Our Reliable Guide: FAQ Series, Part 1
January 20th, 2013
As we launch our new series this morning called “Frequently Asked
Questions”, I’d like to begin by focusing in on the reliability of
Scripture.
- About a hundred years ago, somebody asked a question of a
brilliant Christian writer named G. K. Chesterton.
- They asked, "If you were marooned on a desert island, and you
could only have one book with you, what would it be?"
- His answer was, "Thomas' Guide to Practical Shipbuilding!"
If you find yourself trapped in a desperate situation, you don't want a
book that will just entertain or even educate you; you want to find out…
how do I find my way home?
- Well, you see… we have this Book. At first Israel and then the
church became known as a people of the Book.
- In 2 Timothy 3:16-17 Paul wrote that “All Scripture is Godbreathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and
training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be
thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
And yet, many people read the Bible and wonder, “can this Book be
trusted?”
- Has it been proven somehow by science or archeology to be
unreliable?
- Does it condone practices that are culturally regressive?
- Can a modern, educated, 21st century person really take
seriously the idea that texts written millennia ago were somehow
inspired by God?
Let me ask you… Has anyone here ever found anything in the Bible that
was confusing to you?
- If not, than you’ve just proven that you haven’t read it! You see,
if you have questions about the Bible, than you can know that
you're in good company!
- So what I’m gonna do is look at what are some honest, sincere
questions I’ve heard people share concerning this Book that
could keep them from taking it seriously or trusting it.
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- The first question or reservation is this…
1. I think the Bible may have valuable moral insights, but it ought to
be understood as a collection of man-made stories rather than having
come from God.
It’s an amazing thing about the Bible… 66 different books written by
dozens of authors, all inspired by the Holy Spirit, over centuries…
- Just imagine somebody starting a book 1000 years ago…and
then having dozens of other authors adding to that book over
1000 years.
- Clearly that book would be a total disaster. I mean, what in the
world could hold those writing together?
- And yet, what holds them all together is the conviction that
there is this loving, powerful, Creator God who is passionately
pursuing humanity, the crown jewel of His creation, back into
intimacy with Him.
This is what made the Scriptures of Israel radically different than other
ancient sacred writings of the Sumerians, Mesopotamians, or Egyptians
for example.
- They took seriously the idea that God has revealed Himself in
history. Take just one statement from one author, writer of the
gospel of Luke.
- He's going to describe the beginning of the ministry of John the
Baptist:
- This is what Luke writes, "In the fifteenth year of the reign of
Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea,
Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea
and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene— during the
high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came
to John son of Zechariah in the desert."
How concerned is Luke about historical detail? Very! Why? Because he
wants people to know this is not a once-upon-a-time kind of story.
- People who read ancient literature will tell you that you don't get
this kind of detail in stories about Hercules or Thor or Isis.
- You see, Luke wants people to know that this isn’t story telling
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in order to make a point... but that this stuff really happened.
- Now that, of course, raises the question… “Is it accurate? Can
the stories written in the Bible be trusted? Are they reliable?”
This is a reasonable question. And so, you have to ask yourself… can
the stories in the Bible, for example be confirmed by external sources?
- Well, let’s take a look at a few stories that have been
questioned at one time or another.
- For a long time, people who were skeptical about Jesus cited this
passage we just read from Luke 3 as a problem.
- You see, Luke mentions a guy named Lysanias who was known
to have lived 50 years earlier as a ruler of a town called Calsis.
So there were people who said, "Luke cannot be trusted as a writer of
history." Lysanias wasn’t even alive when Luke wrote his Gospel.
- That is, until the 20th century when archeologists found an
inscription that was written during the reign of Caesar Tiberias
(14-37 AD) that refers to Lysanias being the tetrarch of Abilene.
- It turns out there were two Lysaniases and that Luke got it
exactly right. It just hadn’t been confirmed in history until the
20th century.
In Acts 18, Luke tells us that Paul was taken before a proconsul of
Achaia named Gallio… but there was no record of any Gallio.
- But then, in 1905, an archeological find in Delphi revealed that
the proconsul of Achaia at that time was a man named Gallio.
- In Acts 19:22, Luke identifies a man name Erastus as one of
Paul's helpers. It says that he was a city treasurer in Corinth.
And yet, because scholars, who are skeptical of the Bible, believe all of
the early church members came from the lower classes of society,
- They saw the fact that Erastus was identified as a city treasurer,
as another piece of evidence against the validity of Scripture.
- But, in 1929, archeologists excavated a first-century street in
Corinth. You're looking at the picture.
