Learning to be a Berean, Lesson 2

Berean Bible Study Notes

Learning to be a Berean - Lesson 2

Today's study: Bible Apologetics, External Evidence

This Bible study will cover some "apologetics" for the Bible. "Apologetics" means defense. Christian apologetics is the defense of the Christian faith. This is a huge and fascinating area. Many of today's best apologists began as atheists, working to prove that the Bible was invalid. Along the way they became convinced of the truth.

You would think that apologetics would be great for unbelievers, but it doesn't really work that way. They will explain it away almost to the point of silliness. There's a reason for that:

2 Corinthians 4:4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory Christ, who is the image of God.

It's the Holy Spirit's work that brings a person to see the truth. The atheists who became believers didn't become believers through the facts they were uncovering, but because the Holy Spirit took away their blindness and helped them believe the truth of God's Word. Their writings are GREAT for believers, though, especially with all the recent attacks on the Bible in popular media!

Satan has been working to remove, obscure or change God's Word from the very beginning. The very first words from him were, "Did God really say. . .?" That's his first tactic - to cast doubt about what God has said. After he casts doubt, the second thing he does is to change the meaning of God's Word.

Genesis 3
The Fall of Man
¹ Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
² The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³ but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "
⁴ "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. ⁵ "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

What was true then continues to be true today. The Bible is being attacked from all sides - from atheists, from people of other religions, and worst of all, from so-called Christians, like those of the Jesus Seminar and former Episcopalian Bishop, John Spong:

How can we as Christians continue to call the Bible the Word of God when many of its passages reflect facts that twentieth-century Christians simply do not acknowledge as true and attitudes that twentieth-century Christians do not share? . . . Can modern men and women continue to pretend that timeless, eternal, and unchanging truth has been captured in the words of a book that achieved its final written form midway into the second century of the common era?

- John Shelby Spong, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, HarperSanFrancisco, 1991

You'll find the Bible being downgraded in everything from Social Studies texts (my daughter's text says that the "Torah", the first five books of the Bible, were not written until after the Babylonian captivity), to the Media, to movies and popular books:

"The Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven"

"I beg your pardon?"

"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."

Dan Brown, The DaVinci Code, Doubleday, 2003, p. 245

There's a theme to many of these objections to the Bible - that we cannot trust the Bible that we have in our hands - that these are not really the words that God wanted recorded. They say that the Bible we have was not written until hundreds of years after the events. If they believe the Bible at all (and many don't), they pick and choose what they think was really from God and what wasn't. They say that many potential biblical texts were excluded on the basis of prejudice or wanting to limit "power" to a chosen few.

These objections are easily answered, and those that keep making them are either ignorant of the facts or are deliberately trying to deceive you. First of all, what does the Bible say about whether God preserves His Word or not?

Matthew 5:17-18 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

Luke 16:17 It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law.

1 Peter 1:24-25 For, "All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever."

A quote from Isaiah:

Isa 40:8 The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever."

Psalm 119

This whole Psalm is about the Word of God!

119:89 Your word, O LORD , is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens.
119:152 Long ago I learned from your statutes that you established them to last forever.
119:160 All your words are true; all your righteous laws are eternal.

So, either these words are true or they're not. God promises to preserve His Word. If that's not true, why should we believe anything else He promises? If someone is able to plant doubt in your mind about ANY of God's promises, they ALL start to erode for you.

The Old Testament

Let's begin with the Old Testament. The oldest book of the Bible is actually Job, probably written during the time when Noah's sons were still alive. The first five books of the Bible were written by Moses, in about 1440 B.C. The last book of the Old Testament, Malachi, was written about 440 B.C. So, the Old Testament spans at least 1,000 years. There were people who were specially trained to make copies of the Scriptures - the scribes. They used a system of numbering, where each section had a numerical value, once the values of all the letters were added up (each Hebrew letter had a numerical value). When they were done copying, they added up the values of the letters that they had just copied. If it didn't exactly match the original, the entire copied scroll was destroyed, and the scribe started over again. This was just one of the ways they maintained the accuracy of the text.

