http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=13&article=5089
3 Good Reasons to Believe the Bible is from God
The
Bible is the most popular book that has ever been printed. It was one
of the first books mass produced on Gutenberg’s printing press in 1455.
To estimate a total number of Bibles and portions of it that have been
produced and distributed worldwide throughout history would be virtually
impossible, but the number stands well over 10 billion, since the
United Bible Society alone has distributed over nine billion in the past
70 years (“God Facts,” n.d.). Without dispute, the Bible is the best
selling book of all time worldwide (“Best Selling…,” 2014).
Why is the Bible so popular? The reason most often given is that those
who are printing, distributing, and reading the Bible believe it is the
inspired Word of God. Most people who read the Bible do not think it is
good advice from mere men. Nor do they think it is a book of fairy tales
written for entertainment. Instead, they believe the Book they are
reading is the product of the one true God.
Oftentimes, when people are asked to give reasons that support their
belief that the Bible is from God, they say that the Bible claims to be
from God. It is certainly true that the Bible contains numerous
statements that claim inspiration. Second Timothy 3:16-17 states: “All
Scripture is given by inspiration of God….” In fact, anyone who wants to
search the entire Bible will discover that it contains more than 2,700
instances in which divine inspiration is claimed (e.g., “God said;” “the
Lord said;” “by revelation He [God] made known”).
Yet, even though we would expect to find that any book produced by God would claim divine inspiration,
such a claim does not prove anything in and of itself.
It is a necessary trait of inspiration, but it is not a sufficient
trait. Various books claim to be inspired by God (e.g., the Quran, the
Book of Mormon), but are contradictory to the Bible, and can be proven
to be inaccurate and deficient in other instances (see Miller, 2005;
Miller,
2003). Simply because a book or writing claims divine inspiration is
not positive proof of its inspiration. Any person could stand in front
of an audience and claim to be the President of the United States of
America. In fact, he could make that claim over 2,700 times. But his
multiple claims to the presidency would fail to prove his case unless he
could provide more adequate and sufficient evidence.
When Jesus revealed Himself to the world as the Son of God at about the
age of 30 (Luke 3:23), He did not expect people to believe Him simply
because
He said He was the Messiah. On the contrary, Jesus said, “
If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do, though you do not believe Me,
believe the works,
that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him”
(John 10:37-38, emp. added). If the Messiah was not to be trusted merely
based upon
claims of messiahship, neither should the
Bible. Again, though the claim of inspiration is important (and expected
if the Bible is the Word of God),
mere claims prove nothing.
Those who penned the Bible did not expect the world to receive their
writings as God’s Word simply because they claimed they were. The Bible
writers insisted that their writings were not based on imaginary,
unverifiable people and events, but instead were grounded on solid,
verifiable facts. The apostle Peter wrote: “For we did not follow
cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty” (2 Peter
1:16). In his introduction to the book of Acts, Luke stated that Jesus
“presented Himself alive after His suffering by
many infallible proofs,
being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things
pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3, emp. added). The Bible
writers understood and insisted that the information they penned was
accurate and factual, and should be accepted, not based on a lack of
evidence or a “leap in the dark,” but on an abundance of verifiable
proof.
So what is the proof that the Bible is of supernatural origin? Why
should an honest truth-seeker come to the conclusion that the Bible is
the special revelation from the Creator of the Universe? In short, the
main, overarching reason that the Bible is demonstrated to be of divine
origin is because
the Bible writers were correct in everything they wrote—about the past, the present, and even the future.
Eighteenth-century English poet Alexander Pope succinctly noted in “An
Essay on Criticism” what every rational person knows all to well—“
to err is human”
(1709). Even though we may set high standards for ourselves and learn
all that we can, and even though we may put as many safeguards in place
as is humanly possible, mistakes will be made; ignorance will be
revealed; errors will occur. As great of a historian as Herodotus was,
he sometimes erred. As brilliant of a man as Aristotle was, he was
terribly incorrect at times (see
Jackson,
1997). As accomplished a writer as was the eighth-century B.C. Greek
poet Homer, sometimes “even good old Homer nods” (Horace, 1.359). It
simply is
humanly impossible to be correct about everything a person says or writes. “
With God,” however, “all things are possible” (Mark 10:27).
