April 30, 2006

“Our God Is All-Knowing”

The Da Vinci Code: The Truth Behind the Fiction

Secrets of the Old Testament

Prayer and Scripture: John

 

“Test everything.  Hold on to the good.”

1 Thessalonians 5:21

·       This morning we’re going to see how trustworthy the Old Testament really is.  Last week, we talked about the fact that the Bible refers to itself as the inspired word of God, which is nice.  But are there outside sources that verify the genuineness of the Old Testament?  You bet!  In fact, there is so much evidence that we’ll be breaking it down into two weeks…this week we’ll look at the reliability of the OT and next week we’ll look at the reliability of the NT.

·       So why is all this research important?  God doesn’t expect us to check our brains at the door when we come to church.  I agree with Erwin Lutzer who says: “Religion, if it is worth believing, must be based on facts.  Yes, there is room for faith, but unless it is faith in facts, faith is not only useless but destructive….The Bible cannot afford to have historical errors.  We are encouraged to believe its doctrines because of the reliability of its history….In fact, the reliability of the earthly matters gives us confidence in the reliability of the heavenly matters that are beyond the realm of human investigation….The bottom line is that the Bible has to be reliable about the things of this earth if we are to believe it about the things of heaven.  We cannot let the biblical writers off the hook, making excuses for their failures.  In their case, even a few minor errors would be fatal to the whole document.”  (Seven Reasons Why You Can Trust The Bible, 65-66)  Today we’re going to look at some tangible sources that prove the reliability of the Old Testament and that it truly is the inspired, inherent word of God.

·       Now if you’re here today and would consider yourself a skeptic, I’m glad you’re here.  And I’m not naïve enough to think that something I say today is going to immediately change your mind about God and the Bible.  But I do hope that you’ll at least think about the things that you hear today.  So what we’ll do for the rest of this series is to look at specific quotes from the book that raise questions and then we’ll look at the other side of the issues.  Again, my goal is not that you have ammunition to attack and debate those issues with people who are asking you questions…instead, I want you to be able to have dialogue with them so that when they ask you a question as a result of reading the book, you’ll be able to answer intelligently.

·       The quotes we’re going to look at today are these: “The Bible is a product of man…Not of God…. 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.”  (231).

·       “The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1950’s hidden in a cave near Qumran in the Judean desert.  And, of course, the Coptic Scrolls in 1945 at Nag Hammadi (we’ll look at these next week since they primarily deal with NT texts).  In addition to telling the true Grail story, these documents speak of Christ’s ministry in very human terms.  Of course, the Vatican, in keeping with their tradition of misinformation, tried very hard to suppress the release of these scrolls.  And why wouldn’t they?  The scrolls highlight glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications, clearly confirming that the modern Bible was compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda—to promote the divinity of the man Jesus Christ and use His influence to solidify their own power base.”  (234).

·       There are six questions raised by these quotes that we need to take a look at: 

1.  How do I know that the Bible wasn’t written merely by men who claimed their words were the very words of God?

2. Who were the men that wrote the Old Testament?  What qualifications did they have?  Why did they think they were recording the words of God?  

3. How did we get the 39 books of the Old Testament?  How do we know that these are the right books? 

4. Is it true that history has never hade a definitive version of the OT part of the Bible?

5. Has the Old Testament gone through countless translations, additions and revisions?

6. Do the Dead Sea scrolls reveal “glaring historical discrepancies and

    fabrications” as Brown alludes too?

·       So let’s begin by addressing QUESTION #1: How do I know that the Bible wasn’t written merely by men who claimed their words were the very words of God?  ANSWER: Fulfilled Biblical prophecy confirmed by the Scriptures and archeological discoveries.

·       There are many more prophecies than we can cover today.  Fulfilled Biblical prophecy breaks down into two primary categories:  approximately 107 General Predictions and 98 Messianic Prophecies that point to Jesus Christ being the promised Messiah (we’ll look more at that in two weeks),  plus Jesus made 45 predictions Himself.  Fulfilled prophecy is one of the key ways to prove that the Bible wasn’t merely written by men: to predict events in the future requires supernatural revelation.

