Hey friend, welcome back here to the Seminar
Seminary and another week, another episode of
the Bible Study Series called The Bible for Grownups.
And in this series, what we're trying to accomplish
is looking at the Bible from an adult perspective.
And when we say that, we take the idea that many
of us, our first encounters may be Maybe many
of us are most frequent encounters with the Bible
came when we were kids through the stories of
the Bible that were taught. And then if we weren't
taught those stories as children, often many
of us come to the Bible as adults, but we're
taught the Bible by people. probably were taught
the Bible as children. And so often, so many
of us are left with this childlike understanding
of the Bible in an adult world. That causes many
of us to simply walk away from the idea that
the Bible has some sort of power in our lives.
So we're trying to challenge that notion. And
in that idea, I'd like to, just for tonight,
not necessarily talk about in the Bible, but
about the Bible. And let me present a case in
which I believe proves that the Bible is reliable.
I'll see you on the other side. I'm excited.
Hey guys, can I go ahead and get started? I'm
sorry to interrupt you. It was fun having conversation.
It really was. It was fun listening and watching.
Is that well? Fair enough. Fair enough. So tonight
I want to talk, as you might expect in Bible
study, about the Bible. And I actually mean that
in general terms. Like tonight, I'd actually,
if you have the Bible and you want to open it
up, we'll be looking at 2 Timothy 3. That'll
be the first text. That's in the New Testament.
It's one of the letters of Paul. And we'll be
looking there kind of as a kicking off point.
We'll have a couple of other scriptures in there.
But tonight I'd actually just talk about, I'd
like to talk about the Bible. And what I'd like
to actually talk about is, can we consider the
Bible to be reliable? Does that kind of rhyme?
Is the Bible reliable? That's the title. Is the
Bible reliable? There we go. Okay, that's the
title of the podcast tonight. Can we trust it?
Okay. In other words, can we believe? Is there
a reason for us to believe that on the actual
pages of the Bible are the actual words of God?
Or are they just simply the opinions and the
imagination of humankind? I believe, and I'd
like to present the evidence tonight to argue,
that inside the Bible contain books that contain
the truth of our living God in cooperation with
human inspiration. And today I'd like to tell
you why. I mentioned 2 Timothy 3. I'd like to
look at 16 and 17, verses 16 and 17. Scripture
says all Scripture is God -breathed. And it is
useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and
training in righteousness so that the man or
woman of God may be thoroughly equipped for every
good work. Okay? This is... A part of the original
writings of the Bible. This is when the idea
that these manuscripts, these texts, that are
being shared amongst these early churches, that
in many ways, except for a D like imagine in
an old Egypt movie, papyrus kind of, that kind
of thing, it wouldn't look much different probably
than maybe this. Just a collection, a sheath
of... Papers with words written down on them.
Those words inspired by God, written by humankind,
and right off the bat, recognized by those who
shared those texts and read them and heard them,
they knew right away there was something different
about these manuscripts. That eventually get
put together into one book. And we count up all
the pages and put page numbers. And do paragraph
breaks and chapter and verse and all that. Which
won't come for hundreds and hundreds of years
later. But we see right here Paul talking to
Timothy. That's how we get that name. And instructing
his early pastor, church planter friend. are
more than just remembrances of something that
may or may not have happened, but there's actually
some power contained within them. And that the
words contained in these manuscripts is good
for teaching and correcting and training in what?
In righteousness. Now, the way that they describe
this, okay, is this term God -breathed, okay?
Is God breathed? Now, I don't want to get into
tonight a discussion of whether it is necessary
and you do hold a belief in an inerrant Bible.
No contradiction. No changes from the original
manuscript. Just like a... like some magic Harry
Potter flaming pen starts writing words down
on a page, and Matthew's just there to change
to a blank new piece of paper. The words contained
in the Bible are in relationship with humankind.
