Is The Bible True?

True Life Church

“Is The Bible True?”
2 Timothy 3:13-17
Sermon Series: “The God Questions”

Introduction: There’s a couple of different points of view on this. One very common one is expressed by Dan Brown in the DaVinci Code book and movie. He wrote, ““The Bible is a product of man, my dear. Not of God. The Bible did not fall magically from the clouds. Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book.”

On the other hand, this is what the Bible claims for itself and let me give a brief explanation of the evangelical doctrine of Scripture. Don’t assume it is true just because the Bible says it, but please consider both of these viewpoints honestly, examine the evidence, and make a decision for yourself.

2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.”
Meaning Of Inspiration – All Scripture (not part of it) is God-breathed (which is the literal meaning of inspiration).
Process of Inspiration – The Holy Spirit led the writers (2 Peter 1:16-21).
Extent of Inspiration – To the very words (Matthew 5:18, 1 Corinthians 2:13)
Result of Inspiration – The Bible (all of it) is true (John 17:17). God doesn’t breathe error. Jesus said the Scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35). This is why we speak of the Bible being without error (inerrant) and the Bible being incapable of erring or leading us astray (infallible). Therefore, all Scripture is God’s Word and must be taken as such which means it is the authority for our lives. Please understand that orthodox Christians realize and have always affirmed that human beings were involved in the writing of Scripture and their personalities and writing styles are part of the Bible. The writers of Scripture were not robots or mere copyists. However, they were led by God and the work of the Holy Spirit protected them from error and made sure that the content intended by God was actually put into Scripture. Evangelical Christians believe in verbal plenary inspiration. This means that all of the Bible, even the very words are inspired by God. Thus, we believe the Bible is inerrant (free from error or falsehood in the original manuscripts). Therefore, all Scripture is consistent with every other part of Scripture (1 John 2:21). It has a single Mind behind it (a perfect mind, nonetheless) so one part agrees with and does not contradict another part. Interpretation is correctly reading out the God-intended meaning of any text. It is accomplished through the illuminating ministry of the Holy Spirit (John 14:26). There has been no new normative revelation for the Body of Christ since the completion of the New Testament (with the writing of the book of Revelation around 96 A.D.) [note Revelation 22:18-19], but God still speaks today to us through His Holy Spirit. The way He does this is by giving us understanding of Scripture and how it applies to our lives. Through the Bible, the Holy Spirit teaches, convicts, guides, encourages, and reveals God to us. Please note that God only speaks based on and in agreement with His written Word. That is the test for any supposed leading of the Holy Spirit.

-So this is what the Bible claims for itself and what evangelical Christians down through the centuries have believed. But is it true? Is the Bible true? Let’s consider the evidence. Before we consider the evidence, let me give you these 5 caveats:
A. Ideas and statements are objectively true or false. There are absolutes. It is a contradictory self-defeating statement to say there are no absolutes because saying that is stating an absolute. If this isn’t true, we can intelligently discuss anything, and there is no point to discussing anything. Why would a professor say you can have your truth and I can have mine and everything is perspective not truth, but then point out errors, contradictions, myths, etc. in the Bible? Believe whatever, but don’t believe these Christians.
B. It’s not true because you believe it’s true. If something is true, it is true because it is true (flat earth theory). On the other hand, you believing it’s not true doesn’t make it not true. And it’s circular reasoning to say the supernatural doesn’t exist, the Bible claims supernatural, so the Bible can’t be true.
C. We have to look at historical evidence (eyewitness testimony, manuscripts) instead of scientific proof. Chauncey Sanders gives three criteria for testing historical documents, and I believe they should be applied to Scripture. In Introduction to Research in English Literary History, he lists these tests as bibliographical, internal, and external evidence tests.
D. We are looking for probability, not possibility.
E. It is a matter of the mind and the will.

1. The Manuscript Evidence: We don’t have the original autographs of Scripture but copies of copies because copies don’t last forever. So, before we answer the question, “Is it true?” we have to answer the question, “Can we be confident that we possess the Bible as it was originally written?” If the answer to this is no, we don’t even need to bother with the other question. If the answer is yes, we still have to answer the other question. So it doesn’t prove the Bible is true, but it does give the Scriptures a lot of credibility.