There were a series of empires that took over the nation of Israel: Babylon, then Persia, then Greece (Alexander the Great) then Rome. After Alexander the Great died with no sons, his lands were divided among his four generals. One of them, Ptolemy, got the land of Israel as part of the deal. He decided that all the great literary works of the peoples under his control should be translated into Greek. The Jews picked their 70 (or 72, some argue) best scholars and translated their Scriptures, and some other books, (called the "Apocrypha") into Greek between 300 and 200 B.C. The result was the Septuagint, the translation that was used by the New Testament writers (the translation that Jesus quotes from). Why is this important? Because it means that the Old Testament "canon" was set at least 200 years before Jesus was born. Although many of the books of the Bible were known as Scripture much, much earlier than that, even secular historians have to grant that it was certainly set by 200 B.C. [The Apocryphal books were included for their historical value, but were not considered Scripture by the Jews. Josephus, a Jewish historian who wrote during the time of Jesus, lists the same books of Scripture that we include in our Old Testaments today. The Jews simply had them in a different order. For more information, you can check out The Apocrypha, Deutero-Canonical Writings, The Apocrypha and the Biblical Canon (scroll down - there are several articles) or do a search on Apocrypha, "Biblical canon" at Google.]

How accurately has the Old Testament been preserved? In 1947, there was an amazing discovery of ancient scrolls. They had been hidden in caves by a Jewish group called the Essenes before 68 A.D. These scrolls became known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Among the scrolls were fragments of every Old Testament book except Esther, including a fully complete book of Isaiah. The scrolls dated from 200 B.C. to 68 A.D. at the latest. When scholars compared the text of Isaiah from the Dead Sea scrolls to the Hebrew of the Isaiah we have today, they were nearly identical, except for different spellings of about eight words.

So, the Old Testament was both set at least two hundred years before Christ and accurately preserved through the centuries. What about the New Testament? Liberal scholars and people like Dan Brown insist that a) It wasn't written until many, many years after the events b) It was never seen as "Scripture" until hundreds of years later c) It hasn't been accurately passed down through the ages and d) there were many writings that should have been included but were rejected.

When was the New Testament written?

In many, many places, the New Testament writers claim to be eyewitnesses of the events recorded. Either they really were, or they were liars:

Peter 1:16 We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

Rather than re-write a bunch of stuff, I'm going to quote part of the following page: The New Testament Documents and the Historicity of the Resurrection

Manuscript Evidence

We have today in our possession 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, another 10,000 Latin Vulgates, and 9,300 other early versions (MSS), giving us more than 24,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament in existence today! (taken from McDowell's Evidence That demands a Verdict, vol.1, 1972 pp. 40-48; Time, January 23, 1995, p. 57). Though we do not have any originals, with such a wealth of documentation at our disposal with which to compare, we can delineate quite closely what those originals contained. No other ancient writing of antiquity has as many MSS as the New Testament.

In fact, when we compare the works of antiquity with that of the NT documents, we will then see how superior the New Testament really is in terms of dating and number of MSS.

The Time Gap And The Number Of MSS:

Author

Date Written

Earliest Copy

Time Span

Copies (extent)

Secular Manuscripts:

Herodotus (History)

480 - 425 BC

900 AD

1,300 years

8

Thucydides (History)

460 - 400 BC

900 AD

1,300 years

?

Aristotle (Philosopher)

384 - 322 BC

1,100 AD

1,400 years

5

Caesar (History)

100 - 44 BC

900 AD

1,000 years

10

Pliny (History)

61 - 113 AD

850 AD

750 years

7

Suetonius (Roman History)

70 - 140 AD

950 AD

800 years

?

Tacitus (Greek History)

100 AD

1,100 AD

1,000 years

20

In comparison, we have copies of the NT which date approximately 15-20 years after the authors of scripture originally penned the autographs.