It was humankind that put the pen in the hand
and put the words down. recognized immediately
as something different than just imagination,
but rather the words were God -breathed. Now,
let me use a Greek word here so it sounds a little
cool and I sound smart. I hope, because I can
never pronounce these words correctly. It's theonotos.
See? Theonostos. Theonostos. That means divine
or God breathed. We get Theo for God. Pneuma,
we've been talking about here on Sunday, here
recently, that that Greek word pneuma means the
spirit. So spirit, God's spirit in these words.
Now, this is saying that God can give us everything
that we need. To fulfill everything God wants
us to do in our life. But is it God's word? I,
again, believe that it is. And actually, I'd
like to just throw out some different facts about
the Bible. Maybe you didn't know. That might
make you see this book in perhaps a different
way. Okay? Now, some of these things you may
know. Some of these things you may not know.
First one is the Bible is the best -selling book
of all time in human history. And we probably,
you may have heard this anecdote. By the way,
it's as a result of the fact that it is the most
published and best -selling of all time. It also
coincidentally happens to be the most shoplifted
book in the world. Now, the Bible isn't just
one book, but rather it's a collection of 66...
Different books. And the Bible has 773 ,692 words.
It would take an average person about 70 hours
to read the book aloud. But what's amazing, I'm
pointing all of this diversity out here, is because
the Bible is actually not written by one author.
The Bible is written... by all different kinds
of people, by politicians, by statesmen, by farmers,
by shepherds, by peasants, by musicians, by poets,
even by tax collectors. The Bible is also written
from all different sorts of places. The Bible
was written by Moses in the wilderness during
the Exodus when they escaped Egypt, by Jeremiah,
the end, of the fall of Jerusalem. He's trapped
in a dungeon writing his prophecies. The gospel
account of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles
written by Luke as he traveled with Paul. Paul,
speaking of, writer of about two -thirds of the
contents of the New Testament, Paul writes some
of his stuff from prison. The Apostle John, The
disciple, the attributed author of the Gospel
account of John, is also known to have written
the Revelation at the end of the Bible. And you
may or may not know that he wrote the Gospel
account according to John first, at the end of
his life, and then got in trouble with the Roman
emperor. but was really too popular to kill.
They tried a couple of times. They actually tried
to boil him in oil. And rather than kill him,
they decided to exile him to this little tiny
island called Patmos. And it was there that he
wrote the Revelation. It was written on three
different continents, Asia, Africa, and Europe.
And it was written over time in three different
languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. And what,
again, is amazing is even though the Bible was
written for people from all different walks of
life over the span of 1 ,500 years, it has this
incredible, amazing accuracy and consistency
when it comments on the character and the nature
of God. and God's redemptive plan for us. To
me, that is the part. I mean, just think about
it. I mean, you guys in kindergarten, not kindergarten,
sorry, elementary school, right? We play the
telephone game. That thing where you start out
with something, by the time it gets around to
the end, it's completely different. The point
is to kind of show how with each transmission
of an idea, It gets a little bit further from
the truth, right? 1 ,500 years, people from all
different walks of life, all over three different
continents, writing for different reasons, and
yet this story of God and this redemptive plan
for humankind from beginning to end is incredibly
accurate and consistent. So I'm going to argue
tonight that not only is it consistent, true,
and inspired, but it also speaks on a multitude
of human topics, marriage, divorce, remarriage,
adultery, sex, lust, pride, obedience, heaven,
hell, lying, murder, suicide, peace, rebellion,
leadership, patience, faithfulness, all of that,
even cats. Not cats, actually, but the Bible
talks about the devil. To me, that's about the
same thing. Sorry. So let's talk for a few minutes
about the reliability of the Bible. Again, we're
asking, is the Bible reliable? I love that. Is
the Bible trustworthy, true, and accurate? Or
again, is this just the imagination and the opinions
of people? Okay, so this is a really cool story.
In 1952, there was a historian by the name of
Steve Sanders. And he came up with three, oh,
wait, I'm sorry, this isn't the really cool,
the really cool one's next. Came up with three
specific tests to evaluate the authenticity of
historical writings, not just the Bible, okay?