·       Ralph Muncaster, an engineer and former atheist, set out to disprove the Bible and reveal it to be a book of myths and superstitions.  In his book, A Skeptic’s Search for God, Ralph developed a statistical test that he applied to the Bible in regard to prophecy.  He felt that a perfect God should be able to make a perfect book so it made sense to him that if he could discredit the claims of prophecy in the Bible he could destroy its credibility.  As he studied the Bible further, he found that the Bible itself challenges its readers to test it using prophecy and that God alone knows the future.  Isaiah 41:21-23: “’Present your case,’ says the LORD. ‘Set forth your arguments,’ says Jacob’s King.  ‘Bring in your idols to tell us what is going to happen.  Tell us what the former things were, so that we may consider them and know their final outcome.  Or declare to us the things to come, tell us what the future holds, so we may know that you are gods. Do something, whether good or bad, so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear.’” 

·       Isaiah 46:8-10: “Remember this, fix it in mind, take it to heart, you rebels. Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me.  I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.”

·       Muncaster says, “I was somewhat surprised by the Bible’s arrogant-seeming boast about its God being the God, and that there were no others.  I was surprised by the law that prophecy be 100-percent perfect (according to Deut. 18:20 if a prophecy did not come true, the prophet was killed: we’ll look at that in a minute).  In probability testing only an acceptable degree of statistical significance is necessary to reach a conclusion—not perfection.  But I reminded myself that a perfect God of the universe would be able to perfectly predict the future in any writing or person he inspired, just as the Bible had declared….I decided to examine each testament individually to see if either could clearly point to a God through 100-percent accurate historical prophecy.” (A Skeptic’s Search for God, 131 & 135).

·       So, Muncaster applied his 100-percent accuracy statistic to over 118 different Biblical prophecies in the Old Testament and found that they were all true.  He says,  “The statistical prophecy testing I was going through was hitting me like a ton of bricks.  My rational mind told me it was impossible.  After all, hadn’t man written the Bible?  Yet, something was quite amazing—almost frightening.  How could books written centuries in advance predict the future?  And with 100-percent accuracy?” (A Skeptic’s Search for God, 146)

·       Statistically, he determined that for these 118 prophecies to occur randomly would be 10 with 118 zeros!  That would be like winning 17 state lotteries in a row by just buying 1 ticket for each or like being struck by lightning 24 times in one year.  It isn’t going to happen.  The chances of all 118 prophecies happening randomly is 10 with 118 zeros after it…IMPOSSIBLE.  If you want to gain unbelievable confidence that the Bible we have is true…just look at the fulfilled prophecies.

·       Not only can you see the amazing credibility of the Bible through fulfilled prophecies, you can see it through archeological evidence.  Obviously, I don’t have time to show you all the secular evidence revealed through archeological findings and the records of secular history to prove the genuineness of the Bible.  But let me take a minute and go over a couple of archeological discoveries.

·       Sodom and Gomorrah.  The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is found in Genesis 19:24-25.  “Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land.”  Until recently, this story was thought to be stupid and superstitious.

·       In his book, New Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Josh McDowell notes: “Evidence points to earthquake activity, and that the various layers of the earth were disrupted and hurled high into the air.  Bitumen is plentiful there, and an accurate description would be that brimstone (bituminous pitch) was hurled down on those cities that had rejected God.  There is evidence that the layers of sedimentary rock have been molded together by intense heat.  Evidence of such burning has been found on the top of Jebel Usdum (Mt. Sodom).”  (95).

·       The Walls of Jericho.  In Joshua chapter 6, we find an interesting story.  Look at verses 2-5:“Then the LORD said to Joshua, ‘See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the people will go up, every man straight in.”

·       In verse 20 it says, “When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city.”  For years critics of the Bible said this could never happen…it’s just another myth or fable of the Bible.  Time Magazine, March 5, 1990 in an article entitled: “Score One for the Bible: Fresh clues support the story of Joshua at the walls of Jericho” makes some interesting observations.  The writer, Michael Lemonick says in reference to Joshua 6:20: “It is one of the most dramatic events chronicled in the Old Testament, but for generations scholars have debated whether the Israelites’ assault on Jericho was fact or myth.” 

