Once while still in high school during a discussion on the Christian faith, I was told by the other that "The Bible was written in the 6th century. Any old priest can tell you that." That statement dumbfounded me and I didn't know the answer. Up to that point I had never considered the history of the Bible itself. I accepted what I read without question. Although I was learning much about what the Bible said, I knew absolutely nothing about the Bible itself - not the history of its writing, nor the transmission of the text.
While in Bible College, and due largely to the influence of my friends while I had been in high school, I found myself directly confronting the claims of my Mormon friends that the text, and hence message, of the Bible had been so badly corrupted that we couldn't be sure but that not even one single word was that which had originally been written.
Neither of these two experiences are rare, for both deal with very real people with very real doubts. Not only that, but variations of both these claims are repeated daily on TV, in print, in institutions of higher learning, and sadly, even in many of the churches throughout our land.
I believed the Bible to be the word of God. Of that I had no doubt. But I was totally unable to back my confidence up with any fact or demonstration. I was completely ignorant concerning the creation and the transmission of scripture through the centuries. There is one bright light. Most of the statements and claims made against the text and message of Scripture are as ignorant of the facts as I once was.
In sharing with you the reasons for my confidence in scripture, here are four things I have taken into consideration when dealing with the claims for and against the scripture.
1. I consider the Biblical accounts as compared with the ancient, contemporary myths. Across our land, in our universities and colleges, and even in some Bible colleges, professors teach their students the ancient stories of early Israel were taken from the supposedly older myths of the surrounding nations.
When comparing the account of creation with that of contemporary cultures, the Genesis account is straight forward while yet extremely poetic. Its declaration is simple. "
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." With a simple statement, God created light. With a simple statement, God caused dry land to come forth from the water. With a simple statement, God brought into existence the sun, moon, and stars. With a simple statement God brought into existence all plant and animal life. With a simple statement, God created mankind.
According to scholars, this simple statement was supposedly borrowed from other accounts in which the gods first brought forth other gods, and all the different gods became responsible for the various parts of creation. The grand pronouncement that God created the heavens and the earth was supposedly borrowed from myths of many gods existing and working. Even more, the accounts that supposedly gave birth to Genesis show us gods who behaved as badly, if not worse than, men. Somehow we are to believe the ancient Hebrews, in search of their own mythical beginnings, took these accounts and then turned them into opposites of themselves. While there may be similarities between the biblical accounts and the ancient myths, the dis-simarilities are much more pronounced and significant.
Attempts to assign the life and work of Jesus to a borrowing of the Mithra myth (or others) is equally futile. While one might seem to make an impressive case of comparing the claims of the mystery cults with those claims made concerning Jesus, there is a very critical fact often overlooked. All written sources of these myths were created well after the gospel was being preached throughout the Roman empire. While it is true belief in Mithra predates Jesus, the extant written sources do not. Given the extremely rapid spread of the gospel across the Roman empire it is far more likely these various cults are the ones guilty of borrowing.
Of course, such an assertion would be met with with extreme ridicule. After all,
everyone knows that only the biblical writers were guilty of borrowing from everyone else.
2. When I read the history related in the Bible, I read a history that fits in with the history of the world. I don't mean by this that all the historical narratives of the Bible agree completely with the historical narratives outside the Bible. Not even the secular accounts of an event necessarily agree with each other, especially those of ancient events. Nor am I implying the writers of scripture had as their intent a world history. However, the Biblical accounts do pertain to events, places, and people well known from other sources. Even when additional, non-biblical information is lacking, what we do have from scripture proves to be at least consistent with the period.
For example, the period from Moses and earlier back to Abraham is extremely sketchy to historians due to a lack of ancient sources. Yet even then, the sources that have been uncovered reveal that little things such as place names and personal names fit with the period. We have confirmation from cuneiform tablets 4,000 years old that names like Abram and Isaac were common in that period the bible narratives record. Without doing a quite a bit of research how likely would it be for a person today to make up a historical narrative of a specific region and culture and era, and get the names correct?