But looking at ancient texts like texts from
the Bible and trying to establish everything
we could possibly know about them. Are they real?
Are they true? Are they to be relied upon? Are
they not? And why not? I don't know if you guys
have ever heard of a type of, you probably haven't.
It's called hagiography. Has anybody ever heard
of hagiography? No, look, I'm going to say one
political thing. And even if you are a supporter,
you're going to probably agree with what I'm
about to say. So I mean no malice by it. But
if there was a modern person who probably would
have a hagiography written about them, it would
be somebody like Donald Trump. And what that
was is really rich people in ancient times would
go and they would find an author or a poet and
they would say, write a story about me so people
could read about how awesome I am and sprinkle
around plenty of awesome. Even if it's not true,
right? And so we don't, when we first discover
these ancient texts, that's not written anywhere.
It doesn't say, this is satire or comes to you
from the onion .com, right? There's no, it doesn't
immediately identify itself as fake. But then
we start to examine the text inside and around.
and outside this text, and we find inconsistencies
that lead us to believe this isn't a biography.
It's a hagiography. It's like a biography. It's
supposed to be a biography, but it's fake. It's
fake to make this person look important, okay?
This is how we determine, by looking, using these
tools, okay? So... This guy, Sanders, put the
Bible to the same test. And the first test I
want to talk about, it was kind of a three -fold
thing, is the internal test. Here's the internal
test. Regarding the Bible, the internal test
wants to answer the question, do the writers
of the Bible claim that the words are true? In
other words, are they writing something with
the intent? Of illustrating or demonstrating
to the reader that this is something that did
in fact happen. Because not all literature is
nonfiction, right? There's more fiction than
there is nonfiction. And that fiction is where
the writer says, no, you should know right away
or I'm going to tell you right up front. This
is made up and it is not to be taken as something
that exactly happened. No, no, no, no. Do the
writers say, no, I was there, I saw it, and this
is accurate? Well, let's look at one of the letters
in the New Testament, and this is written by,
I mean, Peter, the Peter, rooster crowing Peter.
He writes a couple letters. In the second letter
that he writes, in the first chapter, in the
16th verse, Remember, these are the letters that
are being circulated that were treated as the
early Bible. And Peter instructs the early Christians
reading this letter. He says to them something
because these questions come up. He says, we
did not follow cleverly invented stories when
we told you about the power and the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ. We weren't just telling
you a really cool story when we were telling
you about Jesus. But Peter can, with authenticity,
write, we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. In
other words, Peter is saying here, no, no, no.
I was there, I saw it, and I experienced it firsthand.
I am a primary source. I was an eyewitness to
these events. This is not just some story I either
made up or heard from somebody else. And I keep
talking about this early Bible business. When
was the Bible, when I'm talking about the Bible,
I'm first of all talking about the Christian
Bible, the Christian Testament or the New Testament.
And it was at the same time that these books
were being put together that the early Christians
also latched on to Jewish scripture. And so these
books begin to come together as we know them
as the Bible, kind of between the years 47 and
95. And so 85 to 90 is about when we get the
gospel account according to John. And then 95
is believed to be the writing of the apocalypse
because we can date the emperor. We know when
it happened based on who was emperor at the time.
So what are you saying? What I'm saying is Jesus
died in either 30 or 33. There is so much. discussion
right now that, that his birth was probably three
BC instead of actually when we changed the calendar
to zero, that's actually not zero. We got it
wrong, right? He was 33 when he died, but it
wasn't 33 AD. It was probably 30 AD. You're like,
what does this matter? It doesn't, right? It
doesn't matter. But 30 to 33, the Bible is starting
to come together as holy books, between 47 and
95, within just a few decades. What that means
is that there were plenty of first -generation
believers to these events when these books began
widely being circulated. They would have read
these or heard about these books, and they could
have very easily been there and had first -hand...
first -hand knowledge about the events of the
Bible, and they could have at any time refuted
what was being written as Scripture and say,
I was there and that wasn't true. But they didn't
and haven't. Across the board, it seems, the
Bible passes that internal test. Now, the second
one's called the external. And what that is,
is what do we, information we have outside the
Bible about the Bible? In other words, what do
non -biblical sources say about the Bible? Do
they confirm the stories we have in the Bible?
