illustrative of some higher principle, but historically inaccurate? The chart below, taken directly from Geisler and Nix, will show that the Apostles and our Lord Jesus Christ accepted the historicity of the events recorded in the Old Testament.

The creation of the Universe Gen. 1 John 1:3 Col. 1:16

The creation of Adam and Eve Mark 10:6 1Tim. 2:13–14

Gen. 1:26–2:8

The marriage of Adam and Eve Mark 10:7 1Tim. 2:13

Gen. 2:21–25

The temptation of the woman Gen. 3:1–6a 1Tim. 2:14

The disobedience and the sin of Rom. 5:12 1Cor. 15:22

Adam Gen. 3:6b–7

The sacrifices of Abel and Cain Gen. 4:2–4 Heb. 11:4

The murder of Abel by Cain Gen. 8 1John 3:12

The birth of Seth Gen. 4:25 Luke 3:38

The translation of Enoch Gen. 5:24 Heb. 11:5

Marriage before the flood Gen. 6:1–2 Luke 17:27

The flood and the destruction of man Gen. 7 Matt. 24:39

The preservation of Noah and his family 2Peter 2:5

Gen. 7:1–8:1

The Genealogy of Shem Gen. 10 Luke 3:35–36

The birth and historicity of Luke 3:34

Abraham Gen. 11:27–31

The calling of Abraham Gen. 12:1–13:4 Heb. 11:8

Tithes paid to Melchizedek Gen. 14:18–20 Heb. 7:1–3

Justification of Abraham by faith Gen. 15:6 Rom. 4:3

The historicity of Ishmael Gen. 16:15 Gal. 4:21–24

The promise of Isaac Gen. 17:1–19 Heb. 11:18

The destruction of Sodom Gen. 18:20–19:28 Luke 17:29

The birth of Isaac Gen. 21:1–3 Acts 7:9–10

The offering of Isaac by Abraham Gen. 22:1–14 Heb. 11:17

The burning bush Ex. 3:6 Luke 20:32

The Jews exodus through the 1Cor. 10:1–2

Red Sea Ex. 14:22

God's provision of water and 1Cor. 10:3–5

Manna Ex. 16:4 17:8

The fall of Jericho Josh. 6:22–25 Heb. 11:30

The miracles of Elijah I Kings 17:1 18:1 James 5:17

Jonah being swallowed by the

great fish Jonah 1:17–2:10 Matt. 12:40

Three Hebrews in the furnace Dan. 3:13–30 Heb. 11:34

Daniel in the lion's den Dan. 6:16–24 Heb. 11:33

The killing of Zechariah Matt. 23:35

(II Chron. 24:20–22)

Part V: The Historical Perspective of the Old Testament:

The viewpoint of Josephus: Flavius Josephus was an unbeliever who was born a Jew and became a Roman citizen through adoption. By profession, he was a Roman general and an historian. Although the Jews recognized that there was a canon of divinely inspired Scripture, a person by the name of Apion claimed that there was no such thing as the Sacred Scriptures of the Jews. Josephus, although his leanings were strictly Roman, was upset by Apion's incorrect viewpoint, and he wrote Contra Apion, a book which refuted Apion's stand point by point. Josephus describes the sacred literature as written between the times of Moses and Artaxerxes I (who reigned between 465–424 bc). It is generally accepted that the canon of Scripture for the Old Testament was closed around 425 or 424 bc (the Apocrypha was written after this time). Josephus in his book showed that the Jews had always had divinely inspired literature from their inception as a nation and that there never was a time when the Jews did not view this text as the Word of God. What is important here is that we have extra-Biblical confirmation by an unbeliever that the books of the Old Testament were accepted from the beginning as God's Word.

Specific Scriptural Claims Concerning the New Testament:

Introduction: What we are concerned with here was (1) did the writers of Scripture realize that what they were writing was God's Word and (2) did they make that unequivocal claim to be authoritative? In Part II, we will examine what one writer of New Testament Scripture thought about the writings of another New Testament author.

Part I: General Claims the New Testament Makes for Itself:

1. Jesus Christ was God in the flesh and what He said was God's Word. However, this should be taken as points:

(a) Jesus Christ claimed to be God (John 8:57–58 John 14:8–11 10:25–30)

(b) He was recognized by others as God (John 1:1-3,12 Heb. 1:1–2 2:3) or as someone claiming to be God (John 10:31–33).

(d) He was the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies (Luke 4:17–21 John 5:39–40

(e) As a sign of Jesus' divine authority, he performed signs and miracles. He could have, with the wave of His hand, created peace on earth and healed all of the sick. However, that was not His purpose on this earth. These signs and miracles were His credit card, so to speak, of his divine authority (Matt. 11:2–5 John 15:24).

(f) Therefore, at the very least, His pronouncements should be taken as God's Word. (John 8:28)

(g) Jesus had the authority to properly interpret Scripture (Matt. 5:21–24, 27–29, 38–45)

2. Hebrews 1:1–2 gives us the continuity as recognized by the writers of Scripture in the New Testament: God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers by [means of] the prophets in many times and in many ways; in these last days [He] has spoken to us by [means of] His Son... Paul continues this continuity in Eph. 2:20, calling the Apostles (who wrote the majority of the New Testament canon) and the prophets the foundation of God's household, the chief cornerstone being Jesus Christ.

3. God the Father speaks in the New Testament (Matt. 17:5). The reason that God the Father did not speak more often is that Jesus Christ is God, the second person of the Trinity, and He spoke what God the Father directed Him to speak (John 14:24). Furthermore, in the Old Testament, when God spoke, it was usually Jesus Christ, the revealed member of the Trinity (however, that is an entirely new topic requiring a great deal of Scripture—however, compare, if you will Gen. 16:13, Isa. 19:20, 43:10–11 and John 4:42; I Sam. 2:2 and Luke 1:49; Isa. 54:5, Mark 1:24 and Acts 3:14; Hos. 12:9, 13:4 and Philip. 3:20).

4. The guidance of the Holy Spirit:

(a) The Holy Spirit would direct those whom Jesus sent out (Matt. 10:16–20 Mark 13:11 Luke 12:11–12)

(b) The seventy sent out by our Lord were told "The one who listens to you listens to Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me; and he who rejects Me rejects the One who sent Me." (Luke 10:16)

(c) At the Last Supper, our Lord promised the eleven: "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you." (John 14:16) and "But when He, the Spirit of Truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will reveal to you what is to come." (John 16:13) See also John 15:26

(d) Jesus Christ, on several other occasions, promised the Holy Spirit to the Apostles (Luke 24:49 Acts 1:8) and this was fulfilled in Acts 2:1–18

5. The first church continued in the teachings of the Apostles (Acts 2:42)

6. The Apostles were allowed by God to perform signs and miracles as a demonstration of their authority and divine guidance—just as Moses, Elijah and Jesus Christ performed miracles to attest to their divine mission (Acts 2:3–11,43 3:4–8 4:30 5:12 14:3 Rom. 15:19 1Cor. 14:22 Heb. 2:4)

7. Paul states the superiority of the doctrine of the mystery of Christ, which was revealed to the Apostles and the New Testament prophets (Eph. 3:4–5)

8. Paul, when covering information not touched upon by our Lord in His earthly ministry, gives directives which he puts on a par with the teaching of Jesus Christ (1Cor. 7:10–12)

9. John calls the final book of the Bible words of prophecy and states: I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God shall add to him the plagues which are written n this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city which are written in this book. (Rev. 22:18–19)

10. Conclusion: Jesus Christ came to this earth a spoke the words of God as guided by the Holy Spirit. His authority was backed up by signs and miracles. He passed His authority on to the Apostles and gave them the Holy Spirit and backed up their claims with signs and miracles wrought by their hands. It is only natural, as was done in the Old Testament, for those who were used of God to record these things.

Part II: Specific Claims the New Testament Makes for Itself:

1. Matthew was an Apostle, therefore he had received the Holy Spirit and the promise of Jesus Christ to guide him into all truth and to bring to his remembrance the things which Jesus Taught during His ministry (John 14:26 16:4). His book is the ideal beginning of the New Testament because it ties the events of his lifetime to the Old Testament prophecies, quoting the Old Testament over fifty times. He begins with the genealogy of Joseph, tracing him back to Abraham to show that the incarnation of Christ was a fulfillment of some of the earliest promises made by God. Furthermore, Christ is looked upon as the fulfillment of the Old Testament (Matt. 1:6 3:3 5:17–18 and His teaching was clearly from a position of authority (Matt. 7:29 21:23). After His crucifixion, all authority had been granted to Him (Matt. 28:18). Jesus last commandment as recorded by Matthew was to "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I had commanded you; and, note, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matt. 28:20). Matthew, in recording this, is simply obeying this command.

2. Mark was not an Apostle but he was closely associated with Peter the Apostle and likely wrote this gospel on behalf of Peter. Like Matthew, Mark nowhere specifically claims that what he is writing is the Word of God; the authority is assumed. Mark also immediately ties into the Old Testament by quoting Isaiah (Mark 1:2–3).

3. Luke, while not an eyewitness , gathered his information directly from eyewitnesses (Luke 1:2) and wrote his gospel after careful investigation of the facts (Luke 1:3). His is the gospel which was set in chronological order, a difference between the way the Jews wrote at that time and the way that the Gentiles thought and wrote (Luke 1:3). Luke was so certain of his accuracy, that he told the recipient of this book, Theophilus, that the purpose of the book was ...so that you might know the exact truth about the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:4).

4. John claims to be an eyewitness to the events which he recorded and affirms that his testimony is true (John 21:24). The reason that the reader knows that his witness is true is (1) he was an Apostle (Matt. 10:2); (2) he was an eyewitness to the events (John 21:24); and (3) the other three gospels had already been written and circulated so that he could not include erroneous information.

5. Acts is a continuation of what Luke began to write and therefore bears the same claim to investigative thoroughness and historical accuracy (Acts 1:1).

6. In Romans, Paul boldly claims Apostleship in the first verse (which he did not do in his earliest epistle, I Thessalonians). Paul further claims, in Rom. 9:1 I am speaking the truth in Christ; I am not lying, my conscience bearing me witness by [means of] the Holy Spirit. The recipients of this letter are to turn away from the teaching doctrines contrary to what Paul taught, and he places his content on a par with Jesus' teachings: Now to Him who is able to establish you according to the norm of my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the norm of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past but is now manifested... (Rom. 16:25–26a).

7. Paul makes the same claim to Apostleship in 1Cor. 1:1 as he did in Romans 1:1. Paul delivers commands to the Corinthians (1Cor. 1:10 5:7 6:18 7:2 14:1) and claims to be sent by Christ (1Cor. 1:17) and that what he taught was the testimony of God (1Cor. 2:1b) in demonstration of the Spirit and power (1Cor. 2:4). The Corinthians were to regard Paul and his co-workers as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God (1Cor. 4:1). Paul actually twice exhorts the Corinthians to be imitators of him (1Cor. 4:16 11:1). It is because of their vast carnality that Paul had to assert and reassert his authority in this letter. Paul places his commands, in this epistle, with those of Jesus Christ in 1Cor. 7:10–12). This is not a statement of an inferior command or just a desire on Paul's part; he does that in 1Cor. 7:6–7). For further examination, see 1Cor. 2:10 7:40 9:1,8 11:23. You can't be clearer than: If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord's commandment. (1Cor. 14:37).

8. II Corinthians is by the same author to the same congregation, so that Paul's authority carries from the first epistle (not necessarily his first letter to them, however). He claims Apostleship (2Cor. 1:1) and claims that he does not need again to defend his position of authority (2Cor. 3:1) although he does clearly assert this authority (2Cor. 10:8).

9. In Galatians, Paul must stand up against the false ideas of the legalistic Judaizers and therefore must assert his authority by (1) claiming to be an Apostle (Gal. 1:1), (2) who spoke the revelation of Jesus Christ (Gal. 1:11–12), (3) whose previous content is so accurate that even if an angel from heaven or Paul himself teaches anything different, that person is to be accursed (Gal. 1:8–9). Paul first quietly confirmed his calling, ministry and content with the other Apostles (Gal. 2:2). When Paul's needs to identify himself as the writer, he will write a portion of the epistle with his own hand (1Cor. 16:21 Gal. 6:11). This shows a clear presumption of authority.

10. Paul had a better relationship with the Ephesian church, so that he did not need to assert his authority as strongly as he did to the Corinthians or to the Galatians; however, he did claim Apostleship (Eph. 1:1) and that he was a steward of the mystery of Jesus Christ (Eph. 3:2–4). Mystery is a designation of doctrine not known to the previous dispensation; i.e., it was not known to the Jews as custodians and disseminators of God's Word through their nations Israel.

11. Paul also had a good church in Philippi, so that Paul did not need to hammer his authority to them. He does not use the word Apostle in this book, but this letter is written from Paul, who is an Apostle; therefore it would bear his stamp of authority. However, Paul does tell the Philippians: The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice those things and the God of peace shall be with you. (Philip. 4:9). Here, rather than being stated, Paul's authority is more a matter of presumption.

12. Paul names himself as an Apostle in Col. 1:1 and presumes to greet the Colossians from God the Father in v. 2. Paul apparently did not found this church (Col. 1:7) yet picks up the thread of continuity in teaching (Col. 1:6–10). Paul exhorts the Colossians: And when this letter has been exegeted among you, have it exegeted in the church of the Laodiceans; and you, for your part, exegete my letter from Laodicea [which is probably Ephesians] (Col 4:16). Expecting them to teach this letter and to do the same with another letter from him to another church assumes authority over more than one church.

13. I Thessalonians is Paul's first epistle (at least, the first divinely inspired epistle) and, although he does not state his office of Apostleship in the first verse, he does mention it in 1Thess. 2:6. Paul writes: Our exhortation does not [emanate] from error or impurity or by way of deceit, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as men-pleasers, but [through] God, who examines our hearts. (1Thess. 2:3–4). Concerning the content of Paul's letter, Paul tells the Thessalonians: He who rejects [this] is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you. (1Thess. 4:8). Clearly Paul, even in this first epistle, recognizes his own authority over the churches. See also 1Thess 4:15 and 5:27.

14. II Thessalonians continues the authority set in I Thessalonians. Satan recognized Paul's authority over the churches and immediately began to manufacture false epistles (2Thess. 2:2). Those who did not obey Paul's instructions of 2Thess. or hold to the doctrine therein were to be victims of separation (a practice toward other believers by a church; not toward unbelievers). Because of this false epistle, Paul used his trademark signature as noted in 2Thess. 3:17.

15. Paul, in his letter to Timothy, assumes authority over Timothy in this letter. The letter comes from an Apostle (1Tim. 1:1). Timothy is told to: Command and teach these things. (1Tim. 4:11). Since Paul is Timothy's spiritual father (1Tim. 1:2), there is not a need for Paul to continually assert his authority.