·       And then he goes on to talk about the excavation work done by the late British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon who studied at the site of Jericho for six years and by the way, wasn’t a Christian.  Lemonick in this article goes on to say: “Kenyon’s discoveries at Jericho were largely consistent with the Bible story.  For one thing, she found that the city’s walls had fallen in a way suggestive of sudden collapse….Moreover, Kenyon found bushels of grain on the site.  That is consistent with the Bible’s assertions that Jericho was conquered quickly.  If the city had capitulated after a long siege, the grain would have been used up….A thick layer of soot at the site, which according to radioactive carbon 14 dating was laid down about 1400 B.C., supports the biblical idea that the city was burned, not simply conquered.” (Michael D. Lemonick, Time Magazine March 5, 1990: “Score One for the bible: Fresh clues support the story of Joshua at the walls of Jericho”)

·       King David.  For years Bible critics scoffed at the Biblical record of King David and his son Solomon’s dynasty.  They said that there is no archaeological or historical proof outside of the Bible that existed.  Professor Philip R. Davis said, “I am not the only scholar who suspects that the figure of King David is about as historical as King Arthur.” (Philip R. Davis, Biblical Archaeology Review July-Aug. 2004:55.)  In fact, there are many textbooks used in universities and liberal seminaries that reject the Biblical records of King David.

·       Imagine these skeptics’ surprise when Avraham Biran and his Israeli archeological team discovered an ancient stone inscription at Tell Dan near the ancient city of Dan. On the stone, written in Aramaic it referred to “the house of David” and “The King Of Israel”.  Avraham Biran said of this find: “This is the fist time that the name David has been found in any ancient inscription outside the Bible.  That the inscription refers not simply to a ‘David’ but to the House of David, the dynasty of the great Israelite king, is even more remarkable.”  (Biblical Archeological Review Mar-Apr. 1994:26.)

·       In his book, Jesus: The Great Debate, author Grant Jeffrey notes: “A review of recent archeological books and articles reveals that evidence has also been found in this century that confirms the historical existence of the following biblical kings: Ahab, Ahaz, Omri, Hezekiah, Hoshea, Jehu, Jeroboam II, Manasseh, and Pekah.” (Jesus: The Great Debate: Grant Jeffrey, 42.)  And I could go on and on but we don’t have time.

·       Nelson Glueck, a Reformed Jewish scholar who is not a Christian says, “It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical reference.  Scores of archaeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or in exact detail historical statements in the Bible.  And by the same token, proper evaluation of Biblical descriptions has often led to amazing discoveries.” (Rivers in the Desert: Nelson Glueck, 31.)

·       Respected scholar Dr. J.O. Kinnaman, said: “Of the hundreds of thousands of artifacts found by the archeologists, not one has ever been discovered that contradicts or denies one word, phrase, clause, or sentence of the Bible, but always confirms and verifies the facts of the biblical record.” (Jesus: The Great Debate: Grant Jeffrey, 41.)

·       So, as you can see both through fulfilled Biblical prophecy, archeology and the historic record, it would be impossible for mere men to write the Bible.  How can a mere man predict the future with 100% accuracy?  How can mere men look out over hundreds of years and identify world leaders, empires and predict the outcome of wars?  The only way to explain it is as Peter did: “For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”  (2 Peter 1:20-21)

·       Which brings us to QUESTION #2: Who were the men that wrote the Old Testament?  What qualifications did they have?  Why did they think they were recording the words of God?  Interestingly, the Bible asks the same question in Deuteronomy 18:21-22: “You may say to yourselves.  ‘How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD?’  If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken.  That prophet has spoken presumptuously.”  Answer:  The Prophets were the ones who wrote the words of God in the Old Testament.  Now, anybody can SAY they are a prophet with a Word from God…who’s to know the difference?”  Not too many people were willing to fake it because if they were convicted of it they got the death penalty.

·       Deuteronomy 18:20 says: “But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of others gods, must be put to death.”  Harsh? Not if you understand how zealous God is about what He says.  He wanted no confusion about His word.