Biblical Manuscripts: (note: these are individual manuscripts):

Magdalene Ms (Matthew 26)

1st century

50-60 AD

coexistent(?)

John Rylands (John)

90 AD

130 AD

40 years

Bodmer Papyrus II (John)

90 AD

150-200 AD

60-110 years

Chester Beatty Papyri (NT)

1st cen.

200 AD

150 years

Diatessaron by Tatian (Gospels)

1st cen.

200 AD

150 years

Codex Vaticanus (Bible)

1st cen.

325-350 AD

275-300 years

Codex Sinaiticus (Bible)

1st cen.

350 AD

300 years

Codex Alexandrinus (Bible)

1st cen.

400 AD

350 years

Total New Testament manuscripts = 5,300 Greek MSS, 10,000 Latin Vulgates, 9,300 others = 24,000 copies. Total MSS compiled prior to 600 AD = 230. Some of the most important MSS include:

The John Ryland Papyri:

Manuscript portions of the Gospel of John, located in the John Ryland Library of Manchester, England and believed to be the oldest known fragment of the New Testament, dated AD 130, within 40 years of the original.

Lukan Papyrus:

"The Lukan papyrus, situated in a library in Paris has been dated to the late 1st century or early 2nd century, so it predates the John papyrus by 20-30 years (Time April 26, 1996, pg.8)."

Mark and Qumran:

"But of more importance are the manuscript findings of Mark and Matthew! New research which has now been uncovered by Dr. Carsten Thiede, and is published in his newly released book on the subject, the Jesus Papyrus mentions a fragment from the book of Mark found among the Qumran scrolls (fragment 7Q5) showing that it was written sometime before 68 AD It is important to remember that Christ died in 33 AD, so this manuscript could have been written, at the latest, within 35 years of His death; possibly earlier, and thus during the time that the eyewitnesses to that event were still alive!"

Magdelene Manuscript:

"The most significant find, however, is a manuscript fragment from the book of Matthew (chapt.26) called the Magdalene Manuscript which has been analyzed by Dr. Carsten Thiede, and also written up in his book The Jesus Papyrus. Using a sophisticated analysis of the handwriting of the fragment by employing a special state-of-the-art microscope, he differentiated between 20 separate micrometer layers of the papyrus, measuring the height and depth of the ink as well as the angle of the stylus used by the scribe. After this analysis Thiede was able to compare it with other papyri from that period; notably manuscripts found at Qumran (dated to 58 AD), another at Herculaneum (dated prior to 79 AD), a further one from the fortress of Masada (dated to between 73/74 AD), and finally a papyrus from the Egyptian town of Oxyrynchus. The Magdalene Manuscript fragments matches all four, and in fact is almost a twin to the papyrus found in Oxyrynchus, which bears the date of 65/66 AD Thiede concludes that these papyrus fragments of St. Matthew's Gospel were written no later than this date and probably earlier. That suggests that we either have a portion of the original gospel of Matthew, or an immediate copy, which was written while Matthew and the other disciples, and eyewitnesses to the events were still alive. This would be the oldest manuscript portion of our Bible in existence today, one which co-exists with the original writers!

"What is of even more importance is what it says. The Matthew 26 fragment uses in its text nomina sacra (holy names) such as the diminutive "IS" for Jesus and "KE" for Kurie or Lord (The Times, Saturday, December 24, 1994). This is highly significant for our discussion today, because it suggests that the godhead of Jesus was recognized centuries before it was accepted as official church doctrine at the council of Nicea in 325 AD There is still ongoing discussion concerning the exact dating of this manuscript. However, if the dates prove to be correct then this document alone completely eradicates the criticism leveled against the gospel accounts (such as the "Jesus Seminar") that the early disciples knew nothing about Christ's divinity, and that this concept was a later redaction imposed by the Christian community in the second century (AD)."