If an all-knowing, all-powerful God exists (and there is ample proof that He does—see
Lyons and Butt,
2014), then such a God could produce written revelation for His human
creation that was flawless in its original production. He could guide
uneducated men to write about events that occurred hundreds or thousands
of years before their time with complete accuracy. He could “move”
(otherwise) ordinary men to write flawlessly about any number of
contemporary people, places, and things (2 Peter 1:20-21). He could even
guide man to write about future events with perfect accuracy. In truth,
the all-encompassing reason (which shall be dissected into three parts)
that a person can come to the rational conclusion that the Bible is
“given by inspiration of God” is because the writers of the Bible were
amazingly accurate…about
everything.
Reason #1: Predictive Prophecy
On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, a horrible tragedy shocked the United
States of America when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon. Amidst the tragedy, a rumor circulated that Nostradamus, a
supposed fortuneteller, had predicted the turn of events. Web sites
with information on Nostradamus received thousands, even millions of
hits. After all was said and done, the rumored prediction had been
fabricated and misunderstood; Nostradamus had not predicted the future.
But it was obvious from the public’s response that anyone who can
accurately predict the future is more than just a little special. The
prophet Jeremiah wrote: “Who is he who speaks, and it comes to pass,
when the Lord has not commanded it?” (Lamentations 3:37). The prophet’s
point was clear: no one accurately foretells the future unless God
informs him of it. Therefore, if the Bible accurately predicts the
future, we can know that it is from God.
The fact is, the Bible contains numerous prophecies that ancient
history has shown to be perfectly fulfilled in every detail. Consider a
few examples. [NOTE: For many other instances that space restraints will
not allow in this article, please consult Apologetics Press’s book
Behold! The Word of God or visit the “Inspiration of the Bible” section of www.apologeticspress.org.]
The Fall of the City of Tyre
According to history, the Phoenician city of Tyre stood as one of the
most ancient and prosperous cities in history. During a visit to the
temple of Heracles in Tyre in the fifth century B.C., the historian
Herodotus inquired about the age of the temple, to which the inhabits
replied that the temple was as old as “Tyre itself, and that Tyre had
already stood for two thousand three hundred years” (Herodotus, 2:44).
According to the early 20
th-century Hebrew and Greek scholar, Wallace Fleming, in his book
The History of Tyre, “As early as 1400 B.C., Tyre was not only a great city but was considered impregnable” (1966, p. 8).
In the early sixth century B.C., however, the prophet Ezekiel mentioned
several events that were to occur in Tyre as punishment for the city’s
arrogance and merciless actions (26:1-14,19-21). The prophet predicted:
(1) Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, would build a siege mound against
the city; (2) many nations would come against Tyre; (3) the city would
be broken down, scraped like the top of a rock, and the stones, timber,
and soil would be thrown in “the midst of the water;” (4) the city would
become a “place for spreading nets;” and (5) the city would never be
rebuilt.
History reveals that everything Ezekiel prophesied about Tyre came to pass.
-
Nebuchadnezzar “besieged Tyre for thirteen years in the days of
Ithobal, their king” (Josephus, 1.21). The king of Babylon severely
damaged the mainland as Ezekiel predicted, but the island city remained
primarily unaffected.
-
Regarding the prediction that “many nations” would come against Tyre,
in 392 B.C., “Tyre was involved in the war which arose between the
Persians and Evagorus of Cyprus” in which the king of Egypt “took Tyre
by assault” (Fleming, p. 52). Sixty years later, in 332, Alexander the
Great besieged Tyre and crushed it. In fact, Tyre was contested by so
many foreign forces that Fleming wrote: “It seemed ever the fate of the
Phoenician cities to be between an upper and a nether millstone” (p.
66). Thus, Ezekiel’s prophecy about “many nations” remains as a
historical reality that cannot be successfully gainsaid.