14. II Timothy carries Paul's same authority, both as Timothy's spiritual father and as an apostle (2Tim. 1:1–2). Paul writes that famous line to Timothy: All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God might be properly trained, equipped for every good work. (2Tim. 3:16–17).

15. Titus is another pastor over whom Paul had authority. Paul asserts his Apostleship and his spiritual fatherhood in Tit. 1:1–2. Gains, as in I and II Timothy, Paul does not need to proclaim his authority to one who already recognizes it. Titus is told to exert his authority confidently over the church where he taught (Tit. 2:15 3:8).

16. Philemon comes from the Apostle Paul to an individual as a private letter. It's purpose in the canon reveals that Philemon has legal rights which extend to what spiritually he is allowed to do; yet Paul presents to Philemon a better approach, which is not commanded. For those who do not know the letter to Philemon, Paul encountered Philemon's runaway slave and sent this slave back to Philemon with this letter. Philemon can retain his slave and even beat his slave if he so chooses. However, Paul encourages Philemon to set the slave free, as a brother in Christ (Philem. 14). The letter is from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, a weightier greeting than I would ever attempt; but then what I write is not God-breathed.

17. Hebrews is one of the most marvelous books in the New Testament and no author claimed it as his own. It is every bit as important to the canon as Matthew; it ties the Jews living in the first century to their past and to God's promises and carefully explains to them what has occurred. It is exactly the letter that Paul would have wanted to write or to teach his brothers orally, but did not. An air of authority is assumed, although there is no claim to apostleship. The recipients of the letter knew who wrote it (hence the few personal messages at the end of the letter in Heb. 13:22–24). It is unlikely that Paul wrote the letter because it does not carry with it his customary greeting; and there would be no reason to eliminate that if his readers knew who he was. Without asserting Apostleship or without even claiming that this letter came ultimately from God the Father—because the author writes that God the Father spoke to their fathers through the prophets and in many other ways and now speaks to them through Jesus Christ (although this letter would have come out long after the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord). The author just launches into his discourse, wherein he quotes Old Testament scripture even more often than Matthew . There are approximately forty quotes from the Old Testament and another fifteen or more references to incidents in the Old Testament. This author has assumed authority through the teaching of God's Word, the best approach that any pastor could take today. He tells the readers, The Word of God is alive and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the diving asunder the soul and the spirit, the joints and the marrow, and is a critic of thoughts and intents of the heart. (Heb. 4:12). The author warns the readers at least three times, Today, if you hear His voice, harden not your hearts! (Heb. 3:7b—8,15b 4:7b).

18. James is one of the earliest epistles in the New Testament canon. James speaks with authority and apparently was well-known to the readers of this epistle (Jewish believers). It is assumed by most that he is the Lord's half-brother. Throughout the epistle, he speaks with authority; however he only represents himself as a bond-servant of Jesus Christ. Apart from those two things, there is no evidence that James thought that he was writing what would be placed into the New Testament canon. The generalized address (to the twelve tribes who are dispersed) indicates that he had authority over several churches. His air of authority is seen as he issues no fewer than 54 commands in 108 verse .

19. 1 and 2Peter: Peter, like Paul, touts his spiritual gift of Apostleship in the first verse of both epistles. He, like James, wrote to the Jewish believers scattered about; and then in the second epistle, to believers. Peter, like Hebrews, has several OT quotations which he explains in the light of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In 1Peter 5:12b reads: I have written o you briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it! 2Peter 3:2b reads: Remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord an Savior spoken by your Apostles. 2Peter does include prophecy in 2Peter 3:10–13, which is typical of those believers used of God In the second letter, Peter mentions his close relationship with Jesus Christ (2Peter 1:14,16–17).

20. 1, 2 and 3 John are all written by the Apostle John (although he does not refer to himself as an Apostle but as an elder). In the first letter, John just starts writing; it does not appear to be addressed to anyone, although it is probably to a former congregation (see 2John 9). It was always his habit to write in very simple Greek and to refer to himself in the third person or by some odd designation, e.g., the one whom the Lord loves. However, he is an eyewitness (1John 1:1) and he writes with authority in all three letters.

21. Jude, as a brother of James, would indicate that these are two of the half-brothers of our Lord. Like Peter's first letter, he quotes a lot of Scripture or information from the Old Testament and properly interprets it. It is worthy to note, however, than none of these general epistles carry with them the weight of Paul's authority in the Lord.

22. In Revelation, John, finally mentions his name at the beginning of chapter one. He records this as a revelation from Jesus Christ given to him (Rev. 1:1). This letter, so to speak, is from both John (Rev. 1:4) and our Lord Jesus Christ (Rev. 1:5). This book contains actual things which our Lord said to John, carrying the note of divine revelation in that way and, John ends this book quite aptly for any piece of divine revelation: I testify to everyone who hears this words of the prophecy of this book; if anyone adds to them, God will add to him to plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book. (Rev. 22:18–19).

In conclusion, we have books in the New Testament which unequivocally claim divine authority and/or divine inspiration and we have some which do not make such a specific claim. John, in his three letters, makes no claim of divine authority (although, he asserts it by the imperative mood in several passages); John also speaks with unequivocal authority in his letters. John’s letters were the last to have been written; and his authority would have been firmly established. Therefore, John would not need to assert it. Furthermore, in the gospel and in Revelation in particular, he recognizes what he is writing is God's Word. Why these are found in God's Word is a related, but different subject. The point of these past twenty-two points is that the majority of the authors recognized their writing as God's Word and stated this in one way or another.

Part III: What the New Testament Claims for other Portions of the New Testament:

Introduction: The next portion of our study is how did writes of Scripture regard the other Apostles and bond-servants of our Lord?

1. Perhaps the single most important testimony is that of Peter. Peter had been braced by Paul in no uncertain terms in Antioch. Peter, as he should have, ate with Gentile believers, but, fearing the legalists (the circumcision), began to withdraw himself from these dinners until not only did he not eat with Gentiles, but even Barnabas, Paul's right hand man, was not eating with Gentiles. Paul braced Peter in front of everyone, which for the person who is lacking in grace, would have set up the beginning of a feud (this is all found in Gal. 2:11–15). Peter (who should have known better; see Acts 10:30–11:1), although he never mentions this, understood this as a point of doctrine and later wrote concerning Paul: ...our beloved brother Paul...[who] wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and the unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures (or, the other Scriptures, or the remaining Scriptures), to their own destruction. (2Peter 3:15b–16). If anyone should have a grudge against anyone, it should be Peter against Paul. But not only does Peter call Paul beloved and recommend his letters (mentioning that they are difficult to understand; this is an Apostle speaking here), but that the untaught and unstable attempt to distort these as they do the other Scriptures. That is, Peter places this on a par with the rest of God's Word. This tells us:

(a) That Paul had written several letters prior to Peter's last epistle.

(b) That these letters were difficult even for another Apostle to understand, yet he recommended them anyway (and I am of the opinion that in terms of human IQ, Peter was much brighter than he is given credit for; and conversely, John had much less natural ability in the intellectual realm than he is given credit for ).

2. In Acts 9:15, God the Son recognizes Saul (later, Paul) as His chosen instrument. He said to Ananias, concerning Paul: "Go, for his is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel."

3. A table might be the best way to represent the conferred authority concept. That is, as above, we will show one with authority conferring authority upon another or upon another's writings.

Author

Person with Authority

(*Apostolic Authority)

The One Recognized as (B) a Brother or, as (A) Having Authority

The Relevant

Passage

Matthew

Mark

Luke

John

Luke

Paul

Author of Hebrews

Peter

Jude

The Eleven Apostles

Jesus Christ

The Apostles

Paul and Barnabas

Paul

Author of Hebrews

Peter

Jude

Matthias¹ (A)

Stephen, Philip, and others² (A)

Saul (Paul) (A)

Barnabas³ (A)

Paul (and Barnabas) (A)

John Mark (B)

Timothy (A)

John Mark (B)

Luke (B)

Timothy (B)

John Mark (B)

Paul's letters⁵ (A)

James (B)

Acts 1:15–26

Acts 6:1–6

Acts 9:9:3–16

Acts 11:22

Acts 15⁴

Acts 12:25 16:37–39

1Cor. 16:10 I & 2Tim.

Col. 4:10 Philem. 24

Col. 4:14 Philem. 24

Heb. 13:23

1Peter 5:13

2Peter 3:15–16

Jude 1

¹ Matthias was voted into the club of Apostles by a group of men who lacked the Holy Spirit's guidance. He was no more an Apostle than you or me.

² Seven were chosen by the Apostles as deacons. However, Acts 6:8-8:40 indicate that these seven had spiritual gifts beyond this.

³ I mention Barnabas bc he may have written the book of Hebrews. It is my opinion that Paul did not write Hebrews but someone closely associated with him did. The reference to Timothy in Heb. 13:23 suggests that.

⁴ In this chapter, the Apostles in Jerusalem have been swayed by the sect of the Pharisees (who had believed in Jesus Christ) into a course of legalism. Paul and Barnabas heard about it and returned to Jerusalem to straighten the Apostles out. In allowing them to state their viewpoint and then taking the correct position of Paul and Barnabas, the Apostles essentially recognized them as authoritative equals. See also Gal. 2:1–6.

⁵ I mention Peter's recognition of Paul's authority twice (once as a member of the Eleven Apostles and here alone) because in this case, Peter is at the end of his life and he is giving his Apostolic approval to the authority of Paul's Letters.

Conclusions:

4. The New Testament writers...

(a) ...dealt with prophecy

(b) ...wrote with authority

(c) ...expected their letters to be read (or exegeted) in the churches) that they were sent to and circulated to other churches.

(d) ...were indwelt and guided by the Holy Spirit

(e) ...placed other writings from the New Testament on a level with Scripture.

(f) ...founded the New Testament church and dealt with the growth and problems of those churches often by letter.

(g) ...asserted their office or the inspiration of their epistles to God the Holy Spirit.

5. Jesus Christ...

(a) ...promised that the Holy Spirit would guide the Apostles into all truth (John 14:26 16:13).

(b) ...promised that the Holy Spirit would bring to remembrance all the things that he told them (there are several instances when Jesus would tell the Apostles a point of doctrine again and again and they would not get it) (John 14:26).

(d) ...commanded the disciples to go to all the nations, making disciples of them all and teach them to observe all that He commanded them (Matt. 28:19–20).

(e) ...prayed to God the Father saying that the words that he gave to Jesus Christ our Lord gave to the disciples (John 17:8).

6. There are far fewer direct quotes from God in the New Testament as opposed to the Old Testament. The reason for this was that God was on the earth speaking directly to man and that was quoted throughout the gospels and Acts. When Jesus left the earth, he gave the Apostles the Holy spirit to guide them into all truth so that they no longer required the pronouncements of God. Furthermore, there were gifts of knowledge and prophecy in the early church (prior to the closing of the canon of Scripture).

Part IV: What the Early Church claimed for portions of the New Testament:

1. Clement of Rome wrote to the Corinthian church at the end of the first century and quoted the three synoptic gospels, calling them Scripture. He quote Mark 9:42, and precedes that with "God saith." He also quotes Heb. 1:3–7, using the phrase "it is written."

2. Polycarp, a disciple of John who wrote in the early second century, referred to the New Testament several times in his own epistle to the Philippians. He used the phrase "the Scripture saith" prior to quoting Eph. 4:26 and calls Eph. 1:3 the "Word of truth."

3. Justin Martyr, from the mid-second century, called the gospels the "Voice of God."

4. Tertullian (c. 160–220) held that the Old and new Testaments were both inspired writings and refers to four gospels.

5. A contemporary of Tertullian, Hippolytus. wrote "These blessed men...having been perfect by the Spirit of Prophecy and worthily honored by the Word Himself, were brought to an inner harmony like instruments, and having the Word within them, as it were to strike the notes, by Him they were moved, and announced that which God wished. For they did not speak of their own power (be well-assured), nor proclaimed that which they wished themselves, but first they were rightly endowed with wisdom by the Word, and afterwards well foretaught of the future by visions, and then, when thus assured, they spoke that which was [revealed] to them alone by God ." This quotation is as good a definition for inspiration than any given today.

6. The authority of the New Testament is attested to by Novatian (third century), Origen (c. 185–c. 254), Cyprian (c. 200–258), Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 263–373) and many others early church fathers held to the inspiration of the New (and Old)Testament.

Preface	Introduction	Biblical Claims for Inspiration
Apologetics	Additional Topics on Inspiration	Bibliography

APOLOGETICS

Introduction to Apologetics: This does not mean that we will apologize for what we believe in. Apologetics is the study of the rationality and inherent logic of things related to the Bible. What will be examined here will be is it reasonable to believe that the New Testament is God's Word? Are their evidences of such a position? This will not be a full blown examination of this topic. Such studies occupy volumes of literature. We will merely scratch at the surface to indicate that such a position is valid and does not intellectually compromise the believer in Jesus Christ. As a personal side note, when I first believed in Jesus Christ, I was quite interested in this realm of Bible study. I personally did not have a great deal of respect for the few Christians that I knew and, although I did not see myself as some towering intellectual, I recognized that I was reasonably intelligent and I was concerned that this new interest of mine might be bereft of logic and reason.

1. If the Bible is God's Word, then it should be accurate historically, scientifically, morally and correct in whatever it teaches concerning diet, law, nations, marriage, etc.

2. If the Bible is God's Word, it should have an affect on people's lives for the better.

3. If the Bible is God's Word, it should have real answers and real spiritual mechanics.

4. If the Bible is God's Word, when it deals with information that man could not observe or is lost to us in historical records, it should contain information which has real meaning and seems to be devoid of myths.

5. If the Bible is God's Word, it should be an open book to those who desire to know its contents.

Part I: Why is it reasonable to accept the Bible as God's Word?

1. Only two books make an unequivocal claims of inspiration. The other book is the Koran. g&N pp.114–5

2. Even though the Bible was written by men, if it is God's Word, it should carry with it the ring of truth and a air of authority. When Jesus Christ taught, they were amazed at His teaching; for [you see], He kept on teaching them as one having authority and not as the scribes [taught]. (Mark I:22). Matt. 7:29 has the same statement, but it refers to a different time. Some officers, who did not seize Jesus as the Pharisees had dispensed them to do, told the High Priest and the Pharisees: "Never did a man speak the way this man speaks." Even today, some 2000 years after Jesus Christ strolled among us in the flesh, people still cling to what He taught, even those who are against His teachings. I have seen those who believe in homosexuality, in pacifism, in universal government, in reincarnation, in animal rights, in abortion, those who are against abortion, and every other kind of viewpoint point to Jesus Christ as their vindicator. He never taught any of these things, but people continually ascribe their viewpoints to Him. If Jesus were on earth today, he would be wandering around dressed like a hippie, attending peace rallies and protests, doing His bit to clean up the environment and to usher in nuclear disarmament. It is a matter of making God in one's own image. These people do not vociferously claim Mohammed or Buddha or even Abraham Lincoln hold to their views; they want to be vindicated by Jesus Christ. They want their views to be justified by Jesus Christ. On the one hand, I think to myself, what does it matter to these people if Jesus Christ taught the precepts of their cause? If what they believe in is right, why do they have to involve Jesus Christ and get His unofficial approval? However, on the other hand, I recognize that they know there is something different about Jesus Christ and sincerely believe what He said, even if they don't know what He said, was meaningful. Even atheists and agnostics, when pressed for a sincere statement of belief, often will not berate Jesus Christ. Why? Because He is the unique person of the universe, the God-man, the Living word. He is the creator of mankind and the heavens and the earth. People desire self-justification; and Who better than the God of the universe to justify them. Who better to make in their own image but the Lord of the heavens.

