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Introduction
Introduction
— A little different of a message
— What did we talk about last week? We can trust Jesus because He claimed to be God, did miracles, and fulfilled hundreds of prophecies.
— all of that is from the Bible, so how do we know the Bible is right? If the Bible is wrong, then all those claims about Jesus are worthless?
Bibliology- an organized study of facts about the Bible’s undisputed origin, necessity, and authenticity.
— So how do we know that what we have, is the same as what the apostles and disciples had? How can we trust the Bible? How did we get our Bible?
— When you get out into the world on your own, the number one thing that people will attack about you as a Christian is the Bible, its reliability and validity.
— So First, lets look at how we got the Old Testament.
Old Testament
Old Testament
For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
The first five books of the Bible are known as the Torah, or the books of the Law. These first five books were written by Moses. And other prophets and kings wrote the other books of the Old Testament. But, here is the thing. God is really the one who wrote those books and here is how He did it.
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
That word inspiration means God-breathed. So God moved men to write exactly what He wanted them to write. God chose every word in the original language that was written and every word is equally inspired.
Moses, prophets, judges, and kings, were the human writers of these books, but the words come from God. That is why we call the Bible the Word of God.
Jews had an amazing respect for the Scriptures. Scribes would copy everything exactly as they saw it letter by letter They wouldn’t even write out the name of God.
Talmudic rules concerning the work of textual transcription.
Parchments must be made from the skins of clean animals only.
Parchments must be prepared by Jews only.
Parchments must be bound together by strings taken from clean animals only.
Each column of writing must have between 48 and 60 lines only.
Each column must be lined first, and if three words were written down without a line, the whole copy is made worthless and destroyed.
Ink must be black only, and made to a recipe.
No word or letter can be written from memory. The scribe must have an authentic copy before him, and must read and pronounce each word out loud before writing it.
Pens must be wiped reverently each time the word “God” is written.
The scribe must wash his whole body before writing the name of God, Jehovah.
Strict rules apply dealing with the use of the pen, shapes of the letters, and spaces between letters, words, and sections.
Rolls must be checked and revised within 30 days, or the whole roll becomes worthless.
One mistake condemns the sheet.
Three mistakes on any page condemns the manuscript.
Every word and every letter must be counted. If one letter is missing, is added, or touches another - the whole manuscript must be destroyed.
Between each consonant, a hair’s breadth; between each section, the breadth of none consonants; between each book, three lines.
They would put dashes where the vowels would be so as not to take the Lord’s name in vain. But now we don’t know which vowels were there so we actually don’t know for sure what His name is, which is kinda sad. But these scribes, these wise men had dedicated their lives to rewriting the Scriptures perfectly.
Because of this intense process, no one really tries to disprove the Old Testament. Most scholars, even atheists believe that what we have today in the Old Testament is what the Jews had. They just don’t believe all the claims that it makes.
We’ll come back to that in a second, but now we come to the New Testament
New Testament
New Testament
This is where someone will attack your faith. They will ask how we can we know for sure that the New Testament we have today is the same as the one that the apostles and disciples had?
Before we talk about how we got our New Testament, we need to define some terms.
Revelation- when God communicates truth to man that was unknown and otherwise unknowable.
Inspiration- the recording of God’s breathed truth
Canonization- the church recognizes that truth as authoritative (The church does not have the right to decide what is scripture, but it has the responsibility to recognize what is.)
Preservation- God extending truth to every generation
Translation- man rendering that truth into different languages
Manuscript- ancient hand written document
Inerrant- truth recorded accurately
Infallible- absolute truth whether you’re convinced of it or not
So after the events of the New Testament happened, the Apostles recorded, or wrote down what happened. And then these gospels and letters started to get passed around to different churches. People in these churches would then copy down what the apostle had written, so that they could have their own copy, and then people would copy their friend’s copy so on and so on. So there’d be copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies...
It was kind of the same with secular writings as well, such as theater plays or philosophical beliefs.
Pliny the Elder lived in the first Century during the time of Jesus. He wrote a History manual, and there are 200 manuscripts, they are mostly from the 14th and 15th centuries.
A man named Livy wrote a history of Rome in the first century, and only around 100 Manuscripts exist.
A roman public official named Tacitus wrote a history on Rome, and only 2 manuscripts are left.
These are awesome works of history and science that many scholars still study today and believe to be truth.
Someone take a guess how many manuscripts we have of the New Testament. We have around 6,000.
There are two main families of manuscripts, and this is where we get our different versions of the Bible.
The first is known as the Majority Text, other names it goes by is the Byzantine text, Antiochian Text, Traditional Text, or the Received Text.
The second family of manuscripts is known as the Minority text, other names it goes by is the Critical Text, Alexandrian Text, Nestle-Aland Text, or United Bible Society Text.
Lets make some comparisons between the two families of Manuscripts
Majority: Closer to location where NT was written, Distributed Widely, Used and Recognized by Churches, Longer Text, Newer Manuscripts, Long history of use, Assumption: Preserved, accounts for 5700-5800 of the manuscripts
Minority: Closer to date when NT was written, Distributed primarily in Egypt, Hidden for Centuries, Shorter Text, Older Manuscripts, 150 years of use, Assumption: Restored, accounts for 200-300 of the Manuscripts
So the Majority text is what the church used for hundreds of years.