-
By 333 B.C., Ezekiel’s 250-plus-year-old prophecy that Tyre would be
destroyed and its building material cast into the midst of the waters
had yet to materialize. But that situation was soon altered. Ancient
historian Diodorus Siculus, who lived from approximately 80-20 B.C.,
wrote extensively of Alexander the Great’s dealing with Tyre (see
Siculus, 17.40-46). Secular history details Alexander’s destruction of
Tyre, which coincides precisely with Ezekiel’s prophecy concerning what
would happen to the city’s building materials. As Ezekiel had predicted,
the stones, timber, and soil of the mainland city were thrown into the
midst of the sea in an unprecedented military maneuver (Fleming, p. 56),
which allowed Alexander to create a land bridge upon which his army
could come across to defeat the island city of Tyre. For Ezekiel to have
accurately “guessed” this situation would be to stretch the law of
probability beyond the limits of absurdity.
-
Ultimately, in A.D. 1291, the Sultan Halil massacred the inhabitants
of Tyre and subjected the city to utter ruin. “Houses, factories,
temples, everything in the city was consigned to the sword, flame and
ruin” (Fleming, p. 122). After this major defeat in 1291, Fleming cites
several travel logs in which visitors to the city mention that citizens
of the area in 1697 were “only a few poor wretches...subsisting chiefly
upon fishing” (p. 124).
Taking these accounts into consideration, it is obvious that many
nations continued to come against the island city, that it was destroyed
on numerous occasions, and that it became a place for fishing,
fulfilling Ezekiel’s prediction about the spreading of nets.
Furthermore, it is evident that the multiple periods of destruction and
rebuilding of the city have long since buried the Phoenician city that
came under the condemnation of Ezekiel. The Columbia Encyclopedia,
under its entry for Tyre, noted: “The principal ruins of the city today
are those of buildings erected by the Crusaders. There are some
Greco-Roman remains, but any left by the Phoenicians lie underneath the
present town” (“Tyre,” 2006).
So accurate were the prophecies made by Ezekiel that skeptics are
forced to suggest a later date for his writings. Yet, such a later date
cannot be maintained, and the admission of Ezekiel’s accuracy stands as
irrefutable evidence of the prophet’s divine inspiration. With the
penetrating gaze that can only be maintained by the Divine, God looked
hundreds of years into the future and instructed Ezekiel precisely what
to write so that in the centuries following the predictions, the
fulfillment of every detail of the prophet’s words could be denied by no
honest student of history. “When the word of the prophet comes to pass,
the prophet will be known as one whom the Lord has truly sent”
(Jeremiah 28:9).
The Fall of Babylon and the Rise of Cyrus
Imagine taking a trip to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and visiting the
State House where the Constitutional Convention took place in 1787.
During the tour, your guide points to a document dating back to just
this side of the Convention—about the year 1820. The piece of parchment
tells of a man named George W. Bush from Austin, Texas who would be
President of the United States within the next 200 years. But how could
someone know that a man named George W. Bush would be born in the United
States? And how could someone know more than a century before Mr. Bush
ever was born that he would be President of the United States?
Furthermore, how could someone in 1820 know that a man from Texas (named
George W. Bush) would be President of the United States when Texas
wasn’t even part of the Union yet? Such a prophecy truly would be
amazing! Yet, obviously no such prediction was ever made. Amazingly, the
Bible makes a comparable prediction, which was fulfilled with complete
accuracy.
In the eighth century B.C., Isaiah vividly described how God would
destroy the powerful kingdom of Babylon, “the glory of kingdoms”
(13:19). Writing as if it had already occurred (commonly known as the
“prophetic perfect,” frequently employed in the Old Testament to stress
the absolute certainty of fulfillment), Isaiah declared Babylon would
fall (21:9). He then prophesied that Babylon would fall to the Medes and
Persians (Isaiah 13; 21:1-10). Later, he proclaimed that the “golden
city” (Babylon) would be conquered by a man named Cyrus (44:28; 45:1-7).
(This prophecy is remarkable, especially since Cyrus was not even born
until almost 150 years after Isaiah penned these words.) Not only did
Isaiah predict that Cyrus would overthrow Babylon, he also wrote that
Cyrus, serving as Jehovah’s “anointed” and “shepherd,” would release the
Jews from captivity and assist them in their return to Jerusalem for
the purpose of rebuilding the Temple. All of this was written almost two
centuries before Cyrus conquered Babylon (539 B.C.).