3. The Bible is a unique book. Josh McDowell points out, in his highly recommended Evidence that Demands a Verdict, the following facts concerning the uniqueness of the Bible :

(a) It was written over a 1600 year span; and possibly some of the records used in the preparation of Genesis went back into history an additional several hundred years.

(b) It was written over a period of at lest 60 generations.

(c) It was written by over 40 authors who came from all walks and stations in life. The authors were kings, peasants, noblemen in various countries, prophets, philosophers, fishermen, poets, scholars, barely literate, generals, etc.

i. Moses was raise in the palace of the Pharaoh of Egypt, educated in the finest universities offered at that time, trained to be a Pharaoh himself; then he spent forty years in the desert tending sheep, and finally lead a barely wiling and continually complaining mob across the desert.

ii. Peter and John were fishermen, possibly had fishing enterprises (as opposed to a small row boat that they took out into the sea) and Peter became quite well-read whereas John did not and wrote in very simple Greek (it is also possible that Greek was not John's first language).

iii. David was a shepherd and later a general and later the king over all of Israel.

iv. Joshua was a general.

v. Daniel, a prime minister of the Media Persian Empire.

vi. Luke was a doctor and an historian.

vii.Matthew was a tax collector.

viii. Solomon as a king and a philosopher.

ix.Paul was a Rabbi and a Pharisee, born a Roman citizen.

x. Hosea was a man with a broken heart.

(d) The Bible was written in every kind of environment:

i. Moses wrote while leading his people through the wilderness.

ii. David wrote while military commands, while in exile, and while in the palace.

iii. Jeremiah wrote from a dungeon.

iv. Paul wrote while on missionary tours and from inside a prison walls and while under house arrest in his own rented house.

v. Luke wrote while traveling as a missionary.

vi. John from the Isle of Patmos while having visions.

(e) The Bible was written in three languages (Hebrew, Koine Greek, Aramaic).

(f) It was written in three continents (Asia, Africa and Europe).

(g) The Bible was written during every high and low of the human emotion, in heart break, in misery, in triumph, in excitement.

(h) It covers literally hundreds of controversial subjects and was written by some men who were contemporaries and had occasion to be at odds with one another; and yet each book is a perfectly fitted part of the whole, carrying the same message of God's redemption of man by Jesus's death on the cross, whether it is viewed from the past in shadow images of a lamb being sacrificed for the covering of our sins, to the eyewitnesses of the crucifixion, to the looking back upon the event. All other topics are in perfect harmony. What book written under those circumstances could make such a claim?

(i) Josh McDowell, on pp. 19–20 this same portion of his book, had asked a salesman recruiter for the Great Books of the Wester World to take ten authors, if need be, from one walk of life, one time period, one mood, one continent, one language and choose just one controversial subject, and asked if their take on that subject would be the same? Would they at least be complementary? The obvious answer is no. The recruiter said you would have a conglomeration.

4. Other areas of Uniqueness:

(a) As of 1990, there were 24,000 partial and complete, ancient manuscripts of the New Testament, some portions of which date only 25 years after the original writing. Compare to that the closest competitor insofar as ancient literature goes: Homer's Iliad has 643 copies some dating to 500 years of the original manuscript; There are 200 copies of a work by Demosthenes, dating 1300 years from the original, all copied from the same manuscript. There are 193 copies or fragments of Sophocles, dating 1400 years after the original transmission; and after that, there are another 15 ancient authors whose number of manuscripts are in the single or double digits (five of them), and the date of the manuscripts is within 750 to 1600 years of the original. Furthermore, a great deal of our ancient history relies on manuscripts of works written a millennium previous, of which there are at best a dozen copies . A comparison was drawn between the writings of William Shakespeare (which are now around 300 years old) and the Bible. The text of Shakespeare's works has become far more corrupt. In every one of Shakespeare's thirty-seven plays, there are a hundred readings in dispute, a large portion of which materially affects the meaning of the passages in which they occur . By comparison, the text of the New Testament has perhaps 20 verses which would be disputed as to the original reading where this could affect the meaning of the verse. Other than that, most scholars can agree on the general original reading of the rest of the New Testament. Realize that this came from fifteen centuries where the Bible existed in manuscript form only (there were no printing presses as in Shakespeare's time!

(b) The Bible was the first book ever to be translated. There are, as of 1966, 240 languages in which the entire Bible has been translated and 739 languages where portions of the Bible have been translated into. In the decade between 1950 and 1960, some 3000 Bible translators were are work .

(c) The Bible and its adherents have been persecuted; the Bible itself has been criticized like no other book; the Catholic church made it a struggle to obtain ancient manuscripts and persecuted those who made translations into contemporary languages. Hundreds of authors have published books that they felt would sound the death knell of the Bible through their research and criticism. These criticisms have been easily met by doctrinally oriented authors and fade into obscurity within a few decades (and sometimes, within a few years) or their original printing. The Bible marches on.

(d) The normal person sees himself in a different light than do others. Very few u\of us see ourselves as the "bad guy." We spend hours every day rationalizing our behavior; enplaning why we were right to do such and such or explaining our reasons or motivation which caused us to do this or that. It is important that others have the privilege of seeing us as we see ourselves. Otherwise, they might think ill of us. However, in the Bible, we have authors point out their sins and mistakes without benefit of showing us their side of the story. They did some things because they were jerks. David, in retrospect, could have told us that Bathsheba was his right woman and the line of Christ comes through her, indicating that she was his right woman. However, there is never a rationalization given for his taken of Bathsheba, another man's wife, and then having the other man killed. He made a mistake, he confessed his sin and he was punished severely for it. Noah's drunkenness, possibly recorded originally by Noah or one of his respectful sons put Noah in a bad light. The Jewish Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all have their faults. Jacob was a conniving swindler. However, he believed in Jesus Christ and the line of the Jew went through him. Their sins and shortcomings are never glossed over. Moses made few mistakes, but he made some and they are all recorded without apology and without rationalization.

(e) If one was to peruse the Old Testament simply from an historical standpoint; an historical examination of the Jews. The learned Greeks, the civilized and dominant Romans, the rich, historical Egyptians, etc. have nothing to compare to this. We have civilizations and empires with genius, literacy and means; empires which makes the nation of Israel seem pitiful by comparison; but did even one of these nations put together an historical document which even approaches that of the Old Testament. No civilization from three hundred years ago and beyond has anything which even remotely compares to such an historical record. At best, historical records are sparse and severely distorted and begin with a king or with a strong nation, but never do they trace their origins back to nomads traveling across the land. Such historical books do not exist except for Israel.

(f) A quote which I found on p. 26 of Evidence taken from historian Philip Schaff (The Person of Christ, American Tract Society, 1913), writes: "This Jesus of Nazareth, without money and arms, conquered more millions than Alexander, Caesar, Mohammed, and Napoleon; without science and learning, He shed more light on things human and divine than all philosophers and scholars combined; without the eloquence of schools, He spoke such words of life as were never spoken before or since, and produced effects which lie beyond reach of orator or poet; without writing a single line, He set more pens in motion, and furnished themes for more sermons, orations, discussions, learned volumes, works of art, and songs of praise than the whole army of great men of ancient and modern times."

5. In conclusion, there is no book which even slightly resembles the Bible. I have skipped a number of unique points about the Bible which are true of no other book. I should hope that these would suffice to show that there is no other book under heaven given to men which is even remotely similar to the Bible.

Part II: The Scientific Accuracy of the Bible:

Introduction: The Bible is not a scientific textbook and is not written by men who were schooled in the sciences. Only a few of the authors would have had a broad based education which may have included the sciences of their day: Moses, Solomon, Luke and Paul. However, the author of all scientific laws (a misnomer because science neither passed thee laws nor does science enforce these laws) is also the author of the Bible. Therefore, the Bible should be scientifically accurate. There might be in God's Word, language of accommodation. For instance, a scientist might speak of the sun rising and setting, although he realizes that it does not rise and set. A mathematician might use 3.14 to represent π, even though π ≠ 3.14 and he knows it (the same mathematician might use 3 instead of π to simplify the computation, even though he realizes that π ≠ 3). This needs to be expanded and include information from Bert Thompson’s pamphlet Scientific Evidence.

1. Perhaps the most sobering observations is made by Isaiah, who wrote: It is He who is enthroned above the sphere of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, (Isa. 40:22a). Isaiah, several hundred years before the Greeks measured the circumference of the earth (yes, they knew it was round too; they did not think that the earth was flat), states that the earth is a sphere. From a bird's eye view, he states that we appear to God as grasshoppers, although Isaiah had not been in any ten story buildings looking down.

2. [God] Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in is Isaiah 40:22b. This indicates that there is atmosphere different from space. Isaiah wrote in approximately 700 bc; Moses wrote the Pentateuch approximately 1400 bc, and Genesis from records predating him by centuries. Then God said, "Let there be an atmosphere between the waters [i.e., the water on the earth and the water vapor above the earth], and let it separate the waters from the waters" (Gen. 1:6). Still, we have the concept of an atmosphere created by God. The Hebrew word in Genesis indicates that this atmosphere has substance.

3. Job, perhaps the oldest book of the Bible, ascribes weight to the air (the Hebrew word used here means air as well as wind) in Job 28:25. Until Galileo in the seventeenth century pointed this out, science was not aware that air had weight. God knew this however.

4. We are all aware of the principles of evaporation and precipitation (that's rain for those of you who wear tennis shoes) and most of us realize that the wind travels in well-defined circuits (we have maps of air circuits). Solomon wrote, ten thousand years before Christ, The wind continues turning along, blowing toward the south then turning toward the north; and on its circular course, the wind returns. All the rivers flow into the seas, yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, there they flow again (Eccl. 1:6–7). Galileo, in 1630, also discovered that winds flow along regular circuits.

5. Telegraphs, which send messages via electricity, are a recent invention. God sent the first recorded message by electricity—lightning—in Job 38:35.

6. Ecclesiastes 12 contains beautiful, figurative language describing old age. For instance, Eccles. 12:3, the watchmen of the house trembling refer to the hands, the mighty men stoop refers to the back, and the grinding ones being few and standing by idly refer to the teeth. None of this is impressive on the scientific level, of course, although the poetical language is marvelous. However, v. 6b in reference to the heart and blood circulation, reads, ...and the wheel at the cistern [or, well] is crushed. This concept was presented poetically several millennium before Dr. Harvey discovered it.

7. God, in His Law, required that certain people be quarantined who had communicable diseases (Lev. 13:45–46). Medical research, only a few millennium later, applied this same principle to practice.

8. When I was a young man growing up, bacon was practically a staple of my morning diet. I have since found out, not but a decade ago, that bacon is not the healthiest thing in the world to consume on a regular basis. Lev. 11:7–8 declares the pig off limits to the Jews' diet.

9. The genealogy of the generations of Noah following the flood indicates that the postdiluvian civilization is relatively new. I have demonstrated in my own high school and college classroom dozens of times, through the study of population growth and the use of logarithms that when we trace back the population of man to a point where there were only a handful people on the earth, that mathematically it is impossible to push our population back a million years or even fifty thousand years. In fact, from a mathematical standpoint, our population began 4,000-6,000 years ago. Any student who understands logarithms and the population growth equation can find this out for himself in less than two minutes using any reasonable population figures for any two years of human history..

Conclusion: These few points certainly do not prove that the Bible is the Word of God. However, they give every indication that rather than myth, what the Bible contains is accurate scientific information .

Part III: The Historical and Archeological Accuracy of the Bible:

Introduction: History books of any period of time have their problems and weaknesses. In modern history books, it is typical for the bias of the author to shine through. Some aspects of history are disregarded or downplayed due to the prejudice of the author. For instance, in modern texts, although World War I and II have many incredible instances of heroism and selflessness, Franklin Roosevelt's social programs often occupy much more text than does the war. or the work of Patton and MacArthur. In ancient history, the historians were often scribes of the king who recorded the heroic exploits of their king. These lacked any objectivity and certainly did not contain the weaknesses and failures of the king whose history was recorded. The Bible, on the other hand, was objective. There is not a king or individual mentioned who does not have an old sin nature, whose old sin nature is not given some reign in that person's life. With few exceptions, every believer in the Bible is portrayed honestly and objectively, which had caused many attacks on the Bible. One book in my possession quotes the weaknesses and immorality of the saints throughout the Bible and concludes that this cannot be the Work of God because these men we revere were human and made mistakes. In some cases, horrible mistakes. An unbeliever cannot understand David's gross immorality at one point in his life, and then, chapters later, he is called a man after God's own heart. If the Bible is God's Word, it is going to be objective. It is one of the very few texts which contains a great deal of history where every author seems to treat even himself with objectivity. We would expect God's Word to be accurate with regard to historical events and for its information to be backed up by archeological discoveries.

This portion of this study could occupy hundreds of pages. There are an incredible number of volumes of literature which deal with this topic exclusively. Detractors for years criticized the Bible because it states that Jericho's walls fell outward; because the Bible gave such a great deal of information about the Hittites, an empire thought not to exist at one time (or at least not in the size and power as the Scriptures indicated). I will limit this area of study to only a few examples and allow the reader/listener to do further research if he so desires.

Not every historical fact in the Bible has been borne out by archeology yet. Likely, some things will never be found to verify Scriptures. This is not difficult to understand. There are more historical facts lost to history than we have ever found. So, if the Bible records an event and it is not discovered by historians in other historical documents or if the archaeologists do not verify it in their studies, this does not mean that the Bible is inaccurate at this point. It merely means that the archeology and history have not caught up to the Bible yet.

1. Biblical adherents have old sin natures and when rumors or limited information concerning an event like the "discovery of Noah's ark" gets out, this is blown way out of proportion by the proponents of the Bible. Just as evolutionists will seize any insignificant find and conveniently and [with arbitrary force] drop it into their preconceived notions , theologians will do the same. So I am not personally confused or confounded when the discovery of Noah's ark turns out to be a hoax or the discovery of the tomb of our Lord and his burial clothes turns out to be a fanciful notion. As far as I am concerned, these are non-issues and the prudent Christian should not be in a hurry to jump on the band wagon and tout some such discovery as undeniable proof of the Scriptures when in fact it is not.