This is the actual stone laid 2,000 years ago by Erastus. Go ahead and
read these words out loud: “Erastus, Procurator & Aedile, laid this
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pavement at his own expense.”
- That third word, Edil, was the title of somebody who supervised
the financial affairs of the city.
- In other words, in 1929, this stone that Erastus laid about 1900
years earlier was still where he left it and revealed that he had
the office that Luke said he did.
In Joshua 6, we read that after Israel marched around the walls of
Jericho, God knocked the walls down and they collapsed outward.
- Liberal scholars always scoffed at this… because it doesn’t
really make sense that a wall would fall outward.
- But in the early 1930s, excavations of Jericho showed that this
was exactly what had happened… even convincing those liberal
scholars.
In John 5 we read of a pool called Bethesda with five porticoes. For
years critics discounted this b/c there was no evidence for its existence.
- That is, until it was found forty feet below ground… complete
with five porticoes.
- Critics used to laugh about a completely undocumented people
called the Hittites… mentioned in the Bible about 40 times.
- But archeologists discovered writings in Turkey list them as a
powerful nation that once attacked Egypt.
Over 25,000 sites have been discovered that support the Bible’s claims.
Even Nelson Glueck, the renowned Jewish archeologist has said,
- “It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery
has ever controverted a biblical reference.”
- Though by no means an evangelical, author Bruce Feiler, who
wrote a New York Times bestseller called Walking the Bible,
- goes to the Holy Land and walks through where the Bible is set.
At one point, Bruce asks one of the world’s leading archeologists,
Eleazar Oren, how his research has affected his evaluation of the
Hebrew Scriptures.
- Oren said that when he started, when he was a young scholar, he
pretty dismissive… almost looking for reasons not to believe
some of the Biblical accounts.
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- But his discoveries & research, he said, caused him to respect
the Hebrew Scriptures.
- At the end of their conversation, Bruce asks him, "Can you give
the Old Testament a grade in terms of archeological accuracy?"
- After asking the question, Oren grinned, and said, “I’d have to
give it an A++.”
2. The Bible is full of contradictions that undermine its own authority.
This is also a really important concern people have. Let me give you a
few examples of the kind of things people might ask about.
- In Matthew 8, Matthew tells about a centurion who comes to
Jesus and asks Jesus to heal his servant.
- Now Luke tells the same story in Luke 7, only in Luke's version
the centurion sends a few elders, and they're the ones who put
the question to Jesus.
Because of something like this, someone might say, "See this proves the
Bible cannot be the Word of God because it contradicts itself."
- But, even in our day, different people will summarize stories in
different ways.
- A reporter might say, "The President announced today," when
the words were actually written by a speechwriter and spoken by
a press secretary.
But it’s ok… because we know how this works. It doesn't mean the story
didn't happen.
- In fact, it’s precisely this kind of gritty detail that I think makes
the Gospel accounts so compelling. Here's what I mean:
- If you want to believe the resurrection didn’t happen, then you
pretty much have to believe at some point the Gospel writers
had to join together to make up the story.
Now if the gospels really were the product of a group of guys in the
early church getting together and cooking something up,
- the LAST thing they would have done was to make mistakes like
this.
- They would have airbrushed all the details out to make
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everything look perfectly smooth and identical. But they didn’t
so that.
And yet, when sharing about the resurrection, Matthew & Mark say
there was 1 angel at the tomb; Luke & John say there were 2.
- If each of us were going to describe a painting, beyond the
central theme of the painting, we would probably highlight
different things.
- I might focus on one of the characters… not even mentioning
another one. But that doesn’t mean my description is invalid.
You see, the disciples each told the Gospel story from their own, unique
perspectives and vantage points.
- If they were writing with the sole intent of “selling a story”, they
wouldn’t have written how the resurrection had been witnessed
by women.
- Back in the first century in Israel, women were not allowed to
give legal testimony. Their testimony was not recognized in
courts.
If you were making the story up to deliver it to first century Israelites,
you would have written your witness to be the most respected of the
bunch.
- But wrote about the women being greeted by the angel…
because that’s what happened!
- What is extremely clear is that each of the Gospel writers agree,
on every point, when it came to Jesus raising from the dead!
New Testament scholar, Stephen Colbert, did a great interview on his
cable show with Bart Ehrman.
- Ehrman is a huge critic of the Bible who writes books arguing
against its reliability.
- Ehrman cited a few of the kinds of “contradictions” in the Bible,
like the ones I shared,
- and then make the point that since the Gospel writers couldn’t
agree on certain things, than we shouldn’t put any stock at all in
what they have to say.