Dr. Carsten Thiede did this with an electron microscope. He compared these fragments with other fragments of known early dates from the Dead Sea Scrolls. The latest date for the Dead Sea Scrolls is 68 A.D., because the Essene community was destroyed by the Romans at that time. The scrolls in their possession had to have been hidden before that time.

So that was a lot of information there. What does it all mean? It shows that the earliest manuscripts (which were themselves copies) of the New Testament dated to within just a few years of Jesus crucifixion and resurrection. That means that the original writings really were eyewitness accounts, made while other eyewitnesses (including potentially hostile ones who would have refuted the writings if they could) were still alive.

We also know that the New Testament was written early because of quotations from it by the Early Church Fathers. Quoting from that same page,

"Of the four gospels alone there are 19,368 citations by the church fathers from the late first century on. This includes 268 by Justin Martyr (100-165), 1038 by Ireneaus (active in the late second century), 1017 by Clement of Alexandria (ca. 155-ca. 220), 9231 by Origen (ca. 185-ca. 254), 3822 by Tertullian (ca. 160s-ca. 220), 734 by Hippolytus (d. ca. 236) and 325 by Eusebius (ca. 265-ca. 339...) Earlier, Clement of Rome cited Matthew, John, 1 Corinthians in 95 to 97. Ignatius referred to six Pauline Epistles in about 110, and between 110 and 150 Polycarp quoted from all four Gospels, Acts and most of Paul's Epistles. Shepherd of Hermas (115-140) cited Matthew, Mark, Acts, I Corinthians, and other books. Didache (120-150) referred to Matthew, Luke, 1 Corinthians, and other books. Papias, companion of Polycarp, who was a disciple of the apostle John, quoted John. This argues powerfully that the Gospels were in existence before the end of the first century, while some eyewitnesses (including John) were still alive." (Norman Geisler, Encyclopedia, pp. 529-530)

Some people have said that the entire New Testament could be reconstructed simply from the quotations of these early church fathers.

The following article has good information about the value of the Dead Sea Scrolls:

Extraordinary Evidence About Jesus in the Dead Sea Scrolls

More interesting articles:

The Magdalen Papyrus

The Magdalen Fragments

When were the New Testament writings seen as Scripture?

From the Bible itself, we know that much of the New Testament writings were seen as Scripture immediately.

1 Thessalonians 2:13 And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.

2 Peter 3:16 (Paul) writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

Paul cites Luke 10:7 alongside Deut 25:4:

1 Tim 5:18 For the Scripture says, "Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain,"(Deut. 25:4) and "The worker deserves his wages."(Luke 10:7)

1 Thessalonians 5:27 I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers.

In this last verse, you can also see that the New Testament writings were making the rounds of the churches while the apostles were still among them.

Most of the New Testament books were accepted as Scripture by the second century, as evidenced by the many quotations in the Early Church Father's writings. There were some that were in doubt, such as Hebrews and Revelation, primarily because their authorship hadn't been established with certainty.

On the Formation of the NT Canon

We come now to the heretic who is credited more than any other for forcing the issue of the creation of a canon - the man who "tabled once and for all the question of a new canon." [VonCamp.FCB, 147ff.] This was the heretic Marcion.

(I)n July 144 AD, he (Marcion) was called upon by the clergy in Rome to expound upon some views of his that he had been promulgating. . His basic idea was that the God of the OT was incompatible with the Jesus of the NT - and so he sought to sever the connection between the two. He believed in a sort of Zoroastrian dualism with the OT God being the just and severe Creator, and the NT God a god of love. To the end of promoting his view, Marcion went through the Pauline epistles, choosing only some of them (Galatians, the Corinthian letters, Romans, the Thessalonian letters, Ephesians [as Laodecians], Colossians, Philippians, and Philemon - Harr.IC, 210) and "removed whatever he judged were interpolations - that is, anything that did not agree with his understanding of what Paul should have written." [Metzg.NT, 93] He also gutted the Gospel of Luke for his purposes, accepting only about 3/4 of it as authentic [Knox.MarcNT, 3] and with the sliced-and-diced Pauline epistles, created his own informal "canon." The result of his changes, which were in the main omissions with a few additions and substitutions [Black.Marc, 47], was a set of books completely emasculated of Jewish elements, "an anti-Jewish rejection of both the value of the OT scriptures and the Jewish influence on the Christian community"[MacD.FormCB, 155]. The Marcionite churches promoted a few other oddities: For example, Marcionism forbade marriage and children, so that (like the modern Shakers) all converts had to come from outside. No one was born a Marcionite - not legally in their view, at any rate!