We also have texts and treaties that reflect the same odd elements we see when God made a covenant with Abraham as recorded in Genesis 15. Even if one might entertain doubts as to the content of a narrative, the settings of the narratives of the Bible are spot on, and indicate those narratives were likely written down at a time when such settings were well known. That would not be the case if the various writings of the Bible were made up, or legendary and mythical, or not recorded in writing until long after the events had occurred.
We have the names of kings of other nations set in proper context and order. Whether Assyrian, Babylonian, or Egyptian kings, the names and history are accurate.
In the book of Acts Luke is very precise in the names of places, and the names and titles of local governing authorities. In fact, when reading through the Bible, the use of a bible dictionary of names, dates, events, and places is nearly a requirement for a good understanding of what is being read.
Why did Joseph and Mary move to Egypt? Along with the scriptural answer there's a very historical, political answer. In the days of Julius Caesar, Marc Antony and Cleopatra attempted to hold Rome hostage by denying the new empire the rich stores of Egyptian grain. Egypt had become the breadbasket of the empire. When Augustus took the reigns, he took steps to insure Egypt could not be used against him. He issued an edict that no person above the rank of Equestrian (knight) could set foot in Egypt without his express permission. This was the law when Joseph and Mary fled. King Herod was forbidden by imperial statute of pursuing the family.
Why was the city clerk of Ephesus so concerned about the people rioting (Acts19-21-41)? It is on account that during the days of Tiberius, cities such as Ephesus had been abusing the right of temple sanctuary to allow unlawful behavior. Tiberius ordered all charter cities, of which Ephesus was one, to pledge they would not allow any criminal behavior in the name of religion. If they failed to do so, they lost their charter, and thus their standing within the empire. This was the law by imperial statute when the riot in Ephesus broke out over Paul's preaching of the gospel.
There are a great many more points of contact between the accounts of Jesus and the early church and the historical realities of the world of that time.
Compare all these things with the narratives of other nations, the Greeks for example, where the stories of their gods and titans cannot be located at any specific place or time or event. No myth of any kind begins with a list of who was ruling, where, and when. Yet Abraham is placed within the context of very specific locations and kings. Moses is placed in the very specific context of Egypt and Canaan even if we can't pinpoint his dating (more on this in another posting. I have some thoughts on this). The kings of Israel are placed in the context of neighboring kings and events that have external confirmation. And Jesus himself is set in the context of men extremely well known from history.
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| "House of David" inscription - Tel Dan steele | |
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The engraved stone shown above was found in 1993. The lighter text is the name "house of David". The stone was inscribed by a Syrian king upon his defeat of both the king of Israel and the house of David, mentioning both in precisely the biblical fashion. What is most remarkable is this stone was commissioned sometime in the mid 800's BC. Best efforts so far identify Joram as the king of Israel and Ahaziah as king in the house of David.
3. I take into consideration the integrity of the text itself. It is a truism. If one does not like the message, kill the messenger. Two hundred years ago those who had an interest in destroying any trust in the scriptures pointed out that our oldest manuscript of the Bible dated to about 1000 AD. This meant there was a minimum of 1,000 years between our oldest copy and the time of Jesus, and over 2,000 years between that copy and the time of Moses. "How can we be certain" these men asked, "that even one word of the Bible is the same as what was originally written?"
I have noticed something. It seems that whenever men begin questioning and denying the things of God, that God then begins revealing the truth. In this case we began finding more and more copies that were more ancient than what we already possessed. By the middle of the 19th century we had full Bible manuscripts dating back to 320 AD - much older, but still 300 years after the time of Jesus.
In the late 19th and early 20th century, that began changing. We began finding more and more manuscripts, copies, and fragments. By the 1930's we had over 13,000 manuscripts and fragments of every book of the Bible, and the oldest of these dated to 120-150 AD. In 1947 a Bedouin boy tossed a stone into a cave and heard the sound of a jar breaking. He had discovered a stash of scripture in which we now had even old testament writings predating Jesus by up to 300 years.
