THE BIBLE AS GOD’S VERY WORDS: EXTERNAL VERIFICATIONS

 Is the Bible’s reliability and historicity supported by evidence external to the Bible? This is a huge question, which calls upon every area of human inquiry to pass judgment. Do the fields of history, archeology, geology, psychology, linguistics, astronomy, sociology, and physics validate or invalidate the biblical accounts? For example, New Testament scholars, historians, and archeologists give high grades to the New Testament Greek text. Based upon the textual evidence, even the agnostic and New Testament Critic, Bart Ehrman confessed:

·       The oldest and best sources we have for knowing about the life of Jesus…are the four Gospels of the NT…This is not simply the view of Christian historians who have a high opinion of the NT and in its historical worth; it is the view of all serious historians of antiquity…it is the conclusion that has been reached by every one of the hundreds (thousands, even) of scholars. (Truth and Fiction in the DaVinci Code, 102)

Ehrman, who likes to impugn the many NT texts, had been asked:

·       Bruce Metzger [the leading textual credit of his day] your mentor in textual criticism to whom this book [“Misquoting Jesus”] is dedicated, has said that there is nothing in these variants of Scripture that challenges any essential Christian beliefs…Why do you believe these core tenants of Christian orthodoxy to be in jeopardy based on the scribal errors you discovered in the biblical manuscripts? (Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus)

Ehrman answered:

·       Even though we may disagree on important religious questions – he is a formly committed Christian and I am not – we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement…The position I argue for in Misquoting Jesus does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by the textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament. (252)

Metzger had claimed the text of the NT to be “99.5 free from textual discrepancies.” Ehrman, ordinarily the strongest dissenting voice, also admitted:

·       The more manuscripts one discovers, the more the variant readings; but also the more the likelihood that somewhere among those variants readings one will be able to uncover the original text. Therefore, the thirty thousand variants uncovered by [critic John] Mill do not detract from the integrity of the New Testament; they simply provide the data scholars need to work on to establish the text, a text that is more amply documented than any other in the ancient world. (87)

There is a strong consensus among NT textual critics that from the almost 6,000 ancient Greek manuscripts and fragments, the original text can be very closely approximated. In Misquoting Truth, Timothy Paul Jones adds:

·       Sir Frederic Kenyon, former director of the British Museum, once commented concerning the Gospels, “The interval between the dates of the original compositions and the earliest extant [existenting manuscripts] evidence [is] so small as to be negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed.” (50)

NT scholar William Warren concurs:

• I would say that our [present composite NT] text almost certainly represents a form that is almost identical to the original documents. (Bart Ehrman and Daniel Wallace in Dialogue: The Reliability of the NT, 122)

Another NT scholar, Craig Evans, affirms the same thing:

• Given the evidence, we have every reason to have confidence in the text of Scripture. This does not mean that we possess 100% certainty that we have the exact wording in every case, but we have good reason to believe that what we have preserved in the several hundred manuscripts of the first millennium is the text that the writers of Scripture penned.

Similarly, NT textual critic Silvie Raquel writes:

• I also have studied New Testament textual criticism and, by contrast with Ehrman, have found confirmation about the validity of the text…by defective reasoning, misuse of the evidence, and a misconception of inerrancy, Ehrman fails to build a case for the unreliability of the New Testament text as a sacred and inspired text. (173, 185)

Daniel Wallace concluded:

·       “On the contrary, it [scholarship] has built it [my faith]. I’ve asked questions all my life, I’ve dug into the text, I’ve studied this thoroughly, and today I know with confidence that my trust in Jesus has been well placed…very well placed.”

The leading NT textual critic of his day, the late Bruce Metzger, concluded:

·       “The modern NT is 99.5% free from textual discrepancies, with no major Christian doctrines in doubt.”

Greek scholar D.A. Carson sums up the evidence this way:

·       "The purity of text is of such a substantial nature that nothing we believe to be true, and nothing we are commanded to do, is in any way jeopardized by the variants."