Or does other ancient literature say, no, these
events aren't true and we can explain why? Well,
first I want to say. From a Christian perspective,
beyond the shadow of a doubt, the historiosity,
what does that mean? It means based on the historical
evidence we have, based on the accounts we have,
there is really no debate anymore if there was
a guy named Jesus from Nazareth who actually
lived at this time. They don't even try to dispute
that anymore. It's been a long time. It wasn't
that long ago, actually. The 1980s. where it
was really still hotly disputed by some people
whether Jesus of Nazareth even existed at all.
And we actually have non -biblical writings that
talk about Jesus. We have Roman writers, Greek
writers, and we have Jewish sources, people who
affirm the life of this cat, Jesus of Nazareth.
And not only that, but there's another famous
guy, and I mean, guys, I had to buy this for
a class, and I used this book for like one page,
and it is this thick, and it's called The Writings
of Josephus, right? A Jewish historian from the
first century who writes about Jesus and about
John the Baptist, and he wrote about... James,
Jesus' brother, later. Because James wasn't an
original follower of Jesus. He was his brother.
There's no way his brother's going to believe
him when he says, hey, I'm the savior of the
world. Yeah, you are. And then, like, give him
a noogie or whatever. Right? You know how hard
it'd be to convince your brother or sister that
you're the Christ? I don't blame him. Anyway.
Now, another thing. that was challenged was archaeological
evidence. Because for a long time, we just didn't
have much agreed upon archaeological discovery
that seemed to indicate truth from major things
happening in the Bible. But that's changed over
time. In fact, we have portions of archaeology,
I'm sorry, we have archaeology now that completely
prove portions of these stories of the bible
are true so we have we've over time have received
tons more uh confirmation based on archaeological
evidence that the things and the people we talked
about in the bible aren't just made up but actually
really did live where and when they that these
books say they did there was a guy named nelson
gluick and he is a former president of the jewish
theological and one of the great all -time archaeologists
of the Holy Land. And he says this, and I think
this is fair enough. He says it may be stated
categorically that no archaeological discovery
has ever contravented a biblical reference. So
while we're beginning to see confirmation in
some areas, we still have nothing. from an archaeological
discovery that says this proves the Bible isn't
true. That's something to talk about. Now this
third one is where I, this is my, I love this
stuff. Okay, because it's the extra nerdy part.
Okay, and this is called the bibliographic test.
And so what does the bibliographic test try to
accomplish? It wants to find out how well were
the original documents translated into what we
find today. have the stories drastically changed
over time? Was the story that they wrote then
maybe true, but over time we added and we embellished
and it turned into something that it's not and
never was intended to be? How well do the original
manuscripts translate into today? Now, there
are some issues with trying to determine the
accuracy of these manuscripts. Because sometimes,
specifically, in a minute I'll talk about Christian
texts, they would make tons of copies of the
manuscripts. They would write out. They didn't
have Xerox machines and stuff back then, right?
They had to write them out letter by letter.
I mean, you know, alphabetic character by character
in each letter. by letter. And sometimes they'd
make tons of copies, even though it was expensive,
it was difficult, and people who were literate
were rare. Okay? But with Christian texts, right
off the bat, big deal. Now, first I want to talk
about how many copies we have of the Old Testament.
What's amazing is that they would actually count
up in the Old Testament, and they would actually
central letter these copies, and when a manuscript
was complete, And they would go through these
copies of these manuscripts, and if they found
one error at all, one, they would destroy the
whole copy. I mean, some of these are the whole,
like it would take the skin of a whole animal
for a scroll. Lots, my point is a lot of writing.