Amazingly, secular history verifies that all of these events came true.
There really was a man named Cyrus who ruled the Medo-Persian Empire.
He did conquer Babylon. And just as Isaiah prophesied, he assisted the
Jews in their return to Jerusalem and in the rebuilding of the Temple.
Jeremiah also predicted the destruction of Babylon, the most powerful
nation in the world at the time the predictions were made (Jeremiah
50-51). He predicted that Babylon’s water would be dried up, and her
soldiers would be drunken and sleep a perpetual sleep. The precision of
his predictions was remarkably verified when Cyrus redirected the
Euphrates River and entered Babylon through the opening where the river
usually entered. The entrance was left unattended because the
Babylonians were getting drunk during a festival celebration.
Messianic Prophecies
Throughout the pages of the Old Testament there are over 250 prophecies
about a coming Messiah. Each one of these is fulfilled in minute detail
in the life of Jesus Christ. While it is true that most people’s lives
can only be chronicled after they have lived it, the life of Jesus was
chronicled before He arrived on Earth. In addition, a host of the
prophecies concerning Christ were intentionally specific and could not
have been arranged by a mere human who was falsely claiming to be the
Messiah. For instance, the Old Testament told where the Messiah would be
born (Micah 5:2), a situation that cannot be manipulated by the one
being born. The circumstances of the Messiah’s death were detailed, even
down to His burial, which provides another instance in which the
deceased could not have connived a fulfillment.
In contrasting the God of Israel with the pagan idols of old, the
prophet Isaiah issued a challenge to those who believed in the potency
of their pagan deities. Isaiah said this about the idols: “Let them
bring forth and show us what will happen; let them show the former
things, what they were, that we may consider them…. Show the things that
are to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods” (41:22-23).
According to Isaiah, any deity that could consistently forecast the
future would be recognized as a true God, while any unable to tell the
future should be relegated to the rubbish pile of false religions. In
order to prove that the God of Israel was the true God, Isaiah quoted
this from the mouth of God: “I am God, and there is none like Me,
declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that
are not yet done” (46:9-10). Truly, Isaiah’s God could tell the future.
The fall of Tyre and Babylon, the reign of Cyrus, and the coming
Messiah are but a few of the more prominent examples. When evidence is
honestly considered, the truth seeker must admit that the prophecies
contained in the Bible show that it was penned by the inspiration of
God.
Reason #2: Scientific Accuracy and Foreknowledge
While the Bible does not present itself as a scientific or medical
textbook, it is only reasonable that if God really did inspire the books
of the Bible, they would be completely accurate in every scientific or
medical detail found within their pages. Furthermore, all scientific and
medical errors that fill the pages of other ancient, non-inspired texts
should be entirely absent from the biblical record. Is the Bible
infallible when it speaks about scientific disciplines, or does it
contain the errors that one would expect to find in the writings of
fallible men in ancient times?
The Egyptians were renowned in the ancient world for their progress in the field of medicine. Dr. Samuel Massengill, early 20
th-century
pharmaceutical chemist, noted that “Egypt was the medical center of the
ancient world” (1943, p. 13). Herodotus recorded that it was king
Darius’ practice “to keep in attendance certain Egyptian doctors, who
had a reputation for the highest eminence in their profession”
(Herodotus, 3.129). Among the ancient documents that detail much of the
Egyptian medicinal knowledge that has survived, the Ebers Papyrus
(discovered in 1872) ranks as one of the foremost sources (Bryan, 1930,
p. 1). It consists of a host of medical remedies purported to heal,
enhance, and prevent. “Altogether 811 prescriptions are set forth in the
papyrus, and they take the form of salves, plasters, and poultices;
snuffs, inhalations, and gargles; draughts, confections, and pills;
fumigations, suppositories, and enemata” (p. 15). Among the hundreds of
prescriptions, we find disgusting treatments that caused much more harm
than good. For instance, under a section titled “What to do to draw out
splinters in the flesh,” a remedy is prescribed consisting of “worm
blood, mole, and donkey dung” (p. 73). Remedies to help heal skin
diseases included such things as cat dung, dog dung, and a hog’s tooth
(p. 92). It seems that the Egyptians were among the first to present the
idea of “good and laudable pus” (McMillen and Stern, 2000, p. 10).