The short of it all is this. When scholars worked through all these parts of manuscripts, they have been able to insure that our modern day text of the scripture is statistically 99.5% pure. We don't have any of the original documents such as Paul's own handwritten letter to the church at Rome. But through all the copies that have been found, we can read his letter to the Romans and be assured it is the same letter that was first read by the church in Rome.
4. When I consider the results of archaeology, I see confirmation. I find archaeology exciting. Becoming an archaeologist is one of the things I thought I wanted to do as a career. It would be nice if archaeologists could find a plaque personally engraved by David (and not proved a hoax!), but that's not really how archaeology works. It is incorrect to say that archaeology proves the Bible true. There is a great deal in the scripture that can never be proven by archaeology or any other science. That's the nature of faith in God's pronouncements. That's the nature of divine revelation.
As with any method of historical discovery, the interpretation of archaeological facts and findings is open to differences of opinion. Sometimes that difference of opinion is based upon a purely objective interpretation of the evidence. Other times that difference is rooted in underlying assumptions and beliefs independent of the evidence. Even though it is improper to claim archaeology has proved the Bible, I am not aware of one single archaeological discovery that has
disproved any particular narrative or statement.
An example from Daniel
There are still numerous instances where the Biblical statement appears to be at odds with what is currently known. One well known example is Daniel's reference to a Darius who became the king of the Persian empire at the capture of Babylon (Daniel 5:31). It's problematic because we have the list of kings from both Greek and Persian sources. Although there were several kings named Darius (3 in fact), not a one of them became king at the age of 62. Furthermore, they were all Persians (Acheamenids), not Medes.
Is this a case of a statement being archaeologically disproved or is it simply a case of not having all the information? That this particular Darius was 62 when he became king would indicate he did not become king by birthright, but by appointment. The fact he was a Mede also indicates appointment, as Cyrus, the king that defeated Babylon, was a Persian and all who reigned after him were Persians, a fact well known to the Jews. We must conclude that Daniel mentions age and tribe for a reason.
Even in the Greek and Persian sources, there is no record of who actually governed from Babylon after Cyrus' conquest. There is no agreement that Cyrus was even in town. He continued his conquests, and while one source claims Cyrus died in Babylon, another source says he died in fierce battle in the region of modern day Kazakhstan. After Cyrus' death, his son Cambyses spent his whole time in Egypt trying to bring that nation under his authority. After Cyrus' death and during Cambyses' reign, but before the ascension of Darius I (the Great), we have a period of confusion and deception and possibly imposter kings.
And so we have the situation that Daniel's Darius was possibly an appointment made by Cyrus to govern in Cyrus' absence, and because of the confusion of the other ancient sources, that appointment is known only because of Daniel. This Darius likely took that name for himself after his appointment. Given Cyrus' acumen to good governance, the appointment of a Median official to temporarily govern in Babylon would have been good politics. This scenario is offered on account of what archaeology has revealed, and to demonstrate that disagreement between sources is by no means proof of error.
What archaeology has done is to confirm many of the stories and historical statements. It has given extra-biblical confirmation to names and places previously known only in the scripture. It has provided valuable insight into the context of the scripture, especially in regard to ancient customs. It has provided clarity concerning times and dates. As previously mentioned it has revealed facts as simple as the use of names like Abram and Isaac in their proper periods. More recently it has resulted in the discovery of king David's own palace.
Conclusion
I have shared with you four reasons I have come to trust in this book we call the Bible. In this post I could only give you some broad summaries, but the information behind all four of these reasons is immense. Consider this one fact. The world has been attempting for over the last 2,000 years
to destroy the message that is recorded in scripture. If the Bible were indeed nothing more than an uninspired human work with no real connection to history and truth, it would not have stood the test of time.
The Bible does stand. Throughout all centuries there have been people that recognize that scripture does indeed tell the truth concerning God and mankind. When I see all the evidence that confirms those things of scripture that can be seen, I have confidence in the truth of those things that cannot be seen, whether they be the affirmation that God created the heavens and the earth, or that Jesus was raised from the dead and will return in glory and majesty.