And what about the historical accuracy of the Gospels? About Luke, New Testament scholar, F.F.Bruce, has written:

·       “A man whose accuracy can be demonstrated in matters where we are able to test it is likely to be accurate even where means of testing aren’t available. Accuracy is a habit of mind…Luke’s record entitles him to be regarded as a writer of habitual accuracy.”

Archeologist John McRay adds:

·       “One prominent archeologist carefully examined Luke’s references to 32 countries, 54 cities, and 9 Islands w/o finding a single mistake.” (Lee Strobel,  Case For Christ)

About the Gospel of John, McRay claims:

·       “It [the Pool of Bethesda] lies maybe 40 feet below ground – and sure enough, there are five porticoes…exactly as John had described. And you have other discoveries – the Pool of Siloam from John 9:7, Jacob’s Well from John 4:12, the probable location of the Stone Pavement near the Jaffa gate where Jesus appeared before Pontius Pilate in John 19:13, even Pilate’s own identity – all of which have lent credibility to John’s Gospel.” (Strobel)

·       “Archeology has not produced anything that is unequivocally a contradiction to the Bible. On the contrary, as we’ve seen, there have been many opinions of skeptical scholars that have become codified into ‘fact’ over the years, but that archeology has shown to be wrong.”

In fact, the textual evidence along with other forms of historical evidence are so compelling that even skeptics acknowledge that the Apostles had been convinced that they had encountered the resurrected Jesus.

Even the atheist Ludemann had conceded:

·        “It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.” (Strobel)

Jewish NT scholor Paula Fredriksen also conceded:

·       “The Disciples’ conviction that they had seen the risen Christ…is historical bedrock, facts known past doubting.” (Strobel)

NT scholar James Dunn went a step further:

·       “It is an undoubted fact that the conviction that God had raised Jesus from the dead and had exalted Jesus to his right hand transformed Jesus’ first disciples and their beliefs about Jesus.” (Christian Research Journal, Vol.39, No.2, 14)

Christian Apologist Michael Licona adds:

·       “After Jesus’ death, the disciples endured persecution, and a number of them experienced martyrdom. The strength of their conviction indicates that they were not just claiming Jesus had appeared to them after rising from the dead. They really believed it. They willingly endangered themselves by publicly proclaiming the risen Christ.” (16)

So too Christian Apologist Sean McDowell:

·       “From the Apostles forward, there is no evidence for an early Christian community that did not have belief in the Resurrection at its core. The centrality of the Resurrection can be seen by considering the earliest Christian creeds, the preaching in Acts, and the writings of the apostolic fathers.” (14)

All the above represent affirmations of the Christian faith based historical and textual evidences. However, there are many other forms of external confirmations.

         

Scientific Confirmations

Theistic evolutionists (TEs) discount the role of science and physical evidences in supporting the Christian faith. Why? For one thing, they claim that the Bible is not about the physical world and science is not about the spiritual world. Therefore, there is no basis for any conflict between these two world as they occupy very different worlds. Therefore, if this artificial and unsupportable distinction is held, the TE claims that the Christian can also be an evolutionist.

·       “The science of the Bible is obviously the ‘science’ of the ancient near east, and is antiquated and therefore wrong. Instead, the Bible is about salvation [the spiritual world] and a relationship with Christ.”

This dogmatic statement dismisses whatever the Bible teaches about the physical world, including history, geography, psychology and biology. Why then not also dismiss what the Bible has to say about our feelings, thought life and spiritual growth? These, of course, are connected to our biology (our physical life) – eating, sleeping, and drinking. Clearly, these two worlds are inseparable.

Besides, I don’t see how we can trust in the Bible’s spiritual message once we deny its physical message.

The TEs distinction between the Bible’s teachings about the physical world and the spiritual cannot hold up under scrutiny. The Bible states that Lazarus rose from the dead, but all miracles impinge upon the physical world. Is the Bible then wrong in its account of miracles?