While it must be noted that some of the Egyptian medicine was helpful,
the harmful remedies and ingredients cast a sickening shadow of
untrustworthiness on the entire Egyptian endeavor as viewed by the
modern reader.
Admittedly, the Bible is not devoted to long lists of medical
prescriptions. The Bible writers did not intend to write a medical
textbook. There are, however, especially in the first five books of the
Old Testament, numerous rules for sanitation, quarantine, and other
medical procedures that were to govern the daily lives of the
Israelites. Interestingly, the harmful remedies and ingredients
prescribed by other ancient civilizations are missing entirely from the
pages of the Bible. In fact, the Pentateuch exhibits an understanding of
germs and disease that the “modern” medical community did not grasp
until relatively recently.
Germs, Labor Fever, and Biblical Sanitation
In 1847, an obstetrician named Ignaz Semmelweis was the director of a
hospital ward in Vienna, Austria. Many pregnant women checked into his
ward, but 10-18% of those women never checked out. About one out of
every six that received treatment in Semmelweis’ ward died of labor
fever (Nuland, 2003, p. 31). Autopsies revealed pus under their skin, in
their chest cavities, in their eye sockets, etc. Semmelweis was
distraught over the mortality rate in his ward, and other hospital wards
like it all over Europe. Nuland noted that Australia, the Americas,
Britain, Ireland, and practically every other nation that had
established a hospital suffered a similar mortality rate (pp. 41-43). If
a woman delivered a baby using a midwife, then the death rate fell to
only about 3%. Yet if she chose to use the most advanced medical
knowledge and facilities of the day, her chance of dying skyrocketed
immensely!
Semmelweis had tried everything to curb the carnage. He turned all the
women on their sides in hopes that the death rate would drop, but with
no results. He thought maybe the bell that the priest rang in the wee
hours of the morning scared the women. So, he made the priest enter
silently, yet without any drop in death rates. As he contemplated his
dilemma, he watched young medical students perform their routine tasks.
Each day the students would conduct autopsies on the dead mothers. Then
they would rinse their hands in a bowl of bloody water, wipe them off on
a shared, dirty towel, and immediately begin internal examinations of
the still-living women. Medical doctor and historian Sherwin Nuland
commented concerning the practice: “Because there seemed no reason for
them to wash their hands, except superficially, or change their clothing
before coming to the First Division, they did neither” (p. 100). As a
21
st-century observer, one is appalled to think that such
practices actually took place in institutes of what was at the time
“modern technology.” What doctor in his right mind would touch a dead
person and then perform examinations on living patients—without first
employing some sort of minimal hygienic practices intended to kill
germs? But to Europeans in the middle-19
th-century, germs were virtually a foreign concept.
Semmelweis then ordered everyone in his ward to wash his or her hands
thoroughly in a chlorine solution after every examination. In three
months, the death rate fell from 18% to 1%. Semmelweis had made a
groundbreaking discovery…or had he? Almost 3,300 years before Semmelweis
lived, Moses had written: “He who touches the dead body of anyone shall
be unclean seven days. He shall purify himself with the water on the
third day and on the seventh day; then he will be clean. But if he does
not purify himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not
be clean” (Numbers 19:11-12). Germs were no new discovery in 1847; the
biblical text recorded measures to check their spread as far back as
circa 1500 B.C.
Germs and the Water of Purification
When Old Testament instructions are compared to the New Testament
explanations for those actions, it becomes clear that some of the
ancient injunctions were primarily symbolic in nature (e.g., John
19:31-37). With the presence of such symbolism in the Old Testament, it
is important, however, that we do not overlook Old Testament
instructions that were pragmatic in value and that testify to a Master
Mind behind the writing of the Law. One such instruction is found in
Numbers 19, where the Israelites were instructed to prepare the “water
of purification” that was to be used to wash any person who had touched a
dead body.