2. Furthermore, we should not be upset if archeology and the Bible do not agree in some areas. It is much tougher to properly interpret archeological finds than it is to dig them up in the first place. Therefore, we will run into areas where the Bible and archeology are still at odds. This should not cause one's faith to wain.

3. Even if we were able to show that the Bible is the only book which deals with historical information accurately and objectively (which it is), this would not prove that it is God's Word. It is merely one more indication of the Bible's inspired authority.

4. The book of Daniel reveals that Belshazzar succeeded Nebuchadnezzar as the king of Babylon; however, there were no historical records of Babylon to confirm this for approximately three millennium. Therefore, some alleged that Belshazzar was a work of fiction to illustrate a point. Then, in 1853, archaeologists unearthed an inscription in Ur which reveals that Belshazzar co-ruled with his father Nabonidus. Wouldn't it be ridiculous for Christians to doubt their faith for three millennium because this point was at odds with the known historical record?

5. At one time there was a very popular theory called "Documentary Hypothesis" (actually, many individuals and seminaries still hold to this false interpretation of Scriptural beginnings). It was based upon the pre-conceived notions of evolution and that Moses lived during a time before man had developed the ability to read and write. Man was still running around killing other men, developing a language and hunting food, I suppose. Based upon this assumption, Moses did not write the Pentateuch, but it was the work of four or five later authors, whose work could be separated by their choice of the word Yahweh or Elohim (which, in itself was quite contrived). This was, at least, the position of learned scholars who investigated the matter with no small thoroughness. Books have been devoted to both sides of this controversy; very boring books, might I add. However, Moses certainly did record some information based upon documents in his possession. God filled in necessary gaps through inspiration. The style of the Pentateuch varies because the topics vary. Moses deals with the editing of previous historical records, pronouncements of law, with poetry and with narrative. A man of Moses' scholastic background and exceptional intelligence will certainly have the vocabulary variances which accompany the different styles found in the Law. The original basis for this false theory of "Documentary Hypothesis" was shattered by the discovery of the "black stele", which contained the Laws of Hammurabi, written three centuries before Moses. And, although this revealed that even unregenerate man was much more advanced in his literary skills than ever had been thought before, this discovery did not eliminate the concept of "Documentary Hypothesis."

6. At one time, the Hittite empire was thought to be a work of pure conjecture and imagination. The only information that we had on the Hittites at one time came from the Bible and there was no support in archeology or in historical records for their existence. However, due to archeological finds over the past century, we now have indications that the Hittite civilization spanned over a full millennium . Again, there was no need for the believer to doubt the Bible's authority because for centuries it did not see eye to eye with archeology on this point.

7. Archeology is based upon pre-conceived notions that there was a stone age, bronze age and iron age of man, a system which originated in the nineteenth century. Even though this is historically inaccurate and antiquated, archaeologists still cling to this outline of history and interpret their discoveries in this light.

8. An area of sharp contention between archeology and the Bible is that of dating the events of the Bible and ancient man. Archaeologists depend upon carbon-14 dating. Carbon-14 has a half life of approximately 4500 years (I have forgotten the exact amount; I am doing this from memory) and this makes it a reasonable dating tool for perhaps 5,000 to 10,000 years. Beyond that, the amount of carbon involved is so minuscule as to exaggerate the results. Furthermore, it assumes a steady state of the earth. It is my understanding, although I have not verified this point, that if the earth had been surrounded in a very vaporous atmosphere, more so than we find today (which is indicated in the first chapter of Genesis) then this would also distort the findings of C-14 dating. And, carbon dating depends up organic substances, fossils, clothing and wood, things not found in Palestinian sites. Therefore, the older dates of the Bible and archeology do not always line up. In examining the Bible on this point, the genealogies also likely have some gaps in them. The phrase the son of or the father of does not indicate a father or son relationship in the Bible but general ancestry. However, the Bible does not indicate that human history goes back millions of years (we might be able to stretch it back 10,000 years or so at the most). The extremely early dates of archeology are based more upon the theories of evolution rather than upon the evidences found in archeology or geology.

9. One of the most important benefits of archeological finds is that they help to confirm the traditional dates and authors for various books of the Bible. The higher critics, for instance, do not believe Moses to be the author of the Pentateuch and they do not want him writing the book in the fifteenth century bc. Why? Because they would like to discredit the Bible. It cannot be God's Word and contain such a boldface lie. Please understand, these higher critics are not heathen and infidels but "religious" men; often pastors. Religious people have always been opposed to the Word of God. It is the way life has always been. A second reason that higher critics do not want to see a particular book, say Isaiah, written by Isaiah 700 years before Christ is that Isaiah writes about Jesus Christ almost as if he was a witness to His life. Higher critics do not like prophecy which has been clearly fulfilled. That is way too divine. In Gen. 19, we have angels visiting Lot in Sodom. The male population of Sodom had become so degenerate in their homosexuality that they desired to gang rape these two angels. Apparently any new male to the area received this type of treatment. They were prevented from entering Lot's home because of his heavy door. Higher critics place the writing of the Pentateuch after 1000 bc (in fact, they date the writing of Abraham's life between ninth and eighth centuries bc). During the period of time between 900–600 bc, people had arched doorways and did not use doors but curtains, if anything was used at all. Due to a strong sense of law and order, doors were unnecessary. If Genesis were written during this time period, an author would have no way of knowing that doors were used a thousand years previous, but archeology has confirmed the use of heavy doors during Abraham's lifetime.

10. In the same vein as the previous point, the Bible indicates that the area of Jordan where we have the cities Sodom and Gomorrah (and three other cities of note) were heavily populated (by ancient standards) during the Patriarchal times. A bogus author writing Genesis over a millennium later would have no way of knowing that such cities existed. Those five cities were wiped off the face of the earth by God due to their incredible degeneracy (Gen. 19:29). In fact, for centuries, higher critics and archaeologists doubted this portion of the Bible because they had found no evidence that this area had been populated. However, during this past century, Nelson Glueck had uncovered over seventy sites in the Jordan valley, most of them dating from the time period of the patriarchs.

Conclusion: The Bible is attacked on many levels; most often by those whom you would suppose to be its allies. One of the areas of attack is ancient history; all one has to do to discredit divine authority is to find but one historical fact in the Bible which is in error and that eliminates the Bible as being inspired by God, inspiration extending to the very words of Scripture. Whereas the Bible is not have complete agreement with ancient historians and the findings of archeology, it is because the latter two categories are wrong. They have attacked a thousand points of the Bible's record and later, sometimes decades or even centuries later, the Bible is vindicated by its very detractors and their recent discoveries. It has been in this past century when there have been an incredible number of finds which support the Biblical record. The key principle here is, just because we do not have an existing document of some sort to support the existence of this or that people, of this or that king, of this or that decree; that does not mean that those things do not exist. My ignorance of this or that fact does not invalidate this or that fact; the lack of evidence does not automatically invalidate any historical event, people, person or document.

In this portion, I have barely touched upon the incredible amount of archeological evidence which has been made available. For those who desire a more thorough investigation, and, more importantly, a Bibliography of more works to examine, I heartily recommend A Ready Defense by Josh McDowell. (Here's Life Publishers).

Part IV: The Accuracy of General Prophecy in the Bible:

Introduction: Approximately one-third of the Bible is prophetical, either in the initial statement of prophecy or in the fulfillment of prophecy (or, so I have read; I think it is closer to one-fifth). The Old Testament prophets gave prophecies for the near future and the far future. God told that the way one could determine whether of prophet was from Him was if the prophecies for the near future all came true. This is one of the most astounding evidences for the inspiration of the Bible. For near prophecies, we have a 100% fulfillment record. No other religious book or so-called prophet can make a claim such as that. God transcends time and the future is as perspicuous to Him as the past, therefore revealing future events is not difficult for Him to do.

God is not a mortal that he should lie, nor is He a man that He should change his mind. Has he not spoken and will He not make it good? What He has proclaimed, he will surely fulfill. (Num. 23:19) "I reveal the end from the beginning, from ancient times I reveal what is to be; I say, 'My Purpose will be established; I will accomplish all that I please.' For I am God, there is no other, I am God and there is no one like me." (Isa. 46:10,9b)

1. The most incredible general prophecy of the Bible is that concerning the Jews. Actually, this is a series of possibly hundreds of prophecies. In Deut. 30:1–5, prior to Israel even being a nation, God tells them that He will scatter them among the nations to the ends of the earth and then regather them when they have turned completely to Him. Lev. 26:32–45 gives the same scenario. In fact, the latter passage gives a near and a far prophecy. God scattered the Jews from their nation once with the fall of the Southern kingdom in 586 bc, and then regathered a remnant back into the land. God will do this because" they rejected My ordinances and their soul abhorred My statutes." However, God said: "I will remember for them the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations that I might be their God." This was all spoken to the Jews while they were still wandering in the desert before they had even entered the land; let alone, become a nation. This is why historians did not like the idea of the Law being written through Moses; it sounds more like it was written after the fact because it is so accurate. Take any other nation from the era, any great empire—the Assyrians, the Hittites the Babylonians; even the Romans or the Greeks—and they have lost their national character. The Greeks of today bear no resemblance to the ancient Greeks. The only definable peoples from the era are the Arabs, but that is because they are still in the same geographical area that they were in several millennium ago. History has demonstrated that any people who leave their homeland will, after about five generations, lose their national identity by being absorbed into the new culture, but the Jews remained a distinct entity...Have you ever heard of a Swedish Moabite? A Russian Philistine? A German Edomite? No! These people have been totally absorbed into other cultures and races. However, have you heard of a Swedish Jew? A Russian Jew? A German Jew? An American Jew? Yes! As prophesied, they have not lost their identity . Jews do not look all that different from Caucasians because of intermarriage; and they have the ability to assimilate into a nation and usually become prosperous. Many even try to lose their racial heritage by changing their names and denying their heritage, but 3000 years later, in every nation on earth, there are Jews; and they are separate and they will exist until the end of time because they are God's chosen people. Suddenly, in Revelation, a book which prophecies of the end times, the Jews appear again in Rev. 7:4–8. All that Satan has to do to discredit the Bible is the either assimilate the Jews to the point where they lose their racial identity; or destroy them. Satan has certainly attempted the latter and the Jews have been faced with incredibly vicious prejudicial attacks Few races have ever suffered the kind of aggressions which the Jews have faced—usually unprovoked. But God foretold this prior to Israel ever becoming a nation.

2. The largest cities in the United States have relatively recent origins; none of them are even 400 years old. However, if someone claimed that God was going to destroy New York or Chicago or Houston, and then describe how in detail, this person would be locked up. However, prophets did this continually in the Old Testament and all of their prophecies came to pass. While Nebuchadnezzar was in the process of conquering Judah, between 605 and 586 bc, the peoples of Tyre, the Phœnicians, a vigorous, maritime people, feared by their enemies, developed an interest in the land of Judah (Ezek. 26:2). At this time, the old city of Tyre located on the West Coast of northern Palestine, North of Judah, was the commercial center of that part of the world, due to its location. It was already 1500 years old, well established in the minds of all great nations. So God speaks to Ezekiel, the prophet (public ministry: 593–570 bc), around 588 bc: "Take up a lamentation over Tyre; and say to Tyre, who dwells at the entrance to the sea, merchant of the peoples to many coast lands, 'Thus says the Lord Yahweh, 'O Tyre, you have said, "I am perfect in beauty!" Your borders are in the heart of the seas; your builders have perfected your beauty...All the ships of the sea and their sailor were with you in order to deal in your merchandise. Persia and Lud and Pur were in your army, your men of war...Tarshish was your customer because of the abundance of all kinds o wealth...many coastlines were your market; ivory tusks and ebony they brought as your payment...with all your company that is in your midst, will fall into the heart of the seas on the day of your overthrow. At the sound of the cry of your pilots, the pasture lands will shake and ...the sailors...will come down from their ships and they will stand on the land and they will make their voice heard over you and will cry bitterly and will cast dust on their heads and they will wallow in ashes...and lament over you: "Who is like Tyre like her who is silent in the midst of the sea?...now that you are broken by the seas in the depths of the waters your merchandise and all your company have fallen to the midst of you. All the inhabitants of the coast lands are appalled at you and their kinds are horribly afraid...you have become terrified and you will be no more.'"'" (Ezek. 27:2–36)

"Therefore, behold, I will bring strangers upon you and most ruthless of the nations and they will draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom and defile your splendor. They will bring you down to the pit. And you will die the death of those who are slain in the heart of the seas. Will you still say, 'I am a god' in the presence of your slayer, although you are not a man and not God in the hands of them that wound you...you will die the death of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers, for I have spoken!" declares the Lord Yahweh. (Ezek. 28:7–10)

"Behold, I am against you, O Tyre, and I will bring up many nations agist you, as the sea brings up its waves. Furthermore, they will destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers and I will scrape her debris from her and make her a bare rock. She will be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea,..and she will become a spoil for the nations. And her daughters who are on the mainland will be slain by the sword and they will know that I am the Lord...I will bring upon Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, king of kings, with great horses, chariots, cavalry and a great army. He will slay your daughters on the mainland with the sword and he will make siege walls against you, cast up a mound against you and raise up a large shield against you. And the blow of his battering ram s he will direct against your walls and with his axes he will beak down your towers....they will make a spoil of your riches and a prey of your merchandise, break down your walls and destroy your pleasant house and throw your stones and your timbers and your debris into the water. So I will silence the sound of your songs and the sound of your harps will be hears no more. And I will make you a bare rock...you will be built upon no more, for I Yahweh have spoken." (Ezek. 26:3–14)

I have only quoted portions of this prophecy, but notice how specific it is. In Ezek. 27:12–24, a list of peoples who do business with Tyre are mentioned. However, Babylon is not among them. For some reason, there was no extensive trading between Babylon and Tyre, although Tyre traded with just about everyone else. What would be logical is for Babylon to invade the city, overthrow it, deport the peoples and keep the women and the wealth and the position of the city on the ocean. Furthermore, even if they did not do that, then it would make sense that later this would be built up again into a great city because of its ideal location. The Bible paints a different picture, however. Babylon will initially overthrow Tyre (Babylon is the stranger because there was no extensive trading between Tyre and Babylon). Then the other nations (note the change from he to they between Ezek. 26:11 & 12) will follow and completely destroy Tyre.

What happened historically was that very soon after this prophecy was made, Nebuchadnezzar laid siege upon Tyre; a siege which lasted thirteen years. The people fled mainland Tyre and fortified another part of Tyre which was an island a half a mile off shore. The mainland city became known as old Tyre and the Island city became New Tyre. Because the island was so low, the people built skyscrapers, over 10 stories high and a huge wall around most of the island city along the south ad west shores, where the water was shallow. This is what Ezekiel meant when he wrote (prior to it being built up in this way) Your borders are in the midst of the seas (Ezek. 27:4). Centuries later, Alexander the Great built a mole out from the short to New Tyre and destroyed it. Alexander scaled the walls and, in seven months, slaughtered 8000, later executed 2000 and sold 30,000 into slavery. In building this mole to the island city, Alexander turned New Tyre into a peninsula.