Let’s talk about the Old Testament. The Jews had a great reverence for the Word of God. This is the process that the scribes went through as they copied the different parts of the Scripture. First, a synagogue roll must be written on the skins of clean animals, prepared for particular use in the synagogue by a Jew. They had to be fastened together with strings taken from clean animals. Every skin must contain a certain number of columns, equal throughout the entire codex. The length of each column must not extend over less than 48 or more than 60 lines and the breadth must consist of 30 letters. How did they know that? They put all these different safeguards into place where they would count certain letters, like in the middle of a paragraph or in the middle of a page and everything had to line up. The ink could only be black and had to be prepared according to a definite recipe. An authentic copy must be the exemplar from which the transcriber ought not, in the least, to deviate. In other words, if the scribe deviated from what he was copying from just one little bit, they threw it away and said that it was worthless. Next, no word or letter could be written from memory, but the scribe had to write it while looking at it. Between every consonant the space of a hair or thread must intervene, between every new section consonants, and between every book, three lines. Besides this, the copyist must sit in full Jewish dress, wash his whole body, not begin to write the name of God with a pen newly dipped in ink and should a king address him while writing that name, meaning the name of God, he must take no notice of him. Did that guarantee accuracy?

Well, let me give you this piece of evidence. Have you heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls? They were the greatest archaeological discovery of the 20th Century, if not, the entirety of history. And one of the things that was so important about the Dead Sea Scrolls is that there were copies of the Old Testament or, at least, parts of the Old Testament that were found that were about 900 to 1000 years older than any that they had before. Before that the earliest copy of the Old Testament they had was about 900 to 1000 A.D., but there were copies in there that archeologists have dated at about 100 B.C. And in one of those Dead Sea Scrolls, one of the things they found was a copy of the entire book of Isaiah preserved on an individual scroll. And when they went in and compared that copy of Scripture with the other copies they had with about 1000 years difference between them, they found in about 95% of the cases there was absolutely no variation between them. In that 5% almost all the variations were just spelling. If you have ever seen Hebrew, you can understand why there would occasionally be problems with spelling because sometimes the only difference between a couple of letters is a little mark on one letter. That was the only difference. In the 53rd Chapter of Isaiah, which is one of the most famous and important chapters in the Bible, the scholars found one word in question out of that whole chapter. The Bible is the best-preserved book of antiquity. The Jews did everything that they could to make sure that it was properly transcribed through the years. Well, you say, well why don’t we have the original copies? Well, because what they did is when they verified that they had made a perfect copy they destroyed the older copy over a course of time. I mean they sort of filed them away and then eventually they were destroyed because in their way of thinking a newer copy was better. They were writing on something called parchment and as time went on, the parchment kind of faded away. Another valuable piece of information that shows the reliability of the Old Testament manuscripts is something called the Septuagint. It was a translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek that began in the 3rd century B.C. and was completely in the 2nd century B.C.

Let me give you some information about the New Testament. Scholars have about 24,000 copies of, at least, parts of the New Testament in Greek and in other languages. It breaks down to over 5,600 Greek copies and close to 19.000 from other languages. Now, I am not talking about translations, I am talking about actual copies. The New Testament was written between about 40 and 100 A.D. The earliest copy archaeologists have discovered has been dated to about 125 A.D. It is a portion of the Gospel of John called the Rylands papyri. That discovery effectively disproved the claim of liberal scholars that the gospels were not written until the second or third century. It means that there was somewhere around 25 years between the original writings and the first copy that we have. It means that there was not sufficient time for legends about Jesus to spring up and be accepted.

Now, let’s compare the New Testament with another work of ancient literature. Homer wrote “The Iliad,” which scholars say was the most read book in ancient literature. It was written about 900 B.C. The earliest copy that scholars have is 400 B.C. which means there is 500 years difference between the original and the first copy. Now, the number of copies that scholars have of that work is 643. And there are more copies of that than any other work in ancient literature. As far as secular books, this is the cream of the crop as far as number and age difference of copies. But you see how it compares with the New Testament. Therefore, if you can’t trust the authenticity of the Bible, you cannot trust the authenticity of “The Illiad” or any work of antiquity. Other works of Roman history in comparison to the manuscript evidence for the New Testament and the question of why would a Jewish carpenter from an obscure village like Nazareth have such an explosion of writing about him (Andy Stanley).