At first glance, the water of purification sounds like a hodge-podge of
superstitious potion-making that included the ashes of a young cow,
hyssop, cedar wood, and scarlet. But this formula was the farthest thing
from a potion intended to “ward off evil spirits.” On the contrary, the
recipe for the water of purification stands today as a wonderful
example of the Bible’s brilliance, since the recipe is nothing less than
a procedure to produce an antibacterial soap.
When we look at the ingredients individually, we begin to see the value
of each. First, consider the use of ashes. The chemical known as lye is
one of the main ingredients in many soaps today. In fact, lye, in high
concentrations, is very caustic and irritating to the skin. In more
diluted concentrations, it can be used as an excellent exfoliate and
cleansing agent. Various lye-soap recipes reveal that, to obtain lye,
water often is poured through ashes. The water retrieved from pouring it
through the ashes contains a concentration of the chemical. Moses
instructed the Israelites to prepare a mixture that would have included
lye mixed in a diluted solution, which would have been ideal for
stopping the spread of germs.
What about the specific ingredients for the water of purification?
Hyssop contains the antiseptic thymol, the same ingredient that we find
today in some brands of mouthwash (McMillen and Stern, p. 24). “Cedar
wood has long been used for storage cabinets because of its ability to
repel insects and prevent decay. In oil form, applied to humans, it is
an antiseptic, astringent, expectorant (removes mucus from respiratory
system), anti-fungal, sedative and insecticide” (“Cedar Oil,” n.d.). The
Israelites were instructed to toss into the mix “scarlet,” which most
likely was scarlet wool (see Hebrews 9:19). Adding wool fibers to the
concoction would have made the mixture the “ancient equivalent of Lava®
soap” (McMillen and Stern, p. 25).
Thousands of years before any formal studies were done to see what type
of cleaning methods were the most effective; millennia before American
pioneers concocted their lye solutions; and ages before our most
advanced medical students knew a thing about germ theory, Moses
instructed the Israelites to concoct an amazingly effective recipe for
soap, that, if used properly in medical facilities like hospitals in
Vienna, would literally have saved thousands of lives.
Quarantine
The Old Testament record added another extremely beneficial practice to
the field of medicine in its detailed descriptions of maladies for
which living individuals should be quarantined. The book of Leviticus
lists a host of diseases and ways in which an Israelite would come in
contact with germs. Those with such diseases as leprosy were instructed
to “dwell alone” “outside the camp” (Leviticus 13:46). If and when a
diseased individual got close to those who were not diseased, he was
instructed to “cover his mustache, and cry, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’”
(13:45). It is of interest that the covering of one’s mustache (“upper
lip”—ASV) would prevent spit and spray from the mouth of the individual
to pass freely through the air, much like the covering of one’s mouth
during a cough.
In regard to the understanding of contagion that is evident in the
quarantine rules in the Old Testament, Roderick McGrew noted in the
Encyclopedia of Medical History:
“The idea of contagion was foreign to the classic medical tradition and
found no place in the voluminous Hippocratic writings. The Old
Testament, however, is a rich source for contagionist sentiment,
especially in regard to leprosy and venereal disease” (1985, pp. 77-78).
Here again, the Bible exhibits amazingly accurate medical and
scientific knowledge that surpasses any known human ingenuity available
at the time of its writing.
Many physicians who have compared Moses’ medical instructions to
effective modern methods have come to realize the astonishing value and
insight of the Bible. As 20
th-century pharmacologist and
Hebrew scholar, Dr. David Macht of Johns Hopkins University, once wrote:
“Every word in the Hebrew Scriptures is well chosen and carries
valuable knowledge and deep significance” (1953, p. 450). Indeed, the
accurate medical practices prescribed thousands of years before their
significance was completely understood provide excellent evidence for
the divine inspiration of the Bible.
Reason #3: The Overall Factual accuracy of the Bible
Suppose we were to ask a group of historians to author the most
up-to-date history of the United States of America on the market.
Suppose we gave them years to finish it and unlimited resources to use
for their research. At the end of that period, with their newly
published volume in hand, could we be confident that they had accurately
recorded the significant dates and information perfectly? No, we could
not. In fact, within just a few years, as every decent publishing
company owner knows, we would need a second edition. Within a decade, so
much new information would have come to light that a third or fourth
edition would be necessary. And within 20 years, we most likely would
need a completely new book if we wanted to preserve history accurately.