·       So how did the prophets know when they were writing the words of God? Did this prophetic gift carry over into everything they wrote?  If they wrote a love letter to their wife, was that inspired too?  That’s a good question.  There are various phrases in the Old Testament that reveal when God was speaking.  “The word of the Lord…” this phrase is used 219 times in the Old Testament referring to the very words of God or the words of God that were to be recorded or obeyed.  “Write this…”  Sometimes God would just tell the prophet what to write.  Exodus 14:14 says:  “Then the LORD said to Moses, “Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it…”

·       Isaiah 8:1 says:  “The LORD said to me, “Take a large scroll and write on it with an ordinary pen…”   Jeremiah 30:2 says:  “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Write in a book all the words I have spoken to you.”  Ezekiel 37:16 says:  “Son of man, take a stick of wood and write on it…”   Habakkuk 2:2:  “Then the LORD replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets…”  

·       “…says the Lord…”  Often in the Old Testament you know when God is speaking because He says so.  For example: “The multitude of your sacrifices—what are they to me?” says the LORD.” (Isaiah 1:11) “Because of the oppression of the weak and the groaning of the needy, I will now arise,” says the LORD.”  (Psalm 12:5)   “Therefore tell the people: This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Return to me,’ declares the LORD Almighty, ‘and I will return to you,’ says the LORD Almighty.” (Zechariah 1:3)

·       “…the LORD’S Command…Sometimes God would reveal his will through commands.  There are over 100 of these in the Old Testament; I’ll give you a couple examples: “This was the total of those in the Gershonite clans who served at the Tent of Meeting. Moses and Aaron counted them according to the LORD’S command.” (Numbers 4:41) “Give Aaron and his sons this command…” (Leviticus 6:9)  So, suffice it to say that when prophets were speaking or writing the words of the LORD, they knew it.

·       Which brings us to QUESTION #3: How did we get the 39 books of the Old Testament?   How do we know that these are the right books?  Answer:  The Prophets.  We’ve already seen that the Prophets wrote the Old Testament, but how do we know that the books we have are the right ones handed down from the beginning?

·       First of all, we need to look at the order of the Old Testament.  The original Hebrew Bible was divided into three main sections.  Section One:  The Law (Torah): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.  Section Two: The Prophets (Nebhim)  Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings [Former Prophets], Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, The Twelve [Latter Prophets].  Section Three: The Writings (Kethubhim): Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Esther, Ecclesiastes, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles [Historical Books].

·       Now, our English version of the OT breaks these books down differently.  In their book, A General Introduction to the Bible, Geisler and Nix write: “Although the Christian church has the same Old Testament canon, the number of books differs because we divide Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, and Ezra-Nehemiah into two books each, and we make separate books out of the Minor Prophets rather than combining them into one, as the Jews do under the heading ‘TheTwelve.’  The church has also altered the order of books, adopting a topical arrangement instead of an official order.” (23.)  Ralph Muncaster says: “The Torah was essentially accepted at the time of Moses (about 1450 B.C.)….and the entire Tanakh (Old Testament) had essentially been accepted by the Jewish people by 167 B.C. (around the time of the Maccabean revolt).”  (A Skeptic’s Search for God, 234.)

·       Jesus Himself attested to the genuineness of the Old Testament.  In Luke 24:44 at the last supper, He said to his disciples, “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”  F.F. Bruce writes: “He indicated the three sections into which the Hebrew Bible was divided—the Law, the Prophets, and the ‘Writings’ (here called ‘the Psalms,’ probably because the Book of Psalms is the first and longest book in the this third section).” (F.F. Bruce, The Books and the Parchments: How We Got Our English Bible: 96.)

·       Ralph Muncaster notes:  “By the time Jesus was teaching, there was widespread knowledge among his thousands of hearers of what was meant by ‘Scripture’.  There were no doubts about which books were and were not included.  In A.D. 70 exactly the same books of Scripture used by Jesus and others were recognized as the official canon by the Jewish religious authorities—the same books in use today by both Jews and Christians.” (A Skeptic’s Search for God, 167.)

·       But maybe you’re thinking  “How do I know that the words that Luke recorded are the words of Christ?”  We’ll get to that, next week - I just wanted to point it out to you.  We know where we got the 39 books in the Old Testament, from the prophets, and one of the reasons we know that they are the “right” books because we have the same OT Scriptures as the Jews use today.