The best way to examine this is with a chart:

"Behold, I will bring upon Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses, chariots, cavalry and a great army He will slay your daughters on the mainland with the sword; and...the blow of his battering rams he will direct against your walls, and with his swords he will break down your towers." (Ezek. 26:7–9)	Tyre, the mistress of the seas, in the 6th century bc, endured a 13-year siege from Nebuchadnezzar. (Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 22, © 1958). After a 13-year siege (585–573 bc) by Nebuchadnezzar II, Tyre made terms and acknowledged Babylonian suzerainty. (Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 22 ?, © 1970).
Thus says the Lord Yahweh, "Because your heart is lifted up and you have said 'I am a god, I sit in the seat of god, in the heart of the seas' you are a man and not God." (Ezek. 28:2b) The king of Tyre was originally on the mainland, yet Ezekiel places him in the midst of the seas.	When Nebuchadnezzar took the city in 573 bc, he found that the Phoenicians had moved everything of value to an island about one half-mile off the coast. Though the city was taken, Nebuchadnezzar profited nothing and the Phoenicians were not conquered. Nebuchadnezzar could not pursue them to their island position, so he returned to Babylon. (Science Speaks, p. 74). Although we do not have any verifiable history in this regard, it is likely that the king of Tyre either left some people behind in the mainland city or some refused to move, believing that even without the complete protection of the city's armies, that Nebuchadnezzar could not tear down the fortifications of the city.
"Your borders are in the heart of the seas." (Ezek. 27:4a). This prophecy was given prior to the attack by Nebuchadnezzar, yet Ezekiel reveals that the king of Tyre will leave the coast of Tyre.	Alexander the Great built a road from the mainland to the island, creating a peninsula upon which the present town of Tyre stands. Tyre later became a part of the Roman and then Byzantine (East Roman) empire. Christian crusaders occupied the city from ad 1124 until Muslims captured it in 1291. (World Book Encyclopedia, Vol. 19, ©1982).
"Behold, I am against you O Tyre, and I will bring up many nations against you, as the sea brings up its waves" (Ezek. 26:3b,12).	Ezekiel's prophecy concerning the laying of the stones, the timber and the dust in the "midst of the water" (Ezek. 26:12b) was specifically fulfilled when Alexander's engineers built the mole, and used the remains of the ancient city of Tyre, laying them in the midst of the water. (Archeology and Bible History, pp. 263–264). When Alexander the Great made the causeway to the island city, he scraped the old site of Tyre clean. (A Ready Defense, p. 62).
"Also, they will make a spoil of your riches a prey of your merchandise, break down your walls and destroy your pleasant houses and throw your stones and your timbers and your debris into the water...I will make you a bare rock...And they will destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers and I will scrape her debris from her and made her a bare rock." (Ezek. 26:12,14a,4)	The town of Sur, built in the 1700's on the peninsula on the border of the ruins of Tyre, is a small fishing village today. This is a far cry from the ancient metropolis that Tyre once was. New Tyre is under four feet of water today and all that can be seen are the foundations of some ancient buildings and pillars. Old Tyre is a bare rock with the town of Sur being built adjacent to it. This site is in a beautiful location, once the hub of commerce, and there are great freshwater springs in Raselain, according to Peter Stoner, which pump out approximately 10 million gallons of water daily, enough to support a large modern city. However, God has told us in His word that the modern city of Tyre shall never be built upon again, and that is why it is barren today.
"I will scrape her debris from her and make her a bare rock she will be made a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea...You will be made a place for the spreading of nets. You will be built upon no more" (Ezek. 26:4b–5a,14b).	Imagine this incredible prophecy, delivered when Tyre was a center of commerce and had a 1500 year history prior to the writings of Ezekiel. At this time, it was at the end of its prime, although no person except Ezekiel knew this. The city enjoyed its greatest prosperity between 1100 and 573 bc...because of its island location, Tyre resisted capture for centuries. (The World Book Encyclopedia, p. 445, ©1982)

Peter Stoner gives us the odds of Ezekiel's prophecy coming to pass:

a) Nebuchadnezzar was a powerful king and conqueror and was laying siege upon various cities prior to his attack on Tyre. It is possible that he might have tried to take Tyre, but could not and he might have never tried. Stoner gives this prophecy fulfillment a 1 in 3 chance.

b) Nebuchadnezzar generally did not stop in the midst of an attack and leave the job undone, but this is what occurred in this situation. If he was going to overthrow a city, it would be reasonable that he would occupy the city, possibly deport the peoples of Tyre. Because the peoples of Tyre moved out to an island, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he would have further attacked what remained of Tyre and defeated them. He did not and the likelihood of someone guessing that would be the outcome Stoner places at 1 in 5.

c) Great cities are usually marked by centuries of accumulated debris. How would Ezekiel have known that this city, of all cities (perhaps the only city in history) would be left flat like the tope of a rock? Stoner estimates 1 in 500.

d) How would Ezekiel guess that this would not be anything but a place for the spreading of nets? Certainly, there were fishing villages up and down the coast, but mighty Tyre? Stoner: 1 in 10.

e) Other neighboring cities were so astonished at Alexander's conquest of Tyre that they merely opened the gates of their cities and allowed Alexander to take over. The idea that the fall of Tyre could have such an impact on the surrounding cities Stoner puts at 1 in 5.

f) How would Ezekiel know that Tyre would not be built upon again? Almost all ancient cities following sieges are built upon and built upon again and again. Most conquerors populate the cities with their own kind, since the city ha a good location to begin with. In fact, Tyre is still in a wonderful location and still has an abundance of fresh water. Stoner: 1 in 20.

To determine the probability that just any person could have guessed that all of these things would come to pass is found by taking those fractions and multiplying them together and the result is that Ezekiel had a one in 75,000,000 chance of predicting this particular destruction of Tyre and the final outcome. Peter Stoner invites anyone to dink around with the individual probabilities and rightly claims that the resulting probability will be hard to fathom. However, it is not unlike winning the grand prize of a state lottery. Certainly, Ezekiel could have just been a lucky guesser or it could have been that he was inspired to write God's Word as he claimed. To add in a bit of Josh McDowell logic, if Ezekiel were not a man of God writing God's words as God spoke them to him, then he was seriously self-deluded and likely psychotic. Now what are the odds a self-deluded psychotic could have come up with those prophecies? It is like winning a state lottery without buying a ticket. Sure, it could happen and certainly it is possible that Ezekiel was a raving lunatic who just happened to write a very rational sounding book of prophecies which all came true. Or, he could have been writing God's Word. You decide.

3. Babylon, according to the World Book Encyclopedia, was one of the greatest cities of the ancient world, the political and religious capital of Babylonia. It became a city of importance circa 2000 bc. Between 1800 and 1500 bc, it was the capital of a large empire built by the famous ruler Hammurabi. It had walls 90 feet thick and 300 feet high with higher towers. The walls extended for 14 miles on each side of the city. There was a freshwater river flowing through the midst of the city and their was enough land to supply the city with food in case of a siege. Several different groups of people ruled over this city and the Assyrians ruled Babylon between 745 and 639 bc. There were several revolts against this Assyrian rule until King Sennacherib crush the last revolt and destroyed the city. His son, Esarhaddon, rebuilt the city 11 years later. When Assyrian fell, Babylon became independent once again. Nebuchadnezzar II ruled over Babylon between 605 and 562 bc, and it once again became a magnificent city. Power shifted hands several times over the next couple decades, lost its independence once more, and eventually, around 200 ad, fell into ruins. Both Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesy concerning Babylon and the book of Daniel in part deals with Babylon under Belshazzar.

And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldean's pride, will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation; nor will the Arab pitch his tent there, nor will shepherds make their flocks lie down there, but desert creatures will lie down there. And their houses will be full of owls,; ostriches also will live there and shaggy goats will frolic there. (Isa. 13:19–21). This was written around 712 bc while being under the rule of the Assyrians.

Babylon...in ad 200's....soon fell into ruins. In the 1200's, Arabs used the bricks from the ruins of ancient Babylon to build Al Hillah. The government of Iraq has reconstructed one of the gates and part of the Hanging Gardens. (World Book Encyclopedia, ©1982, vol. B)

Though Arabs will pitch their tents at nearly any spot, they are superstitious about Babylon; and though you hire one as a guide, he will not stay there at night. The ruined city is uninhabited by humans; jackals and many kinds of wild beasts live in the ruins. There are no sheepfold about Babylon. (Science Speaks, p. 92)

I asked the caretaker of the museum now maintained by the Iraqi government at Babylon if he lived there. "Oh my no!" he exclaimed. "No one lives here. I ride here every morning on my donkey." "Do Arabs ever pitch tents here?" I inquired. "Never!" was the emphatic answer. "They have a superstition against it". (Proof of the Bible, pp. 37–38)

"But I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea for all their evil that they have done in Zion before you eyes," declares the Lord. "...and they w8ill not take from you even a stone for a corner nor a stone for foundations, but you will be desolate forever," declares the Lord. "The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time it is stamped firm; yet, in a little while the time of harvest will come for her...her cities have become an object of horror, a parched land and a desert, a line in which no man lives and through which no son of man passes....even the wall of Babylon has fallen down...from Me destroyers will come to her." (Jer. 3124,26,33b,43,44b,53b)

Persians captured Babylon in 539 bc. Later, King Xerses destroyed part of the city to punish the people for continued rebellions. Alexander the Great captured Babylon in 331bc....Babylon came under Parthian control in the 200's bc Babylon finally came under Sassanian rule in the ad 200's and soon fell into ruins. (World Book Encyclopedia, ©1982, Vol. B).

I have been there. I saw and photographed the desolation and a stork's nest. But no man lives there. (Proof of the Bible, pp. 37)

Bricks and building materials of many kinds have been salvaged from the ruins for cities round about, but the rocks, which were imported to Babylon at such great cost, have never been moved. (Science Speaks, p. 94)

4. Peter Stoner mentions prophecies concerning Tyre, Samaria, Gaza and Ashkelon, Jericho, the Gold Gate, Zion plowed, Jerusalem enlarged, Palestine, Moab and Ammon, Edom and Babylon (this, by the way, was not an exhaustive list of the specific prophecies in the Bible, just a representative sampling; Stoner alludes to Sidon, Capernaum, Bethsaida, Egypt and Assyria, Egypt) and computes the relevant probabilities concerning those first 13 areas and comes up with one chance in 5.76 x 10³⁹. Stoner writes: The volume of the sun is more than 1,000,000 times that of the earth, yet out of 5 x 10³⁹ silver dollars, we could make 10²⁹ solid silver balls the size of the sun....It is estimated that the whole universe contains about two trillion galaxies, each containing over 100 billion stars. From our 5 x 10³⁹ silver dollars we could make al of the stars, in all of these galaxies, 2 x 10⁵ times. (Science Speaks, pp. 96–97). Peter waxes eloquently for pages on various analogies to numbers and probabilities this high, but, the simplest thing to say is that it isn't going to happen. Choose this kind of probability over the fact that this is God's Word? Foolish. I know that some person is thinking that anything is possible. Might I remind you is that anything is possible is the kind of thinking age-appropriate to a seven-year-old watching cartoons and Peter Pan. That kind of thinking is wonderful for the imagination of a child still in grade school, but it is foolish to think that way as a thinking adult.

Part V: The Accuracy of Prophecy Concerning Jesus Christ in the Bible:

Introduction: Perhaps the area of prophecy which is the most incredible prophecies concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. Being that the focal point of the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation is His death on the cross as the basis for our forgiveness, and his resurrection and ascension confirm God's acceptance of our Lord dying for our sins, we should expect that a great deal of prophecy should deal with Him. This prophecy is quite difficult to discredit because much of it comes from Isaiah, who wrote eight centuries prior to the first advent of Jesus Christ. Some very foolish critics might make claims that Isaiah wrote after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but Isaiah was translated into the Greek as a part of the rest of the Old Testament (along with all the other Old Testament prophecies concerning Jesus Christ) a century before the birth of our Lord in one of the most well-established translation; in fact, the very first translation of a book from one language to another: The Hebrew Old Testament was translated into Greek, the translation known today as the Septuagint, because there were approximately seventy translators who worked on this translation.

[Jesus said] "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill." (Matt. 5:17) And He [Jesus] came to Nazareth where He had been brought up; and, as was His habit, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read. And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the scroll and found the place where it was written, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind. To set free those who are downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable Year of the Lord." And he closed the book and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon Him. And He began to say to them, "Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." (Luke 4:17–21)

The Necessity of a Sacrifice of the Innocent on Behalf of the Guilty

And Yahweh God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them. (Gen. 3:21)

Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. Abel...brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And Yahweh had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering, He had no regard. (Gen. 4:3b–5a)

God tested Abraham and said to him, "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah; and offer him there as a burnt offering." (Gen. 22:1b–2a)

Now Yahweh said to Moses, "On the tenth of this month they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their fathers' households, a lamb for each household...Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old...and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then, the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight. Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it....[this] is the Lord's Passover." (Ex. 12:1a,3,5a,6–7,11b)

And He [Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed and after three days, rise again. And he was stating the matter plainly. Then Peter took him aside and "God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to you!" But turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter, and said, "Get behind me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God's interests but man's." (Mark 8:31–32a Matt. 16:23 Mark 8:33)

But into [the Holy of Holies]...the high priest enters, once a year, with blood, which he offers for himself and for the sins of the people...which is a symbol for the present time. Accordingly, both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make the worshipper perfect in conscience...but when Christ appeared as a High Priest of the good things to come, He in the greater and more perfect tabernacle [His resurrection body], not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption...[who] offered Himself without blemish to God. (Heb. 9:7b,9,11–12,14b)

The Incarnation

Our Lord's Forerunner:

"Behold, I am going to send My messenger and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming." says the Lord. of the armies. (Mal. 3:1)

A voice of one calling out, "Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; make smooth in the desert a highway for our God." (Isa. 40:3)

Born the seed of a woman; born of a virgin:

And the Lord God said to the serpent, "...And I shall place hostility between you and the woman; and between your seed and her seed." (Gen. 3:14a,15a)

Then the Lord said to Isaiah, "...Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son and she will call His name Immanuel." (Isa. 7:3a,14)

Place of birth:

[Yahweh is speaking]: "But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His appearances are from long ago from the days of eternity [past]." (Micah 5:2)

And gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he [Herod] began to inquire of them where the Christ [Messiah] was to be born. And they said to him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, so it has been written by the prophet." (Matt. 2:4–5) I include this NT quote here to show that is how the experts in the Scripture interpreted Micah 5:2.