Some things should be noted here:

It is obvious that a collection of Paul's Epistles existed at the time for Marcion to pick apart: "Gamble is undoubtedly correct in assuming that Marcion took over an existing collection of Paul's writings." (ibid., 157) This is a sign of a literal "pre-canon," or an idea of a canon, quite some time before the fourth century, even if it was not a closed canon. Metzger therefore notes that Marcion did not create the idea of a canon, but did accelerate a process of fixing the canon that had already begun! (On the other hand, it seems that the Marcionite heresy caused some reactionary church officials, including Justin Martyr, to avoid quoting Paul for a while.)
Marcion appealed to the authority of the writings of the Apostle Paul. Even though he conformed the texts to his own ideas, he clearly realized that only with apostolic authority could his ideas get anywhere; for heretics likely had to "justify their vagaries by appeals to acknowledged standards." [Harr.IC, 210]
The above point is magnified when we read of Ireaneaus' complaint concerning Marcion: "He persuaded his disciples that he was more trustworthy than the apostles who transmitted the gospel." [Gran.FormNT, 125]To have to persuade his followers of this presumes that Marcion was stepping on what was already regarded as authority - and thus we see "apostolic authority" as a criteria in action!
It is an interesting question, too, as to WHY Marcion would have drawn up such a list, if other "lists" did not already exist. Where would Marcion have gotten the exemplar to argue as he did? Being that Marcion was manifestly a copycat, it seems quite likely that he got his idea for a list from somewhere else - and we have seen that a previously-established collection of Pauline epistles were at the core of his scheme.

The idea that the New Testament books were not seen as Scripture until centuries after they were written can be proven false from the Bible itself. The accounts were written by apostles who were eyewitnesses to the events or those very close to eyewitnesses (like Luke) and they were seen as Scripture immediately. There is much more that you can read about this. Here are just a few of many, many articles available:

A Brief History of the Bible

The Bible delivered to us today

How did we get the Bible?

The Bible: An Extraterrestrial Message (audio messages)

Were the New Testament documents transmitted accurately through the centuries?

Some liberal scholars and other critics try to make a case out of the variations between the various manuscripts. Even very conservative Christians will emphasize the variations in their attempt to put one translation ahead of others. (We'll get more into that in another Bible study). Yes, there are variations (as there will be anytime something is hand copied many times), but they are slight, and they are not necessarily "errors." In the 24,000 manuscripts available, there are supposedly 200,000 "errors." That sounds like a huge number, but you have to know how they're counted, and what they are talking about. Anytime there is a variation of ANY kind, it is counted as a variant reading or an "error." For example, if one word in one verse is spelled with just one letter different, and that variation appears in 2000 manuscripts, it's considered 2000 variants. Even with these slight variations, 99% of the text is unaffected. There are very few that change any meaning, and even those that do don't affect any doctrine. The texts that have "missing" information have that same information elsewhere.

We'll talk more about translation issues in another Bible study. For now, please know that the Greek and Hebrew texts that modern translators have available to them have been accurately preserved through the centuries.