Instead, the biblical worldview will not allow us to separate its historical teachings from its spiritual teachings. Its spiritual teaching of forgiveness and new life through the death and resurrection of Jesus is inseparable from its physical teaching that Jesus historically died on the cross for us.

Nevertheless, TEs try to separate the two aspects of scriptural teaching – the physical, which the TE claims is errant from the spiritual, which the TE grants as inerrant. How do they accomplish this? By demonstrating that the Bible is wrong in its physical teachings! For example, they cite Psalm 93:1 as an example of the Bible errantly influenced by the ancient Near Eastern cosmology of its day:

·       The LORD reigns; he is robed in majesty; the LORD is robed; he has put on strength as his belt. Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved.

From this verse, the TEs erroneously claim that the Bible teaches that the earth cannot be moved because it sits on a pedestal as the ancient cosmologists had believed. However, they conveniently fail to consider the fact that the righteous also “shall never be moved.” Clearly, this is not because they too are glued to a pedestal (Psalm 125:1; 16:8). Instead, God will not allow His righteous ones to be destroyed. Similarly, He will not allow His creation to be destroyed or “moved.”

The Bible does not ignorantly teach ancient cosmology. Instead, I’d like to cite evidence that the Bible wasn’t corrupted by ancient “science” but instead anticipated the findings of modern science:

1.    TIME IS NOT ETERNAL AS BIG BANG COSMOLOGY ASSERTS: 2 Tim. 1:9 [God] who has saved us and called us to a holy life--not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the BEGINNING OF TIME.

2.    THE UNIVERSE HAD A BEGINNING: Genesis 1:1 “In the BEGINNING God created the heavens and the earth.” (Contra the steady-state theory that had ruled science).

3.    THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF THE PHYSICAL WORD AREN’T VISIBLE: Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was NOT made out of what was visible.

4.    THERE ARE LAWS OF SCIENCE: Jeremiah 33:25 This is what the LORD says: 'If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the FIXED LAWS of heaven and earth, (Also Job 38:33)

5.    WATER CYCLE: Job 36:27 "He DRAWS UP the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streams.” (Also Amos 9:6)

6.    DINOSAURS?? Psalm 74:14 It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan and gave him as food to the creatures of the desert. (Isa 27:1; 51:9; Jer. 51:34; Eze 29:3)

7.    COSMIC EXPANSION, ROUND EARTH: Isaiah 40:22 He sits enthroned above the CIRCLE of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and SPREADS THEM OUT like a tent to live in. (Scripture claims that the universe was created, rather than having existed eternally, as the atheist had supposed.) (42:5)

8.    STARS AS GUIDES TO SEASONS AND GEOGRAPHIC POSITIONS: Genesis 1:14 lights in the expanse of the sky… [would] serve as SIGNS to mark seasons and days and years.”

9.    COUNTLESS STARS: Jeremiah 33:22  “I will make the descendants of David my servant and the Levites who minister before me as COUNTLESS AS THE STARS of the sky and as measureless as the sand on the seashore." (Also Job 11:7-8; 22:12)

10. THE EARTH DOES NOT SIT ON A PEDESTAL AS ANCIENT COSMOLOGY HAS IT: Job 26:7 He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over NOTHING.

11. STRESS NEGATIVELY IMPACTS HEALTH: Proverbs 17:22 A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

12. UNHEALTHY QUALITY OF EXCREMENT: Deut. 23:12-13 Designate a place outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourself. As part of your equipment have something to dig with, and when you relieve yourself, dig a hole and cover up your excrement.

13. FOSSIL FINDS IN THE MOUNTAINS PROVIDING EVIDENCE OF A WORLDWIDE FLOOD: Psalm 104:6 …the waters stood ABOVE the mountains.

Don’t be too impressed with this kind of evidence. Why not? This evidence is only as persuasive as are the findings of modern-day scholarship, to which I do not want to give undue weight. However, this evidence is powerful in the face of Bible detractors who argue that the Bible fails to accord with our present-day scientific consensus.