Let me give you another fact. There is something called the writings of the early church fathers. The early church fathers were the leaders, the pastors, the bishops, in the church shortly after the apostles died. We are talking about the 200s and 300s A.D before the New Testament was even canonized. There is a museum in England that contains many of their writings. They have also been published. Scholars have researched the writings. David Dowrimple asserts that if we lost all the New Testaments that are on the face of the earth that he could go through those books from within 100 to 200 years of the writing of the New Testament and reconstruct the entire New Testament except for 11 verses. All of it except for 11 verses. Now, they may not all be exact quotations. Some of them are taken from sermons where the verses were paraphrased.

There is a scholar by the name of John Lee who has written a book comparing the Bible with Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote about 400 years ago, but every one of Shakespeare’s plays and writings contain multiple passages that scholars question as far as the content of the original writings. However, there are only about 15 to 20 passages in the New Testament that legitimate textual critics question. None of those affect any major doctrine. Also, it is not a case of something being missing, but a case of there being a couple of options regarding the original reading and scholars having to decide between the two readings. This occurs in around 1% of the cases. Renowned scholar John Warwick Montgomery writes, “To be skeptical of the resultant text of the New Testament books is to allow all of classical antiquity to slip into obscurity, for no documents of the ancient period are as well attested bibliographically as the New Testament.” There is no reason to believe that we do not possess the Bible as it was originally given so that brings us to the second question. Is it true? Why should we believe it is true?

2. External Evidence:
A. Historical Evidence: Consider the following evidence outside the New Testament regarding the writers of the gospels and for Jesus Himself. -Irenaeus (180 AD): “Matthew published his own Gospel among the Hebrews in their own tongue, when Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel in Rome and founding the church there. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself handed down to us in writing the substance of Peter’s preaching. Luke, the follower of Paul, set down in a book the Gospel preached by his teacher. Then John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned on his breast, himself produced his Gospel while he was living at Ephesus in Asia.

Tacitus, a Roman governor and historian, writing around 100 A.D. in his Annals, wrote the following, “….availed to relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the conflagration, the fire of Rome. Hence, to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished with the most exquisite tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius, but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also.”

Lucian of Samosata, 2nd century satirist, wrote, “…the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world….Furthermore, their first lawgiver persuaded them they are all brothers one of another after they have transgressed once for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified sophist himself and living under his laws.” Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor (A.D. 112) was writing the emperor Trajan seeking counsel on how to treat the Christians (he had been asking them to deny their faith and killing them when they didn’t). He wrote, “They affirmed,however, that the whole of their guilt, or their error, was, that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verse a hymn to Christ as to a god, and bound themselves to a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds…”

There are also references in Jewish writing, mostly negative as expected, but one debated one in the writings of the great historian Josephus.
B. Archaeological Evidence: -Let me give you a quote from one of the most famous archeologists who ever lived, a man by the name of Nelson Glueck. He said that “it may be stated categorically that no archeological discovery has ever controverted” [meaning contradicted] a biblical reference.” -William F. Albright states, “There can be no doubt that archaeology has confirmed the substantial historicity of the Old Testament tradition.” -F.F. Bruce says, “Where Luke has been suspected of inaccuracy (Sir William Ramsey), and accuracy has been vindicated by some inscriptional evidence, it may be legitimate to say archaeology has confirmed the New Testament record.” -Miller Burrows of Yale observes, “Archaeology has in many cases refuted the views of the modern critics.”

3. Internal Evidence: A. Internally Consistent: one primary message throughout, note the beginning and the end, gospel accounts affirm each other without being exactly the same B. Internally Correct: Are there errors and contradictions in the Bible? That is an important question. I really wrestled with several passages of Scripture when I was questioning my faith in college. There were things that did not make sense or seem to add up. Still, I cannot explain every seeming contradiction or answer every question about the Bible. However, I did find answers to so many of my questions and clear up so many supposed contradictions with simple, rational answers that I frankly quit worrying about it. There are things that I have to take by faith. However, there is such overwhelming evidence for the Bible that I am going to give it the benefit of the doubt when it comes to my questions.