- But then Colbert had a great line. He said, "But aren't you
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burying the lead story here? Dead guy rises from the tomb?"
- Don’t they all agree that the dead guy rises from the tomb?!
Now you look at any historical account, anything in our day…the
tragedy that just happened in Connecticut…
- when you get eyewitnesses together to describe a tragedy like
this, they will differ on the details…
- because they're looking at it from a different perspective,
different frames of reference; giving attention to different things.
- It doesn't mean they're not reliable or the event didn't happen.
In fact, it's precisely when every detail given by every person is identical
that investigators get suspicious because that's when they know people
have gotten together to cook it up.
- The gospel accounts have exactly that kind of attention to detail,
and that gritty different perspective from different eyewitnesses
that all agree when it comes to the lead story.…
- dead guy rises from the tomb… that just smacks of historicity!
3. Even if the Bible had been reliable when it was originally written,
since we no longer have the original manuscripts, how can we trust
what’s written in our Bibles today?
The way scholars evaluate the textual reliability of ancient literature is to
look at two different things.
- What is the time interval or gap b/t the original document and
the earliest copy; & How many manuscripts are available today?
- Let me illustrate this: No scholar today questions whether
Homer’s Iliad is an authentic document. And why?
- Because 643 manuscripts have been discovered over the years…
with a gap of only 500 years between the original and the earliest
copy.
- And because of that, the Iliad is considered to be the most
substantiated book of antiquity.
The Gallic Wars, written by Julius Caesar, is certainly an undisputed
ancient work… documented in probably every history book of Ancient
Rome.
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- And yet, we only have 10 manuscripts of it, the earliest of
which was written over 1000 years after Caesar. But again,
nobody disputes its credibility.
- We have five copies of Aristotle’s writings… the earliest of
which was written 1400 years after the original.
- Herodotus' History, eight manuscripts. Earliest one, 1,350 years
after he died.
Now, why is all of this important? Because we have 5,664 Greek
manuscripts of the NT going way back within 50 years of Jesus.
- Add to that another eight to ten thousand Latin Vulgate
manuscripts, another eight or so thousand Ethiopian, Slavic,
Armenian texts…
- And you have roughly 24,633 ancient manuscripts in existence,
all written within a few centuries of Jesus.
Again, the most undisputed ancient book is Homer’s Illiad… of which
there are 643 manuscripts, the earliest of which was written over 500
years after the original. But no one disputes it!
- And yet, the most substantiated ancient document in history is
criticized. I’ll you decide why that’s so.
- But what about the claim that what we have today might have
been changed from the originals?
In the mid-twentieth century, an immense body of ancient scrolls were
found near the Dead Sea. Does anyone know what they’re were called?
- Yes! The Dead Sea Scrolls… written some 2000 years ago!
- Contained in these scrolls, for example, was a complete
manuscript of the Book of Isaiah.
- Isaiah 53 is such a powerful chapter in the Bible… speaking of
Jesus, the Suffering Servant.
- Of the 166 Hebrew words in this chapter, only 17 letters differ
from the manuscript your Bible is translated from (Masoretic
Text).
The Dead Sea Scrolls produced copies of Deuteronomy & the Psalms. In
fact, there were portions of every OT book except the Book of Esther.
- Because so much of the prophesy in the Book of Daniel had
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proven true before the time of Christ,
- Liberal scholars insisted that it was written much later. But, the
large portions of Daniel that were found proved that it was
written when it claims to have been written.
In 1979, a man named Gabriel Barkay found what one archeological
review called one of the 10 biggest finds of the 20th century; two pieces
of rolled silver the size of cigarette butts.
- Because they were so old, it took them three years to unroll them
and another three years to treat them with chemicals so they
could read them.
- The first word they word they read was the word Yahweh. And
then the whole text from the Book of Numbers 6:24-26…
- “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine
on you and be gracious to you; to Lord turn his face toward you
and give you peace.”
- Jewish, Christian, and Secular scholars all date this silver scroll
back to 600BC… word-for-word what you have in your Bible!
All of this is to say there is simply no document from antiquity in the
same category as the Scriptures when it comes to manuscript evidence
and integrity.
- And, just to add another layer of why we can trust in the
reliability and integrity of the Bible:
- there are over 300 OT prophecies fulfilled in the person of Jesus
Christ alone.
