“Our God Never Changes”
New Testament Revelations
The Da Vinci Code: The Truth Behind the Book
Prayer and Scripture: Emma
· Today
we’re going to answer some of the same questions for the New Testament that we
answered for the Old Testament last week that we raised from a quote on page
231: “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.
· Also
on page 231 of Dan Brown’s book, one of the characters points out that the 66
books we have in the Bible today were included
and canonized by Emperor Constantine the Great whom Brown says was a
pagan, and to which the book refers to as:
“The fundamental irony of Christianity!” The Da Vinci Code: Dan Brown, 231. On
then again, on page 234 it says: “Constantine commissioned and financed a
new Bible…”
· So,
the questions we are going to tackle today are these:
· How
do we know that the 27 books of the New Testament were not just written by men
who said their words were God’s words?
· How
did we get the 27 books in the New Testament? Is it true that history has never
had a definitive version of the New Testament?
· Has
the New Testament gone through countless translations, additions and revisions?
·
Who was Emperor Constantine, was he a Christian,
did he commission and finance a new Bible and was it he who canonized the New
Testament books? And what does the word
canonized even mean? So, let’s get to
it and see if we can provide some kind of credible response to these questions.
· QUESTION #1:
How do we know that the 27
books of the New Testament were not just written by men who said their words
were God’s words?
· Last
week we said that one of the strongest evidences that proves the Bible is the
inspired word of God is its predictive prophecies. There is no way that a human being could see into the future and
predict the rise of world leaders, the outcome of wars, exact dates of events
and the rise and fall of nations without divine intervention. Now, we’re going to prove that the NT we
have in our Bible today is inspired by looking at Messianic Prophecies.
· There’s
a great expectation in the Old Testament of a coming Messiah. Grant
Jeffery says: While the
term Messiah was not a proper noun used in the Old Testament, the
concept of ‘the anointed one’ was prophesied by each of Israel’s prophets. Eventually, the name ‘Messiah’ (Moshiach:
Hebrew) became the accepted term for the coming King who would sit on the
throne of David.” Grant R. Jeffery:
Jesus: The Great Debate, 191.
What’s ironic is that the main thing that separates us from the Jews in
our beliefs is that Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of all the Messianic
prophecies in the Old Testament. And the fulfillment of these prophecies gives
us excellent evidence to the fact that the New Testament contains the very
words of God.
· Norman Geisler says, “If an omniscient God exists who
knows the future, then predictive prophecy is possible. And if the Bible
contains such predictions, then they are a sign of the Bible’s divine origin.”
Norman L. Geisler: Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics,
609.
· Dr.
Alfred Edersheim was a great Messianic scholar who wrote a classic book in 1863
entitled, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. In Appendix
9 on page 980, Dr. Edersheim notes that there are 456 total Messianic
prophecies in the Hebrew Bible (The OT).
“75 from the Pentateuch (Genesis-Deuteronomy), 243 from the Prophets
(Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Daniel, et al) and 138 from the balance of the Old
Testament.” Dr. Alfred Edersheim: The
Life and Times of Jesus The Messiah, 980.
·
So let’s take a look at some of these Messianic
Prophecies. MESSIANIC PROPHECIES (The last 24 hours of Jesus' life): Of the many
Messianic Prophecies in the Old Testament, there are 29 that were fulfilled in
the New Testament in a 24 hour period of time.
All of these prophecies point to one who was betrayed, tried, crucified,
and buried. All 29 of these prophecies
were written by different prophets over a period of five centuries. You have
all the verses there in your insert.
·
Betrayed
by a Friend:
Prophecy: “Even my familiar
friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against
me.” Psalm 41:9
Fulfillment: “Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him.” Matthew 10:4
· Sold for 30 pieces of silver:
Prophecy: "Then I said to them, 'If it is
agreeable to you, give me my wages; and if not, refrain.' So they weighed out for my wages thirty
pieces of silver." Zechariah
11:12
Fulfillment: "'What are you willing to give me if I
deliver Him to you?' And they counted
out to him thirty pieces of silver."