Some examples:
Papyrus 66 is a nearly complete book of John from the first century and it matches up with the Received text.
The Peshitta Bible is from the second century and matches up with the Received Text.
Polycarp and Ignatius were Pastors friends of the Apostles and their quotes and writings line up with the Received text.
Tertullian was a christian author from the second century and his quotes lined up with the Received text.
These texts were used by the churches throughout history, although most of the manuscripts from this text family are from the later centuries.
It wasn’t until the mid 1800s that the Minority/Critical text was discovered. Although, it is believed that these texts were written in the fourth century.
Here is what people debate: The minority/alexandrian texts leave out verses of Scripture or the Majority text adds verses of Scripture.
However, it doesn’t really matter, because the two different text families are almost identical. Their percentage of differences is less than one percent.
In 1516 a man named Erasmus published a Greek NT based on the majority text. A man named William Tyndale was one of his students.
William Tyndale published the first English translation of the Bible in 1526 with the help of a man named Myles Coverdale.
Next the Matthews Bible was published in 1537. Then the Taverners Bible was released in 1539. The Great Bible was also published in 1539. The Cranmer bible came out in 1540. The Geneva bible came out in 1560, this is the Bible that the pilgrims used and brought to America. Then the Bishop’s bible was published in 1568, and then the Rheims-Douay Bible was published in 1582. Then finally the KJV was published in 1611. It was translated by 54 scholars, all of whom could speak greek and hebrew along with many other languages.
All of these Bibles were translated from the majority text and were used for hundreds of years.
Then in the 1800s the minority text was discovered and bibles were translated from that text.
There is finally the method of translation. There are two different methods of translation.
Formal Equivalency- translates word for word
Dynamic Equivalency- translates thought for thought
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
The words are what is inspired and they convey the correct thoughts. The thoughts themselves are not inspired.
Chart of Versions Formal vs Dynamic
Here is the King James which is translated word for word, compared to the Message which is translated thoughts.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
The message:
So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.
And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands?
Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.
The message:
And if someone says, 'And so where did you get that black eye?' they'll say, 'I ran into a door at a friend's house.'
This is why we prefer a translation that translates word for word.
So when looking at Bible versions, we prefer to use those from the Majority text that are translated word for word.
There is a belief that God inspired the KJV translators, and therefore the KJV is the only version that should be used. This in an incorrect belief.
God did not inspire the translators, only the original writers.
This is why we prefer to use the King James Version.
Some churches and people prefer to use other versions and that is okay.
Regardless of someone’s belief, we should still show them love and respect
Jesus also promised to preserve His word.
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
So we know that we have the same Bible that Christians had all throughout history, all the way back to the time of Jesus, thousands of manuscripts to prove it. But, what makes the Bible accurate?
It claims it 2 Timothy 3:16
— “Thus saith the Lord” is found 3800 times in the OT. Either it is or it isn’t
2. History and Time reveal it.
— The Bible has been indestructible. Roman Emperor Diocletian decreed that every Bible should be destroyed in 300 AD. This caused more copies to be distributed. French Infidel, Voltaire said in the 1700’s that a hundred years from his day that there wont be a bible on the earth. He then died and a bible printing press was built on his house.
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth:
But the word of our God shall stand for ever.
— Archaeology keeps proving it. People believed the Bible was wrong because there was not any archaeological evidence for the Hittite civilization. Then in the 19th century archaeologists finally uncovered the Hittite kingdom.
Dr. Nelson Glueck is known as the father of palestinian archaeology and he said “It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever contradicted 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 evaluations of Biblical descriptions have often led to amazing discoveries.”
3. Fulfilled Prophecies confirm it.
As we talked about last week, Jesus fulfilled hundreds of prophecies, such as his virgin birth, his birthplace, his side pierced, his hands and feet pierced, his unbroken bones, given vinegar to drink, his resurrection, and hundreds of others.
4. Science agrees with it
— The stars can’t be numbered; Jeremiah 33:22
— Blood sustains life; Leviticus 17:11 (George Washington death)
— The earth is a sphere; Isaiah 40:22 (European explorers)
— The earth is suspended in space; Job 26:7
and many others
Sir William Herschel said “All human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more strongly the truths contained in the Holy Scriptures.”
The more science learns… the more it agrees with the Word of God.
5. Changed lives prove it.
Millions if not more, of peoples lives have been changed by the Word of God. (Testimony if time allows)
So whats the point, what do we need to do with all this information?
For me as a young teenager I struggled with doubt, not knowing if I could trust Christianity and what the Bible said. And knowing all these facts can destroy doubt.
Knowing that we have exactly the same Word of God as what the apostles wrote, knowing that this is the same Scripture that Christians used all throughout history, knowing that the Bible is true and its events are recorded accurately:
We can trust that we have the true Word of God, and we can trust what the Word of God says.