- Precise, detailed prophecies such as;
o Where He would be born (Micah 5:2),
o How He would be born, (Isaiah 7:14)
o How He would die (Psalm 34:20),
o That he’d be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver (Ps 55:12,13;
Zech 11:12,13),
o That he’d be denied by his disciples (Zech. 13:78)
o The he’d be crucified with thieves (Is. 53:12)
o That His side would be pierced, but he wouldn’t have
broken bones (Ps 22, 34),
o Soldiers would gamble for his coat (Ps 22:18) and
Resurrected (Ps 16:10).
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o That He’d be buried in a rich man’s tomb (Is. 53:9)
o That Darkness would cover the land (Amos 8:9)
o That He’d ride into Jerusalem on the back of colt (Zech)
- You see, there’s never been a book like THIS Book!!
4. Everybody is selective about which Bible commands they obey and
which they ignore, so all talk about biblical authority is really bogus.
Here’s how it goes… Someone reads the Bible and sees that it says we
should “stone adulterers” or that we “shouldn’t wear clothes made of
mixed fabrics.”
- Then they’ll accuse us of picking and choosing what parts of the
Bible we obey and what parts we ignore.
- And, because they see all this… what we choose to follow or
not… as completely arbitrary, they throw out the whole Book
claiming that it obviously has no authority.
If God, for example instituted circumcision as an outward sign of our
Covenantal relationship with God, that why isn’t this just as important to
Christians today as it was to the ancient Jews?
- Well, let me share how one Christian thinker today answers
that… a great scholar named N.T. Wright.
- He says, "Think of the Bible as telling the big story of the human
race in five acts. Think of it like a play, but knowing it's true.”
- Act 1 is creation. Genesis 1 and 2; it's all good.
- Act 2 is the fall. Genesis 3 through 11; everything is messed up.
- Act 3 is God's working with the people of Israel. Genesis 12
through Malachi.
- Act 4 is the coming of Jesus, His physical presence on earth.
- Act 5, Jesus goes, sends the Spirit, and now there's the church.
Wright says, "We are living in Act 5. We're part of the big play, but we
cannot pretend like we're living in Act 1… just like a character in Act 5
of Hamlet can't say a speech from the first act."
In Act 1, for example, there was no sin. Adam and Eve are naked, but
they’re not ashamed. We're not in Act 1.
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- We have to wear clothes! We can eat from all trees.
- We are not members of Israel living before Christ in Act 3; and,
therefore, we don't try to rebuild the temple.
- We don't sacrifice animals because Act 4 has resolved the
tension that required sacrifice.
And yet, we don't live in Act 4 either. Jesus told His disciples, "Don't go
to the Gentiles. Just go to the lost sheep of Israel."
- We don't observe that command because we're not living in Act
4. We are Act 5 people…
- We love and observe the whole story and yet we live in Act 5,
where we’re called to Jerusalem, Judea, and to the remotest parts
of the world.
- You see, the New Testament writers weren’t arbitrarily ignoring
the OT or parts of it.
They were wrestling with how we respond to all that was said in the first
4 Acts… in light of the fact that we’re now Act 5 people.
- Throughout the OT, the priests carried out animal sacrifices each
day to make atonement for the sins of the people.
- But, through His death on the Cross, Jesus paid the price for our
sins, fully & completely.
- No more sacrifices are needed… because He is the final sacrifice
for our sins.
Does that mean that we can ignore the Old Testament? No… it’s just
that we look at Act 1 in light of how it leads to Act 2, etc.
- So, we can read about the strict punishment required those who
sin against God and defile themselves.
- If someone sins against me, I no longer have the right to punish
them, because we’re in Act 5.
- The OT Covenental system of Act 3 has been replaced by Jesus
who said that we’re now to live under the law of love.
5. Doesn't the Bible support regressive practices like violence or
slavery?
This is a really important concern for people today… and has caused
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some pretty thoughtful people to dismiss the entirety of the Bible.
- And so, if the Bible is seen as subjugating women, for example,
then they simply decide that the Bible can’t be trusted.
- But so much of these kinds of misunderstandings stem from their
failure to read the Bible in its historical and cultural context.
For example, most people are familiar with the statement, "Eye for an
eye and a tooth for a tooth" from Exodus 21.
- A lot of people in our day when they see that, they'll say, "See
that's what I'm talking about. What a bloody, vengeful way to
live. The Bible must be pro-violence."
- But, go back to ancient times… no squad cars driving along on
the roads, no police departments, no law enforcement like we
think of it…
If you hurt me, I can do anything in my power to hurt you as much as I
want to. This was the way it was in Tajikistan.
- So imagine… into that context, the foundation for proportional
justice is laid out
- Somebody knocks out your tooth… you don't get to kill them.