Matthew 26:15
· Betrayal money to be thrown into God's
House:
Prophecy: "So I took the thirty pieces of silver
and threw them into the house of the LORD for the potter." Zechariah 11:13
Fulfillment: "Then he threw down the pieces of
silver in the temple and departed."
Matthew 27:5
·
Price
Given for Potter's field:
Prophecy: "So I took the thirty pieces of silver
and threw them into the house of the LORD for the potter." Zechariah 11:13
Fulfillment: "Then he threw down the pieces of
silver in the temple and departed."
Matthew 27:5
·
Forsaken
by His Disciples
Prophecy: “Strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be
scattered." Zechariah 13:7
Fulfillment: “When they all forsook Him and fled." Mark 14:50 (Matt. 26:31; Mark 14:27)
· Accused by false witnesses
Prophecy: "Fierce witnesses rise up; they ask me
things that I do not know."
Psalm 35:11
Fulfillment: "Now the chief priests, the elders,
and all the council sought false testimony against Jesus to put Him to death,
but found none. Even though many false
witnesses came forward, they found none." Matthew 26:59,60
· Silent before his accusers
Prophecy:
"He was oppressed and He was
afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth." Isaiah 53:7
Fulfillment:
"And while He was being accused by
the chief priests and elders, He answered nothing." Matthew 27:12
·
Wounded and Bruised
Prophecy:
"But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
and by His stripes we are healed."
Isaiah 53:5 (see also Zech. 13:6)
Fulfillment:
"Then he released Barabbas to them;
and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered Him to be crucified." Matthew 27:26
·
Smitten and spit upon
Prophecy:
"I gave my back to those who struck
Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face
from shame and spitting."
Isaiah 50:6 (see also Micah 5:1)
Fulfillment:
"Then they spat in His face and beat
Him; and others struck Him with the palms of their hands." Matthew 26:67 (see also Luke 22:63)
·
Mocked
Prophecy:
"All who see Me ridicule Me; They
shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, 'He trusted in the LORD; let
Him rescue Him; let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him!'" Psalm 22:7,8
Fulfillment: "When
they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His
right hand; and they bowed the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, 'Hail, King
of the Jews!'" Matthew 27:29
(see also Matt. 27:41-43)
·
Fell under the burden
of the Cross He was carrying
Prophecy:
"My knees are weak through fasting;
and my flesh is feeble from lack of fatness.
I also have become a reproach to them; when they look at me, they shake
their heads." Psalm 109:24,25
Fulfillment:
"So the
soldiers took charge of Jesus. 17Carrying
his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is
called Golgotha)." John 19:17
"As they led him away,
they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put
the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. A large number of people
followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him." Luke 23:26-27 (See also
Matt. 27:31,32.)
·
His hands and feet
were pierced
Prophecy:
"They pierced My hands and My
feet." Psalm 22:16 (see also:
Zech. 12:10)
Fulfillment: "And
when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him." Luke 23:33 (see also John 20:25)
· Crucified with thieves
Prophecy:
"Because He poured out His soul unto
death, and He was numbered with the transgressors." Isaiah 53:12
Fulfillment:
"Then the two robbers were crucified
with Him, one on the right and another on the left." Matthew 27:38 (see also Mark 15:27, 28)
·
Made intercession for
His persecutors
Prophecy:
"And He bore the sin of many, and
made intercession for the transgressors." Isaiah 53:12
Fulfillment:
"Father, forgive them, for they do
not know what they do." Luke
23:34
·
Rejected by His own
people
Prophecy:
"He is despised and rejected by men,
a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did
not esteem Him." Isaiah 53:3
(see also Psalm 69:8; 118:22)
Fulfillment:
"For even His brothers did not
believe in Him. 'Have any of the rulers
or the Pharisees believed in Him?'"
John 7:5; 48 (see also Matt. 21:42, 43; John 1:11)
·
Hated without a cause
Prophecy:
"Those who hate me without a cause
are more than the hairs of my head."