Here is another good article with a bit quoted below:

The New Testament Documents and the Historicity of the Resurrection

Some critics have tried to debunk the NT documents due to the variant readings that exist between the MSS. Geisler responds:

"There is widespread misunderstanding among critics about 'errors' in the biblical manuscripts. Some have estimated there are about 200,000 of them. First of all, these are not 'errors' but variant readings, the vast majority of which are strictly grammatical. Second, these readings are spread throughout the more than 5300 manuscripts, so that a variant spelling of one letter in one verse in 2000 manuscripts is counted as 2000 'errors.' Textual scholars Westcott and Hort estimated that only one in sixty of these variants have significance. This would leave a text 98.33 percent pure. Philip Schaff calculated that, of the 150,000 variants known in his day, only 400 changed the meaning of the passage, only fifty were of real significance, and not even one affected 'an article of faith or a precept of duty which is not abundantly sustained by other and undoubted passages, or by the whole tenor of Scripture teaching' (Schaff, 177).

"Most other ancient books are not so well authenticated. New Testament scholar Bruce Metzger estimated that the Mahabharata of Hinduism is copied with only about 90 percent accuracy and Homer's Illiad with about 95 percent. By comparison, HE ESTIMATED THE NEW TESTAMENT IS ABOUT 99.5 PERCENT ..." (Geisler, Encyclopedia, pp. 532-533)

B. F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort, the editors of The New Testament in Original Greek, also commented:

"If comparative trivialities such as changes of order, the insertion or omission of the article with proper names, and the like are set aside, the works in our opinion still subject to doubt can hardly mount to more than a thousandth part of the whole New Testament." (B.F. Westcott, and F.J.A. Hort, eds., New Testament in Original Greek, 1881, vol. II, 2.)

Were texts left out that should have been included?

You're going to run into people or books that say this. You'll see titles like "The Lost Gospels" and other such things. When the apostles started to preach the good news, there were immediately people who started to twist their message - the Gnostics. Many of the epistles in the Bible speak against these ideas and false teachers who were trying to creep in. Many of the writings of the Early Church Fathers were against these same heresies. The Gnostic ideas were clearly recognized as heresy from the very beginning. There were very good reasons why their writings were rejected!!

Gnosticism (What is gnosticism)

Gnosticism was built on Greek philosophy that taught matter was evil and the Spirit was good. They taught docetism, a dualism which promoted a clear separation between the material and spiritual world. Christian Gnostics said since matter was evil, God could not really incarnate in a human body, He only appeared in human form and only appeared to suffer, it was an illusion. It was stated when Jesus walked on the sand you could know by seeing his footprints that were left. In this Jesus could be a pure spiritual being in an evil world and not be contaminated by it.

The Gnostics supposedly had knowledge of God that was exclusive. They considered themselves superior to the average Christian. The Gnostics prior to Christianity taught that man is composed of body, soul, and spirit. The body and the soul are man's earthly existence, and were considered evil. Enclosed in mans soul, is the spirit, a divine substance of man. This "spirit" was asleep and ignorant and needed to be awakened. It could only be liberated by this special knowledge, that would be called by the modern term illumination. (This teaching is also found in Caballa.)

Writers of the New Testament (the apostles) condemned the Gnostic teachings. There are numerous epistles that address this ancient heresy that is now having a revival. Paul emphasized a wisdom and knowledge that comes from God and does not concern itself with idle speculations, angelic visitations, fables, and a amoral lifestyle (Col. 2:8-23; 1 Tim. 1:4; 2 Tim. 2:16-19; Titus 1:10-16). Paul addresses the Gnostic influences in portions of Colossians as a direct threat to Christ being our salvation and His being sufficient in all things. To overcome the indulgences of the flesh (the "Colossian Heresy" ) the Gnostics taught a false philosophy, which denied the all-sufficiency and pre-eminence of Jesus Christ (Col. 2:8). When he wrote that "in him dwells All the fullness of the deity bodily" it was a rebuttal against the Gnostics.

Salvation to the Gnostics came by knowledge and experience. Those who did not have this knowledge (esoteric truth) were associated with ignorance. They received direct revelation from the Spirit which was more important than the word.