His lineage:

[The Angel of the Lord or God is speaking to Abraham] "And in your descendent all the nations of the earth shall be blessed...through Isaac, your descendant shall be called." (Gen. 22:18a 21:12b)

[God is causing Balaam to prophesy] "A star shall come forth from Jacob, and a scepter shall rise from Israel" (Num. 24:17b)

[Jacob is prophesying] "The scepter shall not depart from Judah nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until He comes to whom it belongs" (Gen. 49:10)

Then a shoot will spring from the stump of Jesse and a branch fro his roots will bear fruit and the Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him. (Isa. 11:1–2a)

"Behold, the days are coming," declares the Lord, "When I shall raise up for David a righteous Branch and He will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land....He will be called the Lord our righteousness." (Jer. 23:5,6b)

His Pre-existence:

[God is speaking, as is implied by Isa. 48:3–4] "Listen to me, O Jacob, even Israel, my called one: I am He; I am the first. I am also the last. Surely My hand founded the earth and My right hand spread out the heavens...come near to me and listen to this: From the first I have not spoken in secret, from the time it took place, I was there. And now the Lord God has sent Me and His Spirit." (Isa. 48:12–13a,16)

"I say, O God, "Of old You did found the earth and the heavens are the work of Your hands." (Psalm 102:24a,25)

The names of Jesus Christ:

The Lord...will speak to them: "I will tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to Me, 'You are My Son, today I have begotten You.'" (Psalm 102:5b,5a,7)

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you. He is just and endowed with salvation. (Zech. 9:9a)

"Behold," says the Lord, "I shall raise up for David a righteous Branch, and He will reign as king and act wisely and...His name will be...the Lord. our righteousness." (Jer. 23:5a,5c,6b,d) The righteous branch can also be translated the righteous root-shoot.

"A star shall come forth from Jacob." (Num. 24:17c)

The Lord says to my Lord, "Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for your feet." (Psalm 110:1)

"Behold, a virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel." (Isa. 7:14b) Immanuel means "God with us." The use of the word name in Hebrew can also refer to reputation or function.

For a child will be born to us, a son will be given us...and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father [the Author of Eternity], Prince of Peace. (Isa. 9:6)

And [John the Baptist's] father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying, "And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare His Ways." (Luke 1:67,76)

Now, in those days, John the Baptist came, proclaiming in the wilderness of Judea, saying "Change your mind, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet, saying, "The voice of the one crying in the wilderness. Make ready the way of the Lord; make His paths straight." (Matt. 3:1–3)

Now the birth of Jesus Christ occurred as follows: When His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by means of the Holy Spirit and Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, desired to put her away secretly, but while he had been considering this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for that which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit...and Joseph arose from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him, and took her as his wife and kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus. (Matt. 1:18–20,24–25)

And Joseph went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register, along with Mary, who was engaged to him, and was with child. And it came about, while they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths and laid Him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. (Luke 2:4–7)

And when He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty years of age, thought of as being the Son of Joseph...the son of David, the son of Jesse...the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham. (Luke 3:23a,31b–32a,34a).

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being by means of Him and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being....and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. (John 1:1–3,12a)

And He [Jesus Christ] is before all things and in Him all things exist. (Col. 1:17)

And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as a dead man. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying, "Do not be afraid, I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead and behold, I am alive forevermore." (Rev. 1:17–18a)

And, behold, a voice out of the heavens, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased." (Matt. 3:17)

And Simon Peter answered and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." (Matt. 16:16)

And they all said, "Are You the Son of God then?" And He [Jesus] said to them, "Yes, I am." (Luke 22:70)

Nathanael answered Him, "Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel." (John 1:49)

Pilate therefore said to Him, "So You are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say [correctly] that I am a king." (John 18:27a)

"I, Jesus,...am the root and the offspring of David, the bright and morning star." (Rev. 22:16a,c) See also Rom. 15:12

"For today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." (Luke 2:11)

And He [Jesus] said to them, "How is it they said the Christ is David's Son? For David himself says in the book of Psalms, 'The Lord said to My Lord, "Sit at My right hand..."'" (Luke 20:41–42)

Now all this took place that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, "Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son and they shall call His name Immanuel," which, translated means, "God with us." (Matt. 1:22–23)

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God...and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. (John 1:1,14a)

Our Lord's Ministry on Earth

Filled with the Holy Spirit:

And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him. The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength. (Isa. 11:2a)

[God is speaking] "Behold, My Servant, whom I will uphold: My Chosen One in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him." (Isa. 42:1a)

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me... (Isa. 61:1a)

The signs of His ministry:

Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped then the lame will leap like a deer and the tongue of the dumb will shout for joy. (Isa. 35:4–5a)

His teaching:

I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of old which we have heard and known and our fathers have told us. (Psalm 78:2–3a)

Jesus will suddenly enter the temple:

"Behold, I am going to send My messenger [reference to John the Baptizer] and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple." (Micah 3:1a)

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, humble and mounted on a donkey; even upon a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zech. 9:9)

Rejected by the Jews:

[The Lord is speaking to Isaiah]: "Then He shall become a sanctuary; but to both the houses of Israel, a stone to strike and a rock to stumble over and a snare and a trap for the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many will stumble over them. Then they will fall and be broken; they will even be snared and caught." (Isa. 8:14–15)

Therefore, thus says the Lord God, "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a costly cornerstone the foundation, firmly placed. He who believes will not give way." (Isa. 28:16)

And You have become my salvation. The stone which the builders [Israel] rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our sight. (Psalm 118:21b-23)

Rejected by His own family and by man in general:

I have become estranged from my brothers, and an alien to my mother's sons. (Psalm 69:8)

He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from who men hide their face, He was despised and we did not esteem Him. (Isa. 53:3)

Those who hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head. (Psalm 69:4)

He saw the heavens opening parted and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon Him [Jesus]. (Mark 1:10b)

And He [Jesus Christ] opened the book of Isaiah] and found the place where it was written: "'The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me.'" and He closed the book...and all the eyes of the synagogue were upon Him, and he began to say, "Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." (Luke 4:17b–18a,20b–21a)

John [the baptizer]...by his disciples...said to Him, "Are You the Coming One or shall we look for someone else?" And Jesus answered and said to them, "Go and report to John the things which you hear and see: the blind receive sight and the lame walk and the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear and the dead are raised up." (Matt. 11:11:2b,d,3b–5a)

All these things Jesus spoke to the multitudes in parables, and He was not talking to them without parables so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, "I will open My mouth in parables."

(Matt. 13:34–35a)

And He entered the temple and began to cast out those who were selling...and he was teaching daily in the temple. (Luke 19:45,47a)

And they brought the colt to Jesus and put their garments on it; and He sat upon it. And many spread their garments in the road...and those who went before and those who followed after were crying out," Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord" And He entered Jerusalem. (Mark 11:7–8a,99,11a)

[Jesus is speaking]: "What then is this that is written, 'The stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief cornerstone'? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust." And the scribes and the chief priests tried to lay hands on him that very hour. (Luke 20:17–19a)

[Paul is writing to church age believers]: So then you...are of God's household, having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone. (Eph. 2:20)

Israel...pursuing the law by works...stumbled over the stumbling stone. (Rom. 9:31a,32b,d)

For not even his brothers were believing in Him. (John 7:5)

He came to His own and those who were His own did not receive Him. (John 1:11)

[The Pharisees are speaking]: "No one of the rulers or Pharisees has believed in Him, has he?" (John 7:48)

[Jesus is speaking concerning the Pharisees]: "But they have done this in order that the word may be fulfilled that is written in their Law, 'They have hated Me without a cause.'" (John 15:25)

The Crucifixion

For it is not an enemy who reproaches Me, but it is you, a man my equal, my companion and my familiar friend. We who had sweet fellowship together, walking in the house of God in the throng. (Psalm 55:12a,13–14)

Even my close friend, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against me. (Psalm 41:9)

And I said to them, "If it is good in your sight, give me my wages..." So they weighed out thirty pieces of silver as my wages. Then the Lord said to me, "Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them." So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the Lord. (Zech. 11:12a,c,13) Zechariah, by throwing the pieces of silver by which the Lord was valued to the potter in the house of the Lord, was prophesying by his actions. Josh McDowell points out that the money was 30 pieces, not 29; it was silver, and not gold; and it was thrown down, not placed.

"Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd and against the man, My Associate," declares the Lord of the armies. "Strike the shepherd, that the sheep may be scattered." (Zech. 13:7a)

Malicious witnesses rise up; they ask me of things that I do not know. They repay me evil for good to the bereavement of my soul...But at my stumbling they rejoiced and gathered themselves together, the smiters whom I did not know gathered together against me. They slanders [or tore at] me without ceasing. Like godless jesters at a feast, they gnashed at me with their teeth. (Psalm 35:11–12,15–16)

He was harassed unsparingly and he had been brought to subjection. Yet He did not open His mouth. Like a lamb that is lead to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth. By an oppressive judicial decision, He was led away. (Isa. 53:7–8a)

All who see me sneer at me; they shoot out the lip; they wag the head. (Psalm 22:7a)

I have also become a reproach to them; when they see me, they wag their head. (Psalm 109:25)

I gave my back to those who strike Me, and My cheeks to those who pluck out the beard; I did not cover My face from humiliation and spitting. (Isa. 50:6)

From that time, Jesus Christ began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day. (Matt. 17:21)

All who see me sneer at me...[saying] "Commit to the Lord; let Him deliver him; Let Him rescue him because He delights in him." I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd and my tongue cleaves to my jaws. and You lay me in the dust of death. For dogs [Gentiles] surrounded me; a band of evildoers has encompassed me. They pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me; they divide my garments among them and for my clothing, they cast lots. (Psalm 22:7–8,14–18)

Surely our griefs He Himself bore and our sorrows He carried, yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted, but He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our peace was upon Him and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. He was oppressed and He was afflicted...For the transgression of my people was the stroke of judgement. His grave was assigned with wicked mean yet with a rich man in his deaths. Although He had done no violence nor was their any deceit in His mouth. But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting to grief if He would render Himself a guilt offering....And He was numbered with the transgressors, yet He Himself bore the sin of many. (Isa. 53:4–7,8–10a,12b)

They divide my garments among them and for my clothing, they cast lots. (Psalm 22:18)

And it will come about in that day," declares the Lord God, "That I shall make the sun go down at noon and make the earth dark in broad daylight." (Amos 8:9)

My God My God, why have You forsaken Me? (Psalm 22:1)

They gave me gall for my food and for my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink. (Psalm 69:21)

He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken. (Psalm 34:20)

And one will say to him, "What are these wounds between your hands?" Then he will say, "Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends." (Zech. 13:6) Jesus was charged by those who daily ministered in the temple; the temple which speaks of Him; and He was betrayed by one of His disciples.

They will look upon Me whom they have pierced and they will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a first-born. (Zech. 12:10b) The word for pierce in the Hebrew occurs nine times in the Old Testament and in each of those nine times, it means to be thrust through by a sword (e.g., Num. 25:8 I Sam. 31:4)

But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting to grief if He would render Himself a guilt offering....As a result of the anguish of His soul, He [God] will see and be satisfied. By His knowledge, the Righteous One [Jesus Christ], My servant will justify the many as He will bear their iniquities...Because He poured out Himself to deaths...He Himself bore the sin of many. (Isa. 53:10a,11,12b,12d)

Now when evening had come, He [Jesus] was reclining [to eat] with His disciples. And, as they were eating, He said, "Truly I say to you that one of you will betray me." And Judas, who was betraying Him, answered and said, "Surely it is not I, Rabbi?" He said to him, "You have said it yourself." And while they were eating, Jesus took bread and after a blessing, He broke it and give it to the disciples. (Matt. 26:20–21,25–26a) See also John 13:18

[Judas is speaking to the chief priests]: "What are you willing to give me to deliver Him up to you?" And they weighed out to him thirty pieces of silver....then when Judas...felt remorse [he tried to return] the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders...And he threw the pieces of silver into the sanctuary...and the chief priests took the pieces of silver and said, "It is not lawful to put them into the temple treasure, since it is the price of blood." And they counseled together and with the money bought the Potter's Field as a burial place for strangers. (Matt. 26:15b 27:3b,5a,6–7)

At that time, Jesus said to the multitudes, "Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me? All this has taken place that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled." Then all the disciples left Him and fled. (Matt. 26:55a,56)

Many were giving false testimony against Him but their testimony was not consistent. (Mark 14:56)

Now the chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin kept trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus, in order that they might put Him to death. and they did not find it, even though many false witnesses came forward. But later, two came forward and said, "This man states, 'I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days.'" (Matt. 26:59–61)

And while He was being accused by the chief priests and elders, He made no answer. Then Pilate said to Him, "Do You not hear how many things they testify against You?" And He did not answer him with regard to even a single charge so that the governor was quite amazed. (Matt. 27:12–14)

And those who were passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads...The chief priests, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking Him. (Matt. 27:39,41b)

And they spat on Him and took the reed and began to beat Him on the head. (Matt. 27:30)

And they blindfolded Him and were asking Him, saying "Prophesy, who is the one who hit You?" (Luke 24:64)

And they crucified Him. (Mark 15:24a) As is the Roman custom, our Lord's hands and feet were pierced by large spikes, which held the body to the cross or stake. Being stretched out on the cross, our Lord's bones would show through His skin.