Psalm 69:4 (see also Isaiah 49:7)
Fulfillment:
"But this happened that the word
might be fulfilled which is written in their law, 'They hated Me without a
cause.'" John 15:25
·
Friends stood afar off
Prophecy:
"My loved ones and my friends stand
aloof from my plague, and my relatives stand afar off." Psalm 38:11
Fulfillment:
"But all His acquaintances, and the
women who followed Him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these
things." Luke 23:49 (see also
Matt. 27:55, 56; Mark 15:40)
·
People shook their
heads
Prophecy:
"I also have become a reproach to
them; When they look at me, they shake their heads." Psalm 109:25 (see also Psalm 22:7)
Fulfillment:
"And those who passed by blasphemed
Him, wagging their heads." Matthew
27:39
·
Stared upon
Prophecy:
"I can count all My bones. They look and stare at Me." Psalm 22:17
Fulfillment:
"And the people stood looking
on." Luke 23:35
·
Garments parted and
lots cast
Prophecy:
"They divide My garments among them,
and for My clothing they cast lots."
Psalm 22:18
Fulfillment:
"When the
soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four
shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was
seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. 'Let’s not tear it,' they said
to one another. 'Let’s decide by lot who will get it.' This happened that the
scripture might be fulfilled which said, 'They divided my garments among
them
and cast lots for my clothing.”' John 19:23-24
·
To suffer
thirst
Prophecy: "And for my
thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." Psalm 69:21
Fulfillment: "After this, Jesus…said, 'I
thirst!'" John 19:28
·
Gall and
vinegar offered to Him
Prophecy: "They also
gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to
drink." Psalm 69:21
Fulfillment: "They
gave Him sour wine mingled with gall to drink.
But when He had tasted it He would not drink." Matthew 17:34 (see also John 19:28-29)
·
His forsaken cry
Prophecy:
"My God, My God, why have You
forsaken Me?" Psalm 22:1
Fulfillment:
"And about the ninth hour Jesus
cried out with a loud voice, saying, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?' that is, 'My
God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?'" Matthew 27:46
·
Committed Himself to
God
Prophecy:
"Into Your hand I commit my
spirit." Psalm 31:5
Fulfillment:
"And when Jesus had cried out with a
loud voice, He said, 'Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.'" Luke 23:46
·
Bones not broken
Prophecy:
"He guards all his bones; not one of
them is broken." Psalm 34:20
Fulfillment:
"But when they came to Jesus and saw
that He was already dead, they did not break His legs." John 19:33
· Heartbroken
Prophecy:
"My heart is like wax; it has melted
within Me." Psalm 22:14
Fulfillment:
"But one of the soldiers pierced His
side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out." John 19:34
Note: “The blood and water that came forth from
His pierced side are evidence that the heart had literally burst."
McDowell, 191
· His side pierced
Prophecy:
“They will look on Me whom they
pierced." Zechariah 12:10
Fulfillment:
"But one of the soldiers pierced His
side with a spear." John 19:34
·
Darkness over the land
Prophecy:
"'And it shall come to pass in that
day,' says the LORD God, 'That I will make the sun go down at noon, and I will
darken the earth in broad daylight.'" Amos 8:9
Fulfillment:
"Now from the sixth hour until the
ninth hour there was darkness over all the land." Matthew 27:45
· Buried in a rich man's tomb
Prophecy:
"And they made His grave with the
wicked—but with the rich at His death." Isaiah 53:9
Fulfillment:
"There came a rich man from
Arimathea, named Joseph…and [he] asked for the body of Jesus…When Joseph had
taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his new
tomb." Matthew 27:57-60
· These
prophecies are so convincing that the only way that Rabbi's and liberal
scholars can deal with them is to try to discredit them in some way. Years ago a man named H.J. Schonfield, a liberal New
Testament scholar, said that all these types of prophecies were a farce, that
Jesus was pretended or manipulated situations so as to appear to be the
Messiah. His book was called, The
Passover Plot. But there is no way
that Jesus could arrange all the details of these prophecies, there is no way
that He could manipulate people to respond to Him like they did. It takes more faith to believe that than it
does to believe that He was the Messiah.
· Once
the Jews figured out that the Christians were saying that Jesus was the Messiah
based on numerous Old Testament prophecies such as Isaiah 53, they changed
their meaning. Isaiah 53 was accepted
as Messianic Prophecy for centuries by the Jews, but they changed it saying
that Isaiah 53 was actually speaking about the coming Nation of Israel. The Old Testament over and over and over
again, 456 different times spoke of a coming Messiah and the New Testament
reveals the identity of this Messiah as Jesus Christ.