But when we look into the 66 books of the Bible, we find perfect
historical accuracy that has never needed updating or correcting.
Every single statement of the Bible that can be historically checked or
verified has shown that the Bible writers never once made a mistake.
The fact that the books of the Bible are perfectly accurate indicates
that an intelligence beyond human ability must have been involved in the
composition of the books.
The Accuracy of Acts
Sir William Ramsay was a one-time unbeliever and world-class
archaeologist. His extensive education had ingrained within him the
keenest sense of scholarship. But along with that scholarship came a
built-in prejudice about the supposed inaccuracy of the Bible
(specifically the book of Acts). As Ramsay himself remarked:
[A]bout 1880 to 1890, the book of the Acts was regarded as the weakest
part of the New Testament. No one that had any regard for his
reputation as a scholar cared to say a word in its defence. The most
conservative of theological scholars, as a rule, thought the wisest plan
of defence for the New Testament as a whole was to say as little as
possible about the Acts (1915, p. 38).
As could be expected of someone who had been trained by such
“scholars,” Ramsay held the same view. He eventually abandoned it,
however, because he was willing to do what few people of his time dared
to do—explore the Bible lands themselves with an archaeologist’s pick in
one hand and an open Bible in the other. His self-stated intention was
to prove the inaccuracy of Luke’s history as recorded in the book of
Acts. But, much to his surprise, the book of Acts passed every test that
any historical narrative could be asked to pass. In fact, after years
of literally digging through the evidence in Asia Minor, Ramsay
concluded that Luke was an exemplary historian. Lee S. Wheeler, in his
classic work
Famous Infidels Who Found Christ, recounted
Ramsay’s life story in great detail (1931, pp. 102-106), and then quoted
the famed archaeologist, who ultimately admitted:
The more I have studied the narrative of the Acts, and the more I have
learned year after year about Graeco-Roman society and thoughts and
fashions, and organization in those provinces, the more I admire and the
better I understand. I set out to look for truth on the borderland
where Greece and Asia meet, and found it here [in the book of
Acts—KB/EL]. You may press the words of Luke in a degree beyond any
other historian’s, and they stand the keenest scrutiny and the hardest
treatment, provided always that the critic knows the subject and does
not go beyond the limits of science and of justice (Ramsay, 1915, p.
89).
Luke, the writer of the book of Acts, is now widely acknowledged as an
extremely accurate historian in his own right—so much so that Ramsay
came to believe in Christianity as a result of his personal examination
of the preciseness of Luke’s historical record. What legitimate reason
is there to reject Luke’s amazingly accurate testimony? As Wayne Jackson
summarized:
In Acts, Luke mentions thirty-two countries, fifty-four cities, and
nine Mediterranean islands. He also mentions ninety-five persons,
sixty-two of which are not named elsewhere in the New Testament. And his
references, where checkable, are always correct. This is truly
remarkable, in view of the fact that the political/territorial situation
of his day was in a state of almost constant change (1991, 27:2).
The Pilate Inscription
The last few days of Jesus’ life were the most tragic of any in human
history. Amidst all the violence, there stood one man who had the power
to stop all the torture. One man could call off the Roman soldiers and
save Christ from being crucified. His name—Pontius Pilate, the Roman
official who governed the area of Judea at the time of Christ’s death.
The story of the crucifixion can hardly be told without mentioning the
name of this Roman official who sentenced Christ to death—even though
Pilate knew He was innocent (John 18:38; 19:4,6).
Although the Bible mentions Pilate on several occasions, his name could
not be found among the archaeological evidence. For hundreds of years,
no stone inscriptions or other physical evidence could be produced to
support the idea that a man named Pilate had anything to do with either
Christ or Judea. Because of this, many mocked the Bible and claimed that
creative biblical writers concocted Pilate from their own fertile
imaginations. After all, if Pilate were such a prominent leader,
wouldn’t there be some kind of archaeological evidence to verify his
existence?