They gave Him wine to drink mixed with gall; and after tasting it, He was unwilling to drink....at that time, two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the right and one on the left. And those who were passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads and saying "You who destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself. If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross." In the same way, the chief priests, along with the scribes and elders were mocking Him and saying, "He saved others; He cannot save Himself. He is the King of Israel; Let Him now come down from the cross and we shall believe in Him. He trusts in God; let Him deliver Him now. If He takes pleasure in Him, for He said, 'I am the Son of God.'" (Matt. 27:34,38–43)

{Pilate} "I have found no guilt in this man regarding the charges which you make against Him." ...And one of the criminals who were hanged was hurling abuse at Him...but the other answered, and rebuking him, said, "Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly deserve what we are receiving for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong." ...Now when the centurion saw what had happened, he praised God, saying, "Certainly this man was righteous." (Luke 23:14b,39a,40–41,47)

The soldiers, therefore, when they had crucified Jesus, took His outer garments and made four parts, a part to every soldier and also the tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece. They said, therefore to one another, "Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, to decided whose it shall be." that the Scripture might be fulfilled, They divided My outer garments among them and for My clothing, they cast lots. (John 19:23–24)

And when the sixth hour had come, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. And, at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "My God My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Mark 15:33–34a,c)

After this, Jesus knowing that all things had been already accomplished in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, "I am thirsty." A jar of sour wine was standing there; so they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a hyssop, and brought it up to His mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished." And he bowed His head and exhaled His breath. The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man and of the other man who was crucified with Him, but coming to Jesus, when they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. (John 19:28–30,32–33)

And all the multitude who came together for this spectacle, when they observed what had happened, began to return, beating their breasts. And all His acquaintances and the women who accompanied Him from Galilee were standing at a distance, seeing these things. (Luke 23:48–49)

And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live in righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls. (I Peter 2:24–25)

His Burial, Resurrection and Ascension

His grave was assigned to be with wicked men, yet with a rich man in His deaths. (Isa. 13:9a)

For You will not abandon my soul to the grave; neither will You allow Your Holy one to undergo decay. (Psalm 16:10)

You have delivered my soul from the depths of the grave. (Psalm 86:13b)

And the Lord said to Moses, "Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments; and let them be ready for the third day, for on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people." (Ex. 19:10–11)

"Come, let us return to the Lord, for He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but he will bandage us. He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day." (Hos. 6:1–2)

[Jesus is speaking]: "The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day." (Luke 9:22)

And when it was evening, a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who himself had become a disciple of Jesus. This man came to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. The Pilate ordered it to be released. (Matt. 27:57–58)

The other disciples therefore were saying to him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe." (John 20:25)

But when they entered [the tomb] they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And it happened that while they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling apparel..and one said to them, "Why do you seek the Living One among the dead? He is not here but He has risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again." (Luke 24:2,3b–4,5b–7)

And He [Jesus] opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and He said to them, "Thus it is written that the Messiah should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day." (Luke 24:45–46)

I have listed the major prophecies which were written between 400 and 1200 years prior to the incarnation of Jesus Christ (some of the prophecies go back further than that). Peter Stoner, beginning of p. 100 of Science Speaks, takes only eight characteristics of these Messianic prophecies and, with the help of some 600 students, came up with reasonable probabilities for all eight prophecies. After multiplying them together and rounding off to a less amount for simplicity sake, Stoner came up with one chance in 10¹⁷ that anyone could have fulfilled just those eight prophecies. He gives the example of taking 10¹⁷ silver dollars and covering the entire state of Texas with them two feet deep. Fulfilling these promises is like one blindfolded person picking the correct marked silver dollar out of this huge pile.

Stoner then adds eight more specific points from eight Messianic prophecies to the first eight, and, using those and the first eight, comes up with the probability of one chance in 10⁴⁵. If you took 10⁴⁵ silver dollars and put them together into a solid, silver sphere, you would have a ball which extends in all directions more than 30 times as far as the earth is from the sun. The earth is 93,000,000 miles from the sun and to visualize that; a train traveling at 60 mph day and night had it begun around the time of the turn of the nineteenth century (1800) it would be arriving at the sun today. The radius of the solid silver ball is 30 times as large as that distance.

Stoner finally takes 48 prophecies together and computes the probability that they could come true. He illustrates this no longer with a mass of silver dollars, but a creates a solid sphere out of that number of electrons (after giving a marvelous explanation as to the smallness of the electron). His illustrations here are worth the price of the book.

The point being, you might quibble about a prophecy or two or over the odds of fulfillment, but when all is said and done, the probability that man could create a book of one third prophecies and just accidentally run 100% accuracy level on all of these prophecies is beyond human comprehension. The honest person is forced to the conclusion that such accuracy could only be divinely inspired. That is the point of this portion of the doctrine of inspiration.

Preface	Introduction	Biblical Claims for Inspiration
Apologetics	Additional Topics on Inspiration	Bibliography

Additional Topics on Inspiration

Part I: Theories on Inspiration:

Introduction: We basically have two camps of thought concerning the inspiration of the Scriptures. On the one hand we have those who agree that there is some spiritual merit in what the Bible says, but they do not like everything in God's Word. They often view other religions and religious writings as being similarly inspired and desire to pick and chose the portions of the Bible which they like, and discard those doctrines that they do not like. Such people are often "teachers" of God's Word or teachers of religious classes in seminaries and colleges. They are often affected by modern thought and adjust their view of what Scripture teaches to incorporate the mores of their time. These teachers are often called liberals and modernists. They certainly have their adherents and can be found in possibly every major denomination in the United States. On the other hand, you have those who believe that all of the Bible is God's Word. These are the conservatives in theology, or the literalists, the fundamentalists and the orthodox. Even many of them hold an incorrect view of inspiration.

1. One view is that religious men were inspired or illumined by God and wrote, to the best of their ability, religious insights. The quality of these inspirational thoughts varied from man to man, from time to time and was occasionally confined to their own period of time, and not important to people of the twentieth or twenty-first century. The Bible is more of a religious scrapbook or scratch pad that modern man and modern teachers must examine to distill from it the few grains of truth which it contains. There are several objections to this view:

a) If the Bible is merely a religious scrapbook, why aren't similarly inspired modern men churning out literature with the same impact and importance of the Bible. Why have 2000 years passed since anything of similar religious significance been written? Liberal theologians have been writing volumes of drivel for the past century, yet none of their writings even approaches the significance of the Bible. At best, their writings are quoted by other like-minded teachers who lack the ability to write their own religious scrapbook.

b) If the Bible is all that God sees fit to provide us with and if it is not God's Word, but only contains God's Word, then true religious thinking would be deistic. That is, the belief that God set the world in motion and then walked away from it, leaving it to us to work things out.

c) The third objection to this viewpoint is that God's Truth becomes subject to man's thinking, rather than vice versa. That is, man has the final say in what is right or wrong concerning God's Word, and as various social trends become fashionable or fall out of favor, the Bible is reinterpreted to reflect the changes in society. In other words, there is no right or wrong and there is not absolute truth, but truth changes from year to year according to man's whims.

d) This viewpoint presumes that God is too weak or impotent to communicate to His creatures in such a way as to do it apart from myth and limited inspiration. The other view would be that God is too disinterested to provide us with a full revelation of His Will.

e) If the Bible is only partially God's Word and we must find the portion which is, why provide us with a Bible at all? Why not allow the religious men of each generation to teach us apart from this Word. Such a Bible does not standardize religious thought because man can dismiss whatever it is he does not like and embrace those portions which he approves of.

f) Finally, this viewpoint is not consistent with what the Bible teaches about itself. It is not even close.

g) To sum up, those who hold to this view merely want to chose those portions of God's Word that they like and dismiss those which they find to be uncomfortable with. The Bible clearly teaches that man has an old sin nature and the daily newspaper and any history book is replete with examples of such a nature. It would seem more logical that man wants authority over God's Word because of his old sin nature rather than out of a sincere desire to know God's truth. In other words, man in this camp desires to make God into his own image, the mistake of all false religion.

2. As a response to the untenability of the liberal view is the Neo-Orthodox view. These people recognize that the Bible has to be more than just a religious scrapbook, yet they are intimidated by modern education. For instance, if they have been taught for the entirety of their life theories like evolution, then they both want to embrace evolution but not reject God's Word outright. Therefore, some of these believe that once you strip away the obvious mythology and the cultural influence on the writer, and beneath this exterior lies God's truth. Some just cannot believe that it is possible for God to record His complete and coherent thought to mankind, so they believe that through the careful study of the Bible, it becomes God's Word. As G.T. Thompson put it in his book Church Dogmatics, we recognize eventually God's voice through this imperfect record just as a dog would recognize his master's voice on a scratch and imperfect vinyl record. In this camp, some believe that the Bible is a record, however imperfect, of revelation from God, but it is not strictly revelation from God. When we strip off the myth or the cultural influence, suddenly we find that same revelation speaking to us. Objections are as follows:

a) While this is certainly a step up from liberal theology, it still presupposes that God has not the power, the ability and/or the interest to provide for us His inerrant Word. That is, He can provide us with information about Himself, absolute truth, right and wrong, but is unable to provide us with accurate historical and scientific information and cannot seem to desperate His truth from the popular viewpoints espoused in the days of the various authors. Recall our studies on various archeological discoveries which have come to support Scripture? Before some of these discoveries, there was a great deal of doubt among some people—for instance, some doubted the actual existence of the Hittites. There are also people who believe in evolution and are smart enough to recognize that the Bible and evolutionary theory are at odds with one another. These types of people, swayed by contemporary arguments and questions, would be the ones who would hold that the Bible is unable to provide us with accurate historical and scientific information.

b) Along this same line, the authors of the various books of the Bible more often than not found themselves in direct opposition to popular philosophy and the thinking of their day. Furthermore, the entire Bible carries with it an objectivity unsurpassed in literature from that time period and a straightforward revelation of information which sounds strangely very demythologized to begin with, even when dealing with incredible events and events which are other worldly.

c) The result of neo-orthodoxy is pretty much the same as liberalism: man is given the final say on what is correct and what is incorrect concerning God's Word.

d) It is illogical for the Bible to both be inspired by God and full of errors. If Jesus Christ cannot give us accurate information concerning the history of His day, how can we trust Him to give us an accurate explanation of things relating to God?

e) And, as before, this viewpoint does not coincide with the stance taken by the Bible, the authors of the Bible or by Jesus Christ. You would think that at least God's Son would point out at least once that occasionally the Scriptures are inaccurate. However, He continually states, "It stands written..." or "You err because you do not know the Scriptures" or He corrects incorrect teaching by the Pharisees and scribes, but not once does He cast any doubt upon the veracity of the Old Testament.

3. The final viewpoint of inspiration is the conservative viewpoint. That is, these are the ones who believe that every word of the Bible's autographs (an accurate copy of the original manuscript) carries with it the stamp of divine authorship; that there is no historical inaccuracy, no myth, no fable presented in the Word. The Bible might record someone's sin or record the lie of a person or angelic being, but is in no way inaccurate and such a recording is accurate (yet not an encouragement to go and do likewise). However, there are differing views on inspiration even in this camp:

a) The mechanical dictation theory: God dictated to writers of Scripture exactly what He wanted them to write. The writers of Scripture were secretaries recording God's Words not unlike a court stenographer. Muslims hold to this view, as do Mormons (when it comes to their Book of Mormon and most conservative theologians (including myself) believe that this occurred in certain sections of the Bible (such as God dictating the Law to Moses). However, this removes man as a true active participant in God's plan—at least in this realm. Objections:

i) The vocabulary from book to book is incredibly different. Examine John in the Greek and compare it to Hebrews or I or 2Peter or to any of Pauline's epistles. All have their own style and vocabulary. Even the very similar synoptic gospels have their own style and vocabulary, even though many of the events which they record are the same.

ii) Along those same lines, if God was going to mechanically dictate His Word, why three synoptic gospels? Wouldn't a little more time spent with Matthew or Luke record all that would be necessary?

iii) Have you ever had that situation where a verse from Scripture came to mind, but you could not remember from which book it came? Writers of Scripture occasionally had that same problem. The writer of Hebrews wrote But one has testified somewhere saying,... (Heb. 2:6a). Now I know that verse came out of the Psalms and God knows that too. In fact, God knows the author of the Psalm and which Psalm it was; Therefore, if God was dictating Scripture, why have such an obscure reference? The other, more likely possibility, is that the author did not know from what book this verse came from yet needed it to support what he was writing.

iv) Authors of Scripture repeatedly speak of the Holy Spirit speaking by the human author (Acts 3:25 Heb. 3:7a cp 4:7a).

v) As Christians, our lives are not robotic and mechanical. Why should we expect that of the writes of Scripture?

vi) Finally, the analogy of the written Word and the Living Word breaks down under the mechanical-dictation theory. How can Jesus Christ be fully man and fully God if His Word is not?

b) The concept view is that God's ideas and thoughts are revealed to the writers of Scripture and they record these the best that they can, given the limitations of their vocabulary and mental capacity. This is not too far removed from the liberal views and again, places man, with his old sin nature and his cultural bias as the final determining authority as to what is accurate and what is not in God's Word. This is not too far removed from Plato's shadows on the cave wall analogy. That is, we, in this physical realm who can only see physical things, perceive the world in shadow form. That is, the true reality of the world is thought and personality and concept and truth, and we are like men inside a cave, perceiving these notions as though they are shadows on the cave wall, yet true reality is outside the cave. The concept view purports that there is divine truth and it is recorded in God's Word, the Bible, but it is in the form of imperfect words and phrases which don't completely communicate the truth of what is there.

i) How can you communicate God's truth except by words? Even a learned theologian who has a full grasp of this concept and of the Bible, still must communicate to his congregation by words. This is lame and God is not lame. If God can communicate His Truth to man, then He can communicate this truth in words that we use. If truth can be distilled and rephrased so that we can understand it, then why not phrase it in that way to begin with?

ii) This, again, like liberal theology, puts man as having the final say so as to what is inspired and what is not.

iii) This contradicts the clear teaching of Scripture where some author's of Scripture base an argument upon a single word in a passage.

c) The correct perception of inspiration is the verbal plenary view of Scripture. This means that every word is inspired by God and this inspiration extends to all portions of the Bible. The act of inspiration is a process and it is dynamic; God spoke in diverse ways and in sundry manners to prophets, poets, fishermen in various times and places, so that they recorded in their own language, in their own vocabulary, without waving their intelligence, literary style or personality, God's complete and coherent Word to man so that the very words used are simultaneously their words and God's.

Part II: How the Bible affects us:

If the Bible is God's Word, it should have a dynamic affect on people's lives. We all know Christians of all different sorts and it is a quick and easy response to observe that Christian religion made so and so into a hypocrite. This is true by definition. The Christian morality is perfect and we are not. Therefore, an unattainable standard has been set up by which to measure our lives. It is only through God's grace and Christ's redemptive work on the cross that we have the ability to have a relationship with God. Also, such people have become significant persons in the angelic conflict, an unseen conflict just as real as your thought life. This brings to bear added pressures to their lives, the full extent of which we will never realize until we have passed from this life to the next. In other words, hypocrisy is a likely result of conversion. Gross hypocrisy is even more likely when one does not grow spiritually following conversion. We grow by means of grace and the knowledge of God's Word and no other way, and, unfortunately, some churches do not teach God's Word.

I could certainly include a personal testimony here and perhaps, someday I will. Suffice it to say that any good thing that I have done and the smattering amount of good that is perceived in me, I can quickly and easily attribute that to God and my individual growth in the Word (in addition to excellent parental training). Ever mistake that I've made, every error in judgement, every wrong and selfish thing that I have done, I can attribute to me own free will and my allowing my old sin nature free reign over my life in that area.

However, my recommendation here is to read the end of Evidence Which Demands a Verdict. It contains the testimony of over 50 individuals as to God's cleansing power through His salvation and His Word. Another resource in this area would be the radio program Unshackled. This a program generally plays daily on Christian radio stations and is a dramatization of people who have come to Jesus Christ from all sorts of backgrounds. They have produced thousands of shows, which I found encouraging when I was recently converted and I still find them interesting and inspiring.

Part III: What should be found in God's Word?