· Again,
there is no way humanly speaking 40 different authors over 1,500 plus years of
writing could come up with this stuff on their own. The Bible is a divine book
and as crazy as that might sound to some, the evidence supports the claim. So these Messianic prophecies are just one
of many ways we can see that the Bible was not written by men with some
political agenda as the Da Vinci Code would have us believe. That might make for good fiction, but it
certainly doesn't stand up to the substantial evidence.
· Which brings us to QUESTION #2: How did we get the
27 books in the New Testament?
·
We saw last week that the Bible says that the
prophets wrote the Old Testament. Well,
the same is true of the New Testament.
The New Testament writers were given the same prophetic office that the
Old Testament prophets had to write the very words of God. Many critics of the New Testament say that
these books were written during the second century by a few men sitting in a
room and as such were too far removed from actual events to be accurate. But from the manuscript evidence we have,
the books of the New Testament were written during the lifetimes of the
Apostles. They say themselves that they
were eyewitnesses of the events.
·
Peter says:
"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." 2 Peter 1:16
·
John says:
"That
which we have seen and heard we declare to you…" 1 John 1:3
·
Peter, on the Day of Pentecost, stands up before a mixed crowd including
many Jews said: "'Men of Israel,
hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a
Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did
through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know." Acts 2:22
·
How did they know? Because they saw and heard about these
things themselves. Much of the New
Testament was written within 20 years of the events by eyewitnesses. This is powerful proof of their genuineness.
· F.F. Bruce, who was
Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of
Manchester, writes, "The earliest preachers of the gospel knew the
value of…first-hand testimony, and appealed to it time and again. 'We are witnesses of these things,' was
their constant and confident assertion.
And it can have been by no means so easy as some writers seem to think
to invent words and deeds of Jesus in those early years, when so many of His
disciples were about, who could remember what had and had not happened. And it was not only friendly eyewitnesses
that the early preachers had to reckon with; there were others less well
disposed who were also conversant with the main facts of the ministry
and death of Jesus. The disciples could
not afford to risk inaccuracies (not to speak of willful manipulation of the
facts), which would at once be exposed by those who would be only too glad to
do so. On the contrary, one of the
strong points in the original apostolic preaching is the confident appeal to
the knowledge of the hearers; they not only said, 'We are witnesses of these
things,' but also, 'As you yourselves also know (Acts 2:22). Had there been any tendency to depart from
the facts in any material respect, the possible presence of hostile witnesses
in the audience would have served as a further corrective." F.F. Bruce: New Testament Documents: Are
They Reliable?, 33, 44-46.
·
Dr. John Warwick Montgomery wrote over 140 books
and articles, renowned theologian and historian, multiple Masters and
Doctorates to his credit from schools such as Cornell University, University of
California at Berkeley, Wittenburg University, University of Sussex, England,
and the University of Chicago. He spent
much of his teaching career as professor of law and humanities at the
University of Luton, England. In his
book, The History of Christianity, he said, "The books of the
New Testament were not written down a century or more after the events they
described, but during the lifetimes of those involved in the accounts
themselves. Therefore, the New
Testament must be regarded by scholars today as a competent primary
source document of the first century." Dr. John Warwick Montgomery: History
of Christianity, 34,35.
· The 27 books we have in our New Testament were
written during the lifetime of its authors inspired by God using eyewitness
testimony as a primary source.
· QUESTION #3: Is it true that history has never had a
definitive version of the New Testament?
ANSWER: NO!
· C. Sanders in the his book:
Introduction to Research in English Literary History, lists three criteria
that scholars use to determine whether or not an ancient document is genuine:
Test #2:
Internal Evidence Test
Test #3:
External Evidence Test
· For the sake of time, we’ll just look at the
Bibliographical Test.
This is the process whereby a scholar evaluates all the current copies
of a document to test them for consistency.
If you have one copy that let’s say is 500 years old and a newer copy
that is only 100 years old, you would compare the newer document to the older
one to see if there were any changes. Historians always consider the oldest copy as
the most reliable source because it was written or copied closer to the
original texts. The other part of the Bibliographical
test has to do with the number of copies made.