Peter's second letter shows his feelings (and God's!) about these people:

2 Peter 2
False Teachers and Their Destruction
¹But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them--bringing swift destruction on themselves. ²Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. ³In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.

^{17These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. ¹⁸For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error.}

Why the 'Lost Gospels' Lost Out

The philosophy behind Gnosticism is seeing a tremendous revival right now, even in Christian churches. They won't call it Gnosticism, of course, but this idea that you can experience God directly through certain techniques is spreading like wildfire. I have a page on it here, and many others do also, such as this one on Neo-Gnosticism.

Archeology and the Bible

There has not been one archeological discovery that has disproved the Bible. On the contrary, new findings support what the Bible says to be true. The following information is from this link:

Archeology and the Bible

The discovery of the Ebla archive in northern Syria in the 1970s has shown the Biblical writings concerning the Patriarchs to be viable. Documents written on clay tablets from around 2300 B.C. demonstrate that personal and place names in the Patriarchal accounts are genuine. The name "Canaan" was in use in Ebla, a name critics once said was not used at that time and was used incorrectly in the early chapters of the Bible. The word "tehom" ("the deep") in Genesis 1:2 was said to be a late word demonstrating the late writing of the creation story. "Tehom" was part of the vocabulary at Ebla, in use some 800 years before Moses. Ancient customs reflected in the stories of the Patriarchs have also been found in clay tablets from Nuzi and Mari.

The Hittites were once thought to be a Biblical legend, until their capital and records were discovered at Bogazkoy, Turkey. Many thought the Biblical references to Solomon's wealth were greatly exaggerated. Recovered records from the past show that wealth in antiquity was concentrated with the king and Solomon's prosperity was entirely feasible. It was once claimed there was no Assyrian king named Sargon as recorded in Isaiah 20:1, because this name was not known in any other record. Then, Sargon's palace was discovered in Khorsabad, Iraq. The very event mentioned in Isaiah 20, his capture of Ashdod, was recorded on the palace walls. What is more, fragments of a stela memorializing the victory were found at Ashdod itself.

Another king who was in doubt was Belshazzar, king of Babylon, named in Daniel 5. The last king of Babylon was Nabonidus according to recorded history. Tablets were found showing that Belshazzar was Nabonidus' son who served as co-regent in Babylon. Thus, Belshazzar could offer to make Daniel "third highest ruler in the kingdom" (Dan. 5:16) for reading the handwriting on the wall, the highest available position. Here we see the "eye-witness" nature of the Biblical record, as is so often brought out by the discoveries of archaeology.

Archeology and the Bible

Author	Date Written	Earliest Copy	Time Span	Copies (extent)
Secular Manuscripts:
Herodotus (History)	480 - 425 BC	900 AD	1,300 years	8
Thucydides (History)	460 - 400 BC	900 AD	1,300 years	?
Aristotle (Philosopher)	384 - 322 BC	1,100 AD	1,400 years	5
Caesar (History)	100 - 44 BC	900 AD	1,000 years	10
Pliny (History)	61 - 113 AD	850 AD	750 years	7
Suetonius (Roman History)	70 - 140 AD	950 AD	800 years	?
Tacitus (Greek History)	100 AD	1,100 AD	1,000 years	20
In comparison, we have copies of the NT which date approximately 15-20 years after the authors of scripture originally penned the autographs.
Biblical Manuscripts: (note: these are individual manuscripts):
Magdalene Ms (Matthew 26)	1st century	50-60 AD	coexistent(?)
John Rylands (John)	90 AD	130 AD	40 years
Bodmer Papyrus II (John)	90 AD	150-200 AD	60-110 years
Chester Beatty Papyri (NT)	1st cen.	200 AD	150 years
Diatessaron by Tatian (Gospels)	1st cen.	200 AD	150 years
Codex Vaticanus (Bible)	1st cen.	325-350 AD	275-300 years
Codex Sinaiticus (Bible)	1st cen.	350 AD	300 years
Codex Alexandrinus (Bible)	1st cen.	400 AD	350 years