1. The Bible should provide for us real answers, real direction, real mechanics. The first few steps of the Christian life are simple and rarely taken. Once we have been saved by the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, we are to grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. We do not attain this by reading our Bible. God has designed the concept of a local church and a pastor teacher. We are to seek out God's Word presented accurately and consistently, and, if possible, daily. I personally could not find that and listened to tapes of R.B. Thieme, a pastor in Houston, Texas and experienced most of my growth through those tapes. At that time, I did manage to find a local church; however, it was much different from what I anticipated. We met as a group and gathered around of tape recorder and listened to Bob teach. This was a marvelous time of my life and Christians, when possible, should gather around the Word of God. The Bible reads: Forsake not the assembly of yourselves together, as the manner of some is. Even when your pastor is a tape recorder or a radio program, you should be gathered in a group of two or three or more. One of the most important mechanics, often overlooked in many congregations, is the function of rebound (as Thieme calls it). This is the silent naming of one's sins to God each and every time we sin. This provides us restoration of fellowship and renewed control of our lives by the Holy Spirit (called, the filling of the Spirit). There is absolutely no growth whatsoever apart from the filling of the Spirit. We only know this through Scripture: If we name our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to forgive us from all unrighteousness (1John 1:9). In terms of direction, I can only offer my personal testimony. When I began the Christian life, the concept of divine guidance was fraught with confusion and voodoo mechanics: should I make a left turn or a right turn? Should I stop by the store on the way home? What is God's will here for me? The more I have learned about God's Word, the simpler divine guidance has become. The only reason I do not always follow it is my own wrong choice.

2. The Bible, since it is inspired by God, should contain only information that God would know and it should often take a stand which goes counter to the culture and mores of our time. In God's Word, we find the story of creation, we find revealed to us angelic beings, an invisible struggle and prophecies which have been fulfilled and prophecies which will be fulfilled in the end times. One reality found in the Bible which runs contrary to all systems of human thought and philosophy is the reality of hell. This is usually down played in most churches and many cults eliminate it entirely. It is the alternative to God's grace. God sent Jesus Christ to die on our behalf, to suffer judgment for our sins, the just for the unjust, and we are able to apprehend salvation in but a few seconds. We need only believe in Jesus Christ. This are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you might have eternal life (John 3:16,36 1John 5:1,13). It takes only a few seconds be accept what God has done for us through Jesus Christ and it takes an entire lifetime of pushing God away to chose hell. Hell is eternity spent in a lake of fire where you are conscious and suffering. This runs counter to all human philosophy as does the fact that salvation is provided for us free without any payment from us. We are so used to earning everything, that the notion of so great a salvation provided for us by a few seconds of an act of will runs contrary to human thinking. It is God's Word and it should run contrary to our thinking now and again. In fact, to relate these last two points, if you as a new Christian begin to attend a church and the pastor does not say a half a dozen things that offend you or run contrary to your way of thinking, you are probably in the wrong church. "My thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways My ways.," declares the Lord. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts." (Isa. 55:8–9).

3. The Bible, in order to be of a divine quality, should contain God's divine stamp. We found that in the examination of a few prophecies and their fulfillment. No one other than God would be able to make such predictions and then make them come to pass a few years later, and in many cases, a few centuries later. Furthermore, all history and scientific information should not be a reflection of the author's personal opinion or of the thinking of the day, but should be divinely accurate. We have seen that to be true. There are some areas of information contained in the Bible which archeology has not substantiated yet and some areas that runs counter to archeology and evolution. We should not be disturbed by this. Time and time again, popular archeological thought as at ran contrary to the Biblical record has been proven false and the Biblical information vindicated. In a similar vein, their are apparent, but not real contradictions, found in the Bible. A proper understanding of the events in question often clears this up simply and easily. New Christians and those who are negative will ask everything from where did Seth get his wife; to how could David be a man after God's own heart considering all the sinful things that he did; to aren't the accounts of the events following the first Easter contradictory? All of these questions can be answered in due time by a pastor-teacher who teaches God's Word after careful, Spirit-filled study of God's Word.

4. Charles Wesley has an interesting take on all of this. I read this in Geisler and Nix's Introduction to the Bible, which takes it from A Compend of Wesley's Theology (by R. Burtner and R. Chiles). The Bible is written by good men, good angels, bad men, bad angels or by God. It cannot be written by good men or good angels because they would not continually lie and write Thus says the Lord when it is them who are writing or speaking. It is also illogical for bad men or demons to write this because it sets perfect standards of behavior, abhors all sin and commands us to walk with God. Our last alternative is that this is from God.

Part IV: Errata:

1. The Need for Revelation: Man is fallen. We possess an old sin nature. We do not have the ability to understand God's plan and God's purpose for our lives without having it revealed to us. This way of thinking runs counter to natural man. Place unregenerate man without revelation to come up with any type of revelation and the best he can do is come up with the theory of evolution in the secular realm and universal divine residence in the religious realm. You would think that anyone could turn on the news and see the universal depravity of man. You would think that even the casual student of history understands that, despite tremendous technological advances, that man is inherently flawed and we are not getting better as human beings as a whole, but worse. In what other century do we have virtually the entire world at war in two instances? In what other century do you have men setting off bombs in miscellaneous places to make a statement? In what other era do we have people who have routinely lured, raped and/or killed scores of other people? In what other era do we see the concept of the family dissolving along with any form of real commitment? We are not evolving toward a more advanced type of family unit. When else have we had gangs of thugs, some as young as ten years old, roaming the streets, capable of every capital crime and deserving of death? Yet man, in his natural state, can see this day after day and religiously hold to the divinity of all mankind, or at least God's residence in all mankind; and fervently believe that we are evolving; that we are getting better as a human race. So it is imperative that God reveal not only Himself to us but also our fallen state for we are too stupid to recognize even that.

2. The Personal Character of Revelation and Illumination: God's revelation to man is more than a news bulletin. It is much more than an in depth story found in your newspaper. It is distinct from a book on a given topic. It goes beyond information which is divinely guaranteed to be accurate. God's revelation to man is personal and it is possible that we can be presented with God's truth and yet have none of it make sense. On the other hand, we can have God's truth revealed to us and it becomes a personal experience unlike any other. Examine the time that you first heard the gospel. You may have heard John 3:16 or John 3:36 quoted a hundred times; you cold have been brought up in a church or occasionally attended a church where the gospel was presented. However, at some point in time, not only did you hear the gospel, but you became illumined by the gospel. That is, someone said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved" and suddenly there is a realization that there is a decision to be made that only you can make. J.I. Packer wrote When a man meets God's word, however casual and accidental the meeting may seem to be, God meets that man, addressing the word to him personally and calling for a personal response to Himself as its Author. "Behold, a sower went out to sow; and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and devoured them. And others fell upon the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately the sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. But when the sun had risen, they were scorched and because they had not root, they withered away. And others fell among thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear." (Matt.. 13:3–9). Jesus explains this parable to us: "Why any one hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road. And the one whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has to root in himself and it is temporary and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away. And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and it becomes unfruitful. And the one on whom seed was sown on the good ground, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth some a hundredfold, some sixty and some thirty." (Matt. 13:18–30).

3. The Extent of Inspiration: The King James version of the Bible, although extremely good, is not inspired. word for word. The original writings of Scripture are God-breathed. That should be even qualified: Genesis, for instance, is inspired by God, not the source material from whence it was taken. The Greek version of Matthew is inspired, not the Aramaic version (which, if it did exist, is no longer in existence). Any perfect copy of the original writing is inspired (these are called autographs). With any translation, the believer needs to be carefully guided by a pastor-teacher. In most instances, if not all, this requires scholarship and a great deal of study by the pastor-teacher. Paul wrote to Timothy: Study to show yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the Word of truth....[for] all Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction [and] for training in righteousness that the man of God may be adequately prepared, equipped for every good work. (2Tim. 2:15 3:16–17). The writers of Scripture most responsible for the doctrines of their dispensation were Moses and Paul, both scholars by training and scholars in the Word. One of the aspects of Christianity which impressed me was the tremendous scholarship of the source material which I am privileged to use. The dedication and lack of appreciation of Strong, Brown, Driver, Briggs, Gesenius, Arndt, Gingrich, Bauer, Nestle; to name only of small handful. People have dedicated their lives so that a pastor-teacher may be well-assured that he is handling the proper text and that if there is any question whatsoever upon the reading of any particular passage, that he has been made aware of it and has a grasp of the specific scholarly opinion of the various renderings and the difference in meaning of the different renderings (which accounts for a fraction of Scripture). This is called textual criticism. Others have dedicated their lives to the languages of Scripture so that we may have the shadings of meaning found in the Bible, not obvious in the English. Only scholarship in the human realm which excludes God's Word is unprofitable. Knowledge makes [one] arrogant but love edifies (1Cor. 8:1b). Solomon gained great amounts of knowledge in the human realm and was one of the other scholars who wrote God's Word, yet was happy with human knowledge alone. I set my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly; [and] I realized that this is also worthless. (Eccles. 1:17).

4. Progressive Revelation: At no time has God ever revealed everything to mankind. Our minds have no ability to ponder such a thing, although God can realize everything each instant. In time, He revealed a little bit each succeeding generation. For instance, Adam and his family trusted in God (except, perhaps for Cain and his family) and understood the necessity of an innocent, blood sacrifice for the covering of their sins. They certainly did not understand the entire realm of soteriology. They did not need to. They only had to put their faith in Jesus Christ, who was the Lord who walked with them in the garden. The concept of the Jewish race and the church age were completely unknown concepts to the first ten to twenty generations of mankind. In fact, it was not until the second century when man first had God's complete revelation to man. However, at no time did God ever present a generation with false doctrine and correct it later. To use the illustration of Geisler and Nix , there is a difference between not telling a small child about sex and telling a child the "stork story." God has never told us a "stork story" in His Word. God may illustrate a point of doctrine with a parable or He may make a point of doctrine more understandable through the use of an anthropopathism or an anthropomorphism , but God does not (and cannot) lie (Num. 23:19 Tit. 1:2 Heb. 6:18). It is with our Bible that we can see everything from the beginning of history until the end of history. God will not have to come back during the tribulation and provide another few books for the tribulational saints. In fact, during the past century has been one of the most fantastic times in human history to live because we have so much of God's Word. We have men who have devoted their lives to determining original text as close to the autographs as we will ever get. We have the original languages, particularly the Greek, down to a science. Few generations of Christians could delve as deeply as we can into the Scriptures. We have more relevant material to draw from than any previous generation. In fact, God has revealed to all that mankind will ever need to know up until the millennium. Then the knowledge of God will be universal. For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Isa. 11:9b).

5. As you have heard this or read this, you possibly noticed that I did not verbatim quote any particular translation; although I relied most heavily upon the New American Standard Bible. Furthermore, I took occasion to edit the text from what I quoted the eliminate information which was not pertinent to the subject at hand. I take my precedence here from the Apostles and from Jesus Christ. Throughout the writings of Scripture, the human authors quoted Scripture verbatim from the Septuagint; they paraphrased and they translated directly from the Hebrew. This is because the very words of the Bible are inspired and the thoughts and concepts which they represent are equally inspired by God. There are many ways to tell a person about the atoning work of Christ on the cross; the suffering that Christ went through as He was judged and punished for our sins; as He endured the equivalent of an eternity of hells for all of us as darkness covered Golgotha. One may quote directly from the a hundred different translations, one may paraphrase from any translation of God's Word, and one may state the concept in his own vocabulary. Any of these methods, if done accurately, would convey God's Word to another person. In fact, about the only quoting which would be generally ineffectual would be a direct quote from the Greek New Testament, because that would not communicate the information to anyone else other than a Koine Greek student, even though the very words quoted are God's Word. This does not diminish the concept of the very words of Scripture bearing God's complete authority, but words are designed to convey thoughts, concepts and experiences. Both the words of the Bible and the thoughts, concepts and experiences which they represent are God-breathed. It is perfectly legitimate to use synonyms and paraphrasing of God's Word as long as the content is not compromised.

6. The final point of this dissertation is the importance of God's Word. Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you...speaking in [his letters] some things which are hard to understand, which the untaught and the unstable distort, as they do the rest of Scripture, to their own destruction. (2Peter 3:15b,16). I give thanks to Your name for Your grace and Your truth; for You have magnified [and exalted] Your Word over Your name. (Psalm 138:2) Does not wisdom call and understanding lift up her voice? "For wisdom is better than jewels and all desirable things cannot be compared to her. Riches and honor are with me, enduring wealth and righteousness. My production is better than gold, even pure gold; and my yield is better than the choicest silver. From everlasting, I was established, from the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth...I was manifested. He who finds me, find life and obtains grace from the Lord." (Prov. 8:1,11,18–19,23,24b,35) Jesus therefore was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, "If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine." (John 8:31) Thus says the Lord, "Let him who boasts, boast of this: that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises grace, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things." (Jer. 923a,24a)

Conclusion: Let me sum up what has been covered. The Bible claims for itself God's inspiration. The writers of Scripture often indicated in various ways that what they wrote bore God's authority. New Testament authors used Scripture as the final argument, as authoritative beyond question. Jesus Christ used His Word authoritatively, both what he spoke and what was in the Old Testament. Writers of the New Testament, despite at least one serious conflict, supported the other writers of New Testament Scripture and they all treated the Old Testament as God's Word. That is, there was no confusion as to what the Bible claims for itself: it claims that it is God's Word to man. Then we examined evidence that the Bible is God's Word. It has shown to be historically, archaeologically and scientifically accurate. There are a few disagreements between science and the Bible (most notably evolution, which is an unproven theory) and some disagreements between archeology and the Bible (chiefly there are historical events and aspects of civilizations which have not been verified yet). You have had a few historical prophecies examined to illustrate that God knows the beginning from the end and can prophecy millenniums into the future. Prophecies concerning our Lord Jesus Christ were given a more thorough investigation. God has always had a plan to redeem mankind from sin and death and that was through His Son's substitutionary death and punishment on our behalf on the cross. This was reveal to Adam and Eve at the fall and has been a continual theme of Scripture for over a millennium. Only God could know that such an event would occur and only God could bring it to pass. No other religious book contains such specific predictions and 100% fulfillment of said predictions. No other so-called prophet, apart from those in the Bible, has ever had the accuracy that we seen in Biblical prophecies. If the Bible is inspired, then that would follow logically. If the Bible is not God' Word, then these fulfilled prophecies place the Bible on a probability scale beyond human comprehension. The likelihood of a book not being divinely inspired and yet containing prophecies given and fulfilled is even beyond the probability of a man marking just one electron in or on the earth and then having another man come along and pick that electron out, blindfolded. As I said, beyond human comprehension. Anyone, having heard this information and evidence, can still refuse to believe it. God has given us the ability to chose for or against Him; for or against His plan; and, most importantly, for or against His Son's death on our behalf on the cross. God allows us free will; however, make no mistake about it; God holds us responsible for the decision that we make. Whatsoever a man sows; that he will also reap. (Gal. 6:7). There is a way which seems right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. (Prov. 14:12). But God said to him, "You fool! Tonight your soul shall be required of you!" (Luke 12:14a). There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)

Preface	Introduction	Biblical Claims for Inspiration
Apologetics	Additional Topics on Inspiration	Bibliography

Bibliography