And this is another place where the NT is unique to all other ancient
literature. There are a number of
ancient writings that scholars regard as part of history with basically, "no
questions asked". Of these ancient
writings you have:
· The Gallic Wars by Julius Caesar. These writings speak
of Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul (Modern-day France) during the first
century. You will find this documented
in every history book of Ancient Rome…nobody refutes this. However, we only have 10 copies of these
original writings and these are from over 1,000 years after Caesar. But even though these were written 1,000
years after Caesar, nobody disputes their credibility.
· Another
commonly accepted work of early Rome is The History of Rome by Livy.
Currently there is only a portion of a copy made 400 years after the
original. The earliest complete copy
was found dated at 1,000 years after Livy.
And as with The Gallic Wars,
historians accept these ancient documents as accurate and historical.
· Tacitus wrote his Annals
of Roman history around 100 A.D. We have 20 copies that were dated 1,000 years
after his death.
· Of
Homer’s Iliad scholars
have discovered 643 manuscripts but the oldest dates from the 13th
century.
· Why
is all of this important to proving a definitive version of the New
Testament? Because historians give
credibility to these other ancient documents even though most were written a
1,000 years after the actual events and the number of copies found to compare
with are very limited. And yet, nobody
dispute these as factual.
· Now, let’s look at the number of New Testament
manuscripts. The
NT doesn’t have 643 copies as Homer’s Iliad, instead, there are close to
25,000. This is unprecedented in all of
ancient literature. There are no other
copies of any ancient literature that even come close to what we have in the
NT. F.F. Bruce writes, “The evidence
for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for
many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of
questioning….And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings,
their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt.” F.F. Bruce:
The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?, 15.
· John Warwick Montgomery
says that “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.” John Warwick
Montgomery: History and Christianity.
· W.F. Albright notes with great
confidence: “No other work from Graeco-Roman antiquity is so well attested
by manuscript tradition as the New Testament.
There are many more early manuscripts of the New Testament than there
are of any classical author, and the oldest extensive remains of it date only
about two centuries after their original composition.” W.F. Albright: The Archaeology of
Palestine and the Bible. And these
25,000 copies and portions of New Testament manuscripts are all consistent with
the actual New Testament we hold in our hands today.
· QUESTION #4: Has the New Testament gone through
countless translations, additions and revisions? Now it is true that the New Testament has been
translated into a number of other languages, that part Dan Brown got right, but these translations do not
challenge the genuineness of the New Testament at all which is what he implies.
· When
Jesus commissioned the disciples he told them to go into all the world and
preach the Gospel. So from the very
beginning, the Christian faith was a missionary faith…to take the truths of
Jesus Christ to all the world. As such,
the New Testament was translated into many major languages of the world's
population namely Syriac, Latin, and
Coptic (Egyptian
versions). Josh McDowell notes:
"Syriac and Latin versions (translations) of the New Testament were
made around A.D. 150. These versions
bring us back very near to the time of the originals. There are more than 15,000 existing copies of various versions."
Josh McDowell: New Evidence That Demands A Verdict, 41. But these translations have been checked
against the Greek manuscripts and found consistent.
· Now…what about additions and revisions. How
do we know that the New Testament we have has not been changed as the Da
Vinci Code would have us believe.
As we’ve seen, our copies of the New Testament match up with the oldest
copies that we have proving that there were no significant additions and
revisions. Sir Frederic G. Kenyon, former director of the British Museum and
likely the most respected New Testament scholar of our century, writes: “The
interval, then, between the dates of original composition and the earliest
extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact 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.
Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New
Testament may be regarded as finally established.” Frederic G. Kenyon, The
Bible and Archaeology
· Dr. John A.T. Robinson, a scholar at
Trinity College in Cambridge originally believed that the Gospels were written
at least 100 years after the death of Jesus.
However, in Time Magazine, 1977, Robinson decided to re-examine
the evidence. As he did, he was shocked
to discover that “much of the past scholarship on the New Testament was
academically untenable because it was based on a ‘tyranny of unexamined
assumptions’ and what he felt must have been an ‘almost willful
blindness.’ Robinson concluded that the
apostles were the genuine writers of the New Testament books and that they
wrote their accounts in the years between A.D. 32 and A.D. 64.” Quoted in Jeffery Grant, Jesus The Great
Debate, 50-51.