Critics were silenced when, in 1961, an Italian archaeological team
working at Caesarea found a stone tablet that measured 32 inches high,
by 27 inches wide, by 8 inches thick. On this slab, now known as the
“Pilate Inscription,” were the remains of this simple title: “Pontius
Pilate, Prefect of Judea”—almost the exact same title as the one given
to him in Luke 3:1. This, then, became yet another find to remind us
that the more we uncover the past, the more we uncover the truth that
the Bible is indeed the Word of God (see Price, 1997, pp. 307-308).
The truth is, numerous archaeological finds have verified the Bible’s
accuracy. As the renowned archaeologist Nelson Glueck wrote: “It may be
stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever
controverted a Biblical reference. Scores of archaeological findings
have been made which confirm in clear outline or exact detail historical
statements in the Bible” (1959, p. 31). Truly, the perfect historical
accuracy, without the tell-tale mistakes that are found in works written
by mere humans, testifies to the Bible’s divine origin.
Conclusion
No series of books in human history has maintained the supernatural
consistency that is present within the pages of the Bible. From the
first book of Genesis to the last book of Revelation, approximately 40
men penned individual treatises that combine to form the best-selling,
most widely distributed, perfectly unified, flawlessly written book ever
produced. Mere human genius never could have produced a work with such
predictive prophecy, scientific foreknowledge, and overall factual
accuracy. Common sense demands an adequate explanation. The only
rational conclusion, which is in keeping with the evidence at hand, is
that the Bible is “given by inspiration of God.”
References
“Best Selling Book of Non-Fiction” (2014),
Guinness World Records,
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records-1/best-selling-book-of-non-fiction/.
Bryan, Cyril (1930
), Ancient Egyptian Medicine: The Papyrus Ebers (Chicago, IL: Ares Publishers).
“Cedar Oil” (no date), Spavelous,
http://www.spavelous.com/Articles/Health_Nutrition/Aromatherapy_Chart.html.
Fleming, Wallace B. (1966),
The History of Tyre (New York: AMS Press).
Glueck, Nelson (1959),
Rivers in the Desert: A History of the Negev (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Cudahy).
“God Facts” (no date),
http://www.wwj.org.nz/gfacts.php.
Herodotus (1972 reprint),
The Histories, trans. Aubrey De Sélincourt (London: Penguin).
Horace, “Ars Poetica,”
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/horace/arspoet.shtml.
Jackson, Wayne (1991), “The Holy Bible—Inspired of God,”
Christian Courier, 27:1-3, May.
Jackson, Wayne (1997), “Homer Sometimes Nodded, but the Bible Writers Never Did!” Apologetics Press,
http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=13&article=249.
Josephus, Flavius (1987),
The Life and Works of Flavius Josephus: Against Apion, trans. William Whitson (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson).
Lyons, Eric and Kyle Butt (2014), “7 Reasons to Believe in God,”
Reason & Revelation, 34[10]:108-120,
http://apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=1175.
Macht, David I. (1953), “An Experimental Pharmacological Appreciation of Leviticus XI and Deuteronomy XIV,”
Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 27[5]:444-450, September-October.
Massengill, S.E. (1943),
A Sketch of Medicine and Pharmacy (Bristol, TN: S.E. Massengill).
McGrew, Roderick (1985),
Encyclopedia of Medical History (London: Macmillan Press).
McMillen, S.I. and David Stern (2000),
None of These Diseases (Grand Rapids, MI: Revell), third edition.
Miller, Dave (2003), “Is the Book of Mormon from God?” Apologetics Press,
http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=11&article=1187.
Miller, Dave (2005),
The Quran Unveiled (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).
Nuland, Sherwin B. (2003),
The Doctor’s Plague (New York: Atlas Books).
Pope, Alexander (1709), “An Essay on Criticism,”
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/ldc/ling001/pope_crit.htm.
Price, Randall (1997),
The Stones Cry Out (Eugene, OR: Harvest House).
Ramsay, William (1915),
The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament (London: Hodder and Stoughton).
Siculus, Diodorus (1963),
Library of History, trans. C. Bradford Welles (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
“Tyre” (2006),
Columbia Encyclopedia,
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Tyre.aspx.
Wheeler, Lee S. (1931),
Famous Infidels Who Found Christ (Peekskill, NY: Review and Herald Publishing Association).