·       Which brings us to QUESTION #4: Is it true that history has never had a definitive version of the OT part of the Bible?  As we’ve already seen in question three, history has had a definitive version of at least the Old Testament, the Jews have used it for thousands of years and these scriptures have been preserved with incredible accuracy through scribes.

·       But there’s a deeper question here than the one Dan Brown raises and that is this: Since much of the Bible was written thousands of years ago, the original copies lost over time as a result of the perishable materials they were written on, how do we know that the scribes didn’t make errors in their copies?  Answer: They were very, very, very careful.  I don’t have time to go into great detail about this now but suffice it to say that the scribes had very serious rules for copying the scriptures which made them incredibly accurate.

·       Let me give you just a few as an example.

1.   Scribes were trained until they were 30 years old.

2.   Each letter of the scroll was visually confirmed, one by one with the master scroll.

3.   A thread was often placed between letters to ensure separation and accuracy.

4.   Each letter in the each scroll was counted, and the count was compared to the master scroll.

5.   Each word in the scroll was counted and compared to the master scroll.

6.   The middle letter in each entire copied scroll was located and compared to the Master.

7.   If a single mistake was found, the scroll was destroyed.

Adapted from Ralph Muncaster:

A Skeptic’s Search for God, 137-138.

 

·       QUESTION #5: Has the Old Testament gone through countless translations, additions and revisions?  This is a ridiculous question.  Why, because of the answer to question #6.  Frankly, the definitive answer to questions 3,4, & 5 are summed up in the documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls. 

·       QUESTION #6:  Do the Dead Sea scrolls reveal “glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications” as Brown alludes too?  First of all, let me just make three clear-cut statements.

1.   The Dead Sea Scrolls reveal concretely that the 39 books we have in our Bible today are accurate copies of the same Scriptures used by the Jews thousands of years ago.

2.   The Dead Sea Scrolls prove conclusively that a definitive version of at least the Old Testament has survived. (We’ll look at the NT, next week)

3.   The Dead Sea Scrolls reveal that there has been little or no corruption of the original Old Testament texts as The Da Vinci Code implies.

 

Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical scholars were hard pressed to refute their critics.  Prior to 1947 (when the first scrolls were found) the earliest Old Testament manuscript we had was used by the King James translators dated at around A.D. 1100.  This was obviously a copy of a copy of a copy.  How could we know that this copy was authentic and uncorrupted?

 

·       When the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, we had our answers.  Grant Jeffery notes: “The most incredible find was discovered in Cave Four at Qumran—an immense library of biblical manuscripts that contained almost all of the books of the Old Testament (with the exception of the book of Esther).  In fact, multiple copies of several biblical texts that had lain undisturbed in the desert caves for almost two thousand years….After carefully comparing the biblical manuscripts, they discovered that, aside from a tiny number of spelling variations, there were no significant differences between the original scrolls in the caves and the Hebrew texts used to produce the Authorized King James Version of 1611.” (Jesus: The Great Debate: Grant Jeffrey, 59-60.)  The Dead Sea Scrolls do not reveal “glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications” at all; quite the contrary.  These scrolls have given us credible evidence that the copies of the Old Testament manuscripts we have been using are authentic.

·       The late Dr. William F. Albright of Johns Hopkins University was widely recognized as one of the leading archaeologists of Biblical times.  He said: “My heartiest congratulations on the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times!...What an absolutely incredible find!  And there can happily not be the slightest doubt in the world about the genuineness of the manuscript.” (Ralph Earle, How We Got Our Bible, 48-49.)

·       Friends, every time you test the Bible it comes up true.  The genuineness of the Bible has been challenged for thousands of years…and as we have seen today, there is credible evidence to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the Scriptures we have today in the form of the OT are incredibly reliable.

·       Coming next week: We will apply a similar approach to establishing the genuineness of the New Testament and answer the questions raised by the Da Vinci Code.  Was the Bible put together by Constantine for political purposes?  Why were the Gnostic Gospels (the 80 other Gospels Brown refers to on page 231) not considered for the New Testament Canon? 

·       Thanks for sticking with me on this.  These truths are so important we can’t ignore them.  Let’s pray.