· QUESTION #5:
Who was Emperor Constantine,
was he a Christian, did he commission and finance a new Bible and was it he who
canonized the New Testament books? And
what does the word canonized even mean?
We’ll take just a brief look at Constantine
because when we talk about whether or not Christianity was a collection of
pagan beliefs as the Da Vinci Code implies, we’ll talk about him again.
· Constantine
was a Roman Emperor who they say became a Christian. Now, whether or not he was a Christian is a hotly debated
matter. Why? Simply because before his "conversion" to Christianity
he was a pagan sun worshipper. Now a "pagan" according to Webster's
Dictionary is a polytheist, meaning that a pagan believes in many gods. There was the God of the Sun, the Moon, the
Earth, the Sky, etc. Some versions of
polytheism hold to a hierarchy of the gods; there are some that are more
powerful than others, while other forms of polytheism hold to all the gods
being more or less equal. Now whether
or not Constantine became a true Christian isn't really the issue. The issue is that the Da Vinci Code says that he
financed a new Bible and it was he who called the Council of Nicea and it was
there that the 27 books of the NT were decided upon.
· Constantine
did call the Council of Nicea but it was more about resolving a dispute over
the deity of Christ than anything else, but we'll get to that in a couple of
weeks. But Constantine did not decide
on what books were to be part of the New Testament…this is ridiculous. Why?
Because the Council of Nicea was in 325 A.D. and the New Testament had
already been firmly established by then.
Even the critics of the New Testament dates agree with that.
· Liberal
scholars date the NT somewhat later than conservative:
Paul’s Letters A.D. 50-100
Matthew A.D. 80-100
Mark A.D.
70
Luke A.D.
70-90
John A.D.
90-170
· But
even their later dating of John's Gospel is 170 A.D. while Nicea was 325.
· Conservative
Biblical scholars date the books of the NT as the following:
Paul’s Letters A.D. 51-68
Matthew A.D. 50 or so
Mark A.D.
50-70
Luke A.D.
59-63
John A.D.
85-95
Acts c. 63; Hebrews 70 before the Temple
destruction; James the brother of Jesus before 50; 1 Peter early 60’s and 2
Peter 65-68; 1, 2, 3 John 85-95 but after the gospel; Jude c. 65; and
Revelation c. 95.
·
Constantine had nothing to do with determining
which books became part of the NT. But
even if these scholars are wrong, Ralph
Muncaster notes: "In the early 200's, Origen (an early church
leader) listed all the accepted books of the New Testament—a list that matches
today's canon." Ralph Muncaster: A Skeptic's Search For God,
235.
·
Frankly, it wasn't until the Council of Carthage
in 397 A.D. that the Catholic Church formally recognized (not decided) but
recognized the entire NT canon we have today.
Constantine did not decide which books went into the NT…he did not
finance a new version of the Bible to support his political agenda…we have
proof from ancient manuscripts of the NT that prove beyond doubt that the NT
books we have today match up with the oldest copies.
·
We’ve seen over the last two weeks very
compelling evidence to the genuineness of the Bible, both OT and NT and as
we've done this, we've debunked a number of questions that have been raised by
the Da Vinci Code. But there's a lot
more to come.
·
In the weeks ahead we’re are going to look at
questions like these:
·
Who is Jesus Christ? Was he really a historical person verified by documentation
outside of the Bible? Or was he just a
mythical person?
·
Who was Mary Magdalene…was she Jesus' wife? What does her Gospel say? And are there really 80 other Gospels that
were considered for the NT but didn't make the cut due to political reasons?
·
We need to take a look at how paganism
influenced early Christianity and if so, did it taint the faith?
·
We will take a look at gender roles and the
whole issue of women in the Bible…have they been marginalized? Is Christianity a boys club? Was Jesus a sexist or a feminist?
· And much more.
Thank you for bearing with me today.
My prayer is that this time will help you draw closer to God and to know
the truth that will set you free. Let’s
pray.