Gleason Archer is a professor and writer who is the one of the leading Old Testament scholars in the world. He knows fifteen languages and has been to law school. He passed the bar exam in Massachusetts. The man is no intellectual lightweight. He wrote, “As I have dealt with one apparent discrepancy after another and have studied the alleged contradictions between the biblical record and the evidence of linguistics, archaeology, or science, my confidence in the trustworthiness of Scripture has been repeatedly verified and strengthened by the discovery that almost every problem in Scripture that has ever been discovered by man, from ancient times until now, has been dealt with in a completely satisfactory manner by the biblical text itself-or else by objective archaeological information….There is a good and sufficient answer in Scripture itself to refute every charge that has ever been leveled against it.” Let me share another quote with you. This one is from a man by the name of John Warrick Montgomery. Once again, we are not talking about some intellectual lightweight. Dr. Montgomery is a man who has nine earned degrees in theology, philosophy, and law. He is a former Professor who is now a practicing lawyer in England who won a landmark case concerning religious freedom in Greece. He says “I, myself, have never encountered an alleged contradiction in the Bible which could not be cleared up by the use of the original languages of the scriptures and/or by the use of acceptive principles of literary and historical interpretation.”

C. Fulfilled Prophecy

D. The words of Jesus about Scripture: Talk about the argument for the resurrection from last week and how this keeps it from being circular reasoning. I AM GOING WITH THE ONE WHO ROSE FROM THE DEAD! He said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away” (Matthew 24:35). In Matthew 5:18, Jesus said, “For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.” A jot is a yodh, which is the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet. A tittle is a little mark on a letter in the Hebrew alphabet that distinguishes it from another letter. You could say that Jesus is saying down to the crossing of the “T’s” and dotting of the “I’s,” not one bit of the law is going to pass away until all of it is fulfilled. In Luke 24:44, Jesus said, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” Did you know that the Old Testament is about Jesus too? It prepares us for the coming of Christ. In John 10:35, Jesus said, “The scripture cannot be broken”. In addition, John 17 records a prayer of Christ to His Father. In verse 17, Jesus said to His Heavenly Father that “your word is truth.” When I say that the Bible is God’s truth, I am only saying what Jesus said.

Also, Jesus affirmed many passages in the Old Testament that liberals and skeptics deny. He affirmed the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch (John 5:45-47), Jonah literally being in the belly of a great fish (Matthew 12:40), the historical reality of Noah and the Flood (Matthew 24:37-39), the Exodus account of the wandering of the Israelites in the wilderness (John 6:49), the burning bush (Matthew 22:32), and the historicity of Adam and Eve (Matthew 19:5). The Old Testament was Christ’s Bible while He was on the earth.

Conclusion: So what? Is this is true, what does this mean to our lives? What does the Bible accomplish in our lives? Look back at the passage we started with:

1. Enables us to avoid deception (v. 14): Paul spent much of the early part of chapter 3 talking about deceivers. Then, in verse 14, he instructed Timothy (and us by extension) to “continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of.” He is saying that the way to avoid deception is to be grounded in the solid teaching of Scripture.

2. Enlightens us to the way of salvation (v.15): Romans 10:17 says, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” The Bible does not save us. Jesus is the Savior. However, the Bible teaches us about Christ and salvation. There is a crucial point here. If the Bible is not totally trustworthy, how do we know that we can trust Christ to save us? In other words, if our information about Jesus and salvation comes from the Bible, then that information is only as reliable as the Bible. Once again, Christ-not the Bible, is the Savior. However, the reliability of Jesus and the reliability of the Bible go hand in hand.

3. Educates us toward spiritual maturity (v. 16-17)
Profitable for doctrine-teaches us what to believe
Profitable for reproof-shows us what we should not believe, corrects our thinking
Profitable for correction-shows us what we should not do
Profitable for instruction in righteousness-teaches us how to live in order to please God and fulfill His will

4. Equips us for good works (v. 17)
-Share the gospel and lead to a commitment
-Challenge Christians to read and apply the Bible
-Ask skeptics to check it out for themselves or talk to us (offer them a Bible)
-Reminders about submitting questions, the guest luncheon, sharing it online, and coming back next week