In fact, all forms of external evidence – whether deemed as positive of negative, supportive or detractive - relies on the present status of the scholarly consensus. Therefore, if the “evidence” against the Bible is acceptable, then evidence for the Bible must be equally acceptable.

I have just touched upon a small sample of the various ways that the Bible receives external verification from the surrounding physical world. Consequently, we can spend more than an entire lifetime exploring this almost limitless subject.

NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL VARIANTS

In view of the large number of ancient New Testament Greek texts and fragments – roughly 5800 – it is inevitable that there would be many textual variants or differences among them. Bible skeptics insinuate that, because of the many variants, that the teachings of the New Testament are uncertain.

However, New Testament scholar, Daniel Wallace, is undaunted by the variants:

·       “On the contrary, it [scholarship] has built it [my faith]. I’ve asked questions all my life, I’ve dug into the text, I’ve studied this thoroughly, and today I know with confidence that my trust in Jesus has been well placed…very well placed.”

Atheist/agnostic and head of the Religion Department of the University of North Carolina, Bart Ehrman, may be the leading New Testament critic today. He has made so much of the textual variants that he has become very popular among his fellow atheists who proudly cite his many books. However, even Ehrman admits:

·       “Even though we [the late New Testament scholar and Princeton icon, Bruce Metzger, who had been Ehrman’s beloved mentor] may disagree on important religious questions – he is a formerly committed Christian and I am not – we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement…The position I argue for in Misquoting Jesus does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by the textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.” (Misquoting Jesus, 252)

Metzger had stated:

·       “The modern New Testament is 99.5% free from textual discrepancies, with no major Christian doctrines in doubt.”

However, Ehrman had wrongly named his book Misquoting Jesus, suggesting that the Gospels must have misquoted Him. However, his above confession contradicts his chosen title.

The New Testament Canon came to be as it was Written

It is claimed that the New Testament canon didn’t come into existence until the fourth century. Although the church, as a body, did place their authoritative stamp-of-approval on the exact 27 books NT canon in the fourth century, these individual books were being identified by the early church as soon as they received them.

First of all, Jesus promised to give His Apostles a new and authoritative revelation to take worldwide:

• And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20; all quotations in ESV)

Jesus’ Word was to take precedence of Moses’, and His Apostles were to carry His Word forth. They would have to teach “all that I have commanded you.” Clearly, Jesus’ Words carried at least the same authority as did the rest of the Scriptures. Therefore, they could not pick-and-choose which they preferred.

Clearly, He had specially ordained them for this ministry:

• You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:48-49)

They would be supernaturally equipped by the Spirit so that what they taught would be entirely the Word of God:

• 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 14:26)

Because these teachings came directly from the Spirit, they were Spirit-inspired. As such, they were Scripture. Through the Spirit, Jesus would now instruct them clearly and precisely:

• “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you... I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father. (John 16:12-15, 25 ESV)

Did this Spirit-inspiration include the writing of the NT Scriptures? Commenting on these verses, Norman Geisler writes:

• The question must be asked: What else could Jesus have been referring to but the New Testament? The New Testament writings are the only writings we have ever seen from these apostles. Therefore it is perfectly reasonable to believe that these very New Testament writings are the inspired “all truth” revelation Jesus promised. If Jesus had a high view of Old Testament written revelation (and he did) he certainly would have a high view of this future “all truth” written revelation. In this way Jesus affirmed beforehand that the New Testament was coming— and that it would be just as authoritative as Old Testament. (Evidence of an Early New Testament Canon)

How else could the Apostles fulfill their mission “to the ends of the earth” and “to the end of the age” unless they wrote down the teachings that they had been divinely given!

Even though Jesus didn’t explicitly mention “writing,” the Apostles understood that their “Grand Commission” included the written word:

• So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter. (2 Thessalonians 2:15)

For the Apostles, their oral teachings were equivalent to the written ones.