The punishment must fit the crime.
- It's actually an enormous step forward in the direction of
justice for the ancient world.
Then we come to another giant step forward with Jesus. Jesus says,
"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I
tell you… love your enemies…"
- Now Jesus isn’t saying that Moses got it wrong in Exodus 21.
- He’s simply saying that the ultimate value that Moses was
moving Israel toward, one step at a time, was the value of love.
- But God starts with people where they are and then moves them
one step at a time. You have to read the Bible in that light.
One of the things that can really upset people is how the Bible seems to
either condone or turn a blind eye toward the issue of slavery.
- In the early 1800's, southern whites would claim that the Bible
supports slavery since slaves are asked to obey their masters.
- And, of course, those opposing slavery would rightly base their
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opinion on what was written in the Bible as well.
And, just this “back-and-forth” has caused people to see the bible as
unreliable. But, again, we have to read things in its cultural context.
- Now, keep in mind that, in the ancient world, every major world
culture embraced slavery in some form.
- It was literally woven into the economic and social fabric of the
ancient world.
- But, then, into this context, comes the Law of Moses, which
sought to significantly limit its practice.
In fact, the law said that, after six years, you were to let your slaves
go. And, when you released your slaves, you were to release them with
gifts to help them get back on their feet.
- Now, the power of a master, especially with regard to
punishment, will be severely limited.
- And, over time as the church eventually looked at how Jesus
died for every human being… how God made all people in His
own image…
o How Paul said, "Now in Christ there is neither male nor
female, neither free man or slave."
- It was the power of this Book… more than any other idea,
more than any other power that led to the world movement to get
rid of slavery.
6. When I read the Bible, it seems strange and outdated. Even if its
true, I wonder if it has any relevance for me?
Amazing thing about the Bible; it has a life & power to it. I think I'm
going to read it, and it starts reading me.
- I think I'm going to judge it, and it starts judging me. I think
I'm going to weigh its words, and it's my life that's being
weighed.
- There has never been a book like this Book. I know… there are
parts that are confusing. I know.
- But a lot of why it seems strange to us is simply because of it's
age.
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You see, the ancient world was filled with sacrifices & polygamy &
strange ideas of what makes something unclean.
- We see people saying and doing things and think “Why was life
so much weirder then than it is now?”
- But, I'll tell you a secret. It wasn't! The only difference is that we
live now… and so we think we're not weird.
- I will guarantee you something. Fast forward 2,000 years and
have somebody watch reruns of The Bachelor and YouTube
videos of skiing squirrels and listen to the music of somebody
called Lady Gaga.
- You think they're going to say we were normal in our day?
You see, since the Enlightenment…very interesting self-proclaimed
phrase for an era, the Enlightenment…we are guilty of what C. S.
Lewis calls "chronological snobbery."
- The assumption that it's just not worth our time to learn from the
past because we are intellectually & morally superior just by
nature of when we live.
- Well if that's the case, tell me what's the book, source, idea or
authority you want to base your one and only life on that you
think will hold up in 200 or 2,000 years?
Guys, there is just so much more evidence I could share… I cut more
material out of this message that I ended up sharing with you.
- But the bottom-line is that the Bible is just what it claims to be…
trustworthy & true.
- Over the centuries people have tried to discredit it, ban it, burn it,
along with just about everything else you can imagine.
- But it’s still here… just as it was several hundred years before
Constantine.
The 18th century French author and atheist, Voltaire, once held up the
Bible and arrogantly declared, “In 100 years this book will be forgotten
and eliminated.”
- Well, shortly after his death, his own house became the
headquarters for the Geneva Bible Society, which began to
publish and distribute bibles.
o Psalm 119:89 says, “Your Word, O Lord, is eternal.”
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o Isaiah 40:8 says, “The grass withers and the flowers
fall, but the word of our God stands forever.”
o Jesus says in Matthew 24:35 that “Heaven and earth will
pass away, but my words will never pass away.”
There has never been a book like this Book. So read it. Start with one of
the gospels. Read it with intensity. Read it with a humble spirit.
- Read it repentantly. Read it both thoughtfully and
contemplatively.
- Read it and ask God, "God, would You meet me in this Book?"
- Hebrews 4:12 says, "For the word of God is living and active.
Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to
dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the
thoughts and attitudes of the heart."
We can rely on this Book… that even if there are certain things that will
make you go “hmmm” when reading it…
- It is trustworthy & true…worthy of your time… worthy of your
effort… because it’s God’s love letter to humanity.
- It’s changed my life and, if it hasn’t already, I promise, it can
change yours too.