• When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. (Ephesians 3:4-5)

Did the Apostles understand that they were writing Scripture? Yes! They placed their writings on the level of the Hebrew Scriptures:

• So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. (Ephesians 2:19-20)

• And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. (1 Thessalonians 2:13) 

Peter also placed the Apostolic writings on the same level as the Hebrew Prophets:

• You should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles... And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. (2 Peter 3:2, 15-16) 

Peter also regarded Paul’s writings as Scripture. For one thing, when Paul’s writings are distorted, they do it to their own destruction. This can only be said about Scripture. Besides, Peter refers to Paul’s writings and to the “other Scriptures,” signifying that he regarded Paul’s writings as Scripture.

John also regarded his writing as Scripture. He wrote about it in the same veneration as the Hebrew Scriptures:

• I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. (Revelation 22:18-19) 

Such a warning is only given regarding Scripture (Deut. 4:2; 12:32). The only possible conclusion is that John was aware that he was writing Scripture. Meanwhile, Paul quotes Luke 10:7 as Scripture, and Jude quotes 2 Peter 3:2, indicating that he regarded it too as Scripture.

In many other ways, we see that the Apostles treated their writings as divinely inspired. They directed their letter to be read by other churches (1 Thess. 5:27; Col. 4:16). They spoke as if they were backed by the authority of God (1 Tim. 6:3-4; Gal. 1:8-9; Titus 3:10).

Were the Apostles faithful to commission? Had they gone astray? One powerful indication that they hadn’t gone astray was that the Lord was endorsing their teaching by signs and wonders:

• For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience—by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God—so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ; (Romans 15:18-19)

Why did the church regard Paul as an Apostle even though he hadn’t been a companion of Jesus? His ministry was attended by the signs of his Lord:

• For I was not at all inferior to these super-apostles, even though I am nothing. The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works. (2 Corinthians 12:11-12) 

For the early church, there was no guess-work regarding who bore the Gospel of Jesus:

• And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. (Acts 19:11-12) 

• So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands. (Acts 14:3) 

The Lord also bore witness to the other Apostles:

• For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. (Hebrews 2:2-4)

Skeptics insinuate that the writings of the NT can’t be trusted because they had been written after the Apostles had passed by those who weren’t eyewitnesses. However, Geisler cites a skeptic who believe that the NT was written a lot earlier:

• John A. T. Robinson, leader of the “Death of God” movement revised his dates saying all books were written between AD 40 and 70, with Matthew as early as AD 40, Mark AD 45, Luke AD 57 and John AD 40. Robinson’s concluded that “ all the various types of the early church’s literature … were coming into being more or less concurrently in the period between 40 and 70.”  Renowned archaeologist William F. Albright said that “every book of the New Testament was written by a baptized Jew between the forties and the eighties of the first century A.D. (very probably sometime between A.D. 50 and 75 ).” This would put the writing of all New Testament books during the lifetime of the apostles and eyewitnesses.

However, the Church Fathers – some of them actually had had with the Apostles - are far more credible than our modern day skeptics, two thousand years removed from the actual events. According the Geisler:

• Apostolic Fathers confirm [the Apostolic] authorship. The Apostolic Fathers were the next generation of believers after the Apostles (AD 95 to c. 150). They were either direct disciples of the apostles or had personal knowledge of them. There is considerable evidence from these Fathers (and many more after them) that the Apostles were in fact the source of the New Testament writings. 

In fact, Geisler claims that by 110 AD, the Fathers had cited 19 of the 27 NT books as Scripture. By 300 AD, the Fathers had quoted “nearly every verse of the NT.” Only 11 verses gone unquoted.

Perhaps the leading NT scholar of his day, Bruce Metzger, concluded:

• Neither individuals or councils created the canon; instead they came to recognize the self-authenticating quality of these writings, which imposed themselves as canonical upon the church.

The commentary writer, William Barclay, who was by no means an inerrantist, admitted:

• It’s the simple truth to say that the NT books became canonical because no one could stop them from doing so. 

And the church councils? Hadn’t they decided which books were to be included in the canon? It had already become patently obvious.