One. no matter how big or small mistake, and
they would destroy it completely. So there are
very few copies. Some would wear out. Some would
be ceremonial and buried. And then again, they
would destroy ones that had any imperfections.
So because of this, for centuries, the most reliable
and well -respected Hebrew manuscript, one that
everybody said, okay, this is the copy that we
feel like is the master. Key, so to speak. It
was called the Masoretic Text. The Masoretic
Text. Now, what's interesting is, this is the
old ancient Bible, okay? Old Testament. But in
the year 70 AD, the Romans attacked the Jewish
people in Jerusalem again. And they were trying
to destroy their culture, and especially their
religious heritage. And so what the Jewish people
did were they took their scrolls and they put
them in these clay bottles or pots, and they
hid them in caves. And for 1 ,800 years, these
biblical scrolls just sit there, completely hidden.
Kid comes along in 1947, a little Bedouin shepherd
boy. And I believe the story goes, he was looking
for one of his sheep and he thought it had ran
into a cave. And so he took a rock and threw
the rock into the entrance of the cave, trying
to scare the sheep out. But whenever he threw
the rock in the cave, he heard it breaking apart
a clay pot. So he went and he examined what he
had done or what was in there. And it were all
of these. clay vessels from these, and they all
contain these biblical scrolls from 70, because
they were hidden from them because they feared,
again, the complete destruction of Jerusalem
by an emperor. And when we compare the Dead Sea
Scrolls to the Masoretic text, the accuracy is
stunning. I mean, there has been very, very little
transmission. dissonance. So, let's talk about
other copies of other books. The bibliographic
test. Now, in high school, often, at least, I
don't know if they still call, I don't even know
if you have to read in high school anymore, but
we would actually have to read books. And you'd
always have that one teacher that would make
you read something like the Odyssey or the Iliad?
Yeah, okay. Okay. Why? Very, very famous texts.
Texts. We have 643 copies of the Iliad from original
manuscript time. And that, for ancient manuscripts,
is considered a ton. Let me give you an example
of how big a deal that is. Plato's Republic,
another famous literary work, we only have seven
copies. The writings of Aristotle, we only have
five. Caesar, only 10. Caesar has 10 copies.
So the most accepted non -biblical historical
writing would unquestionably be the writings
of Homer with 643 early manuscripts. How many
copies do you think we have of original New Testament
documents? Not 643, not 1 ,000, but over... 24
,000 copies of original manuscripts of the letters
and books we find in the New Testament. When
you compare that against any other historical
writing beyond a shadow of a doubt, the Bible
stands alone and unquestionably, in my opinion,
passes the bibliographic test with flying colors.
24 ,000 early copies. Complete. Not original.
There's only one original, right? But it's complete.
Okay. So, we like to go to movies, and if you're
like me, you probably, or TV shows, you like
to kind of predict what's going to happen in
the end. Like, you can just, about two -thirds
of the way, you can just tell, oh, he did it,
or she did it. Right? We have that same kind
of thing in Scripture, right? With prophecy.
And people would say, Things in the Bible, this
is another thing that makes the Bible unique,
is people thousands of years ago would say these
things are going to happen, and then as time
goes on, those things would actually happen.
And of the dozens and dozens of prophecies that
we find in the Old Testament about promises of
things that are going to come true, there was
a group of prophecies that specifically talked...
About the coming of this messianic character
in the future that we Christians believe is Jesus
Christ. Now, there was a professor and his name
was Peter Stoner. Can you imagine? Peter Stoner,
all your life. He took 12 of his classes with
over 600 students. And they wanted to see what
the likelihood would be. What are the odds? that
these prophecies about Jesus would be fulfilled.
For example, one of those promises or prophecies
was that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem. And
so at that time, they took the population of
the world at the time of Jesus' birth, and they,
what are the odds? And they put a number on it.
And they did this. What are the odds that this
would happen at this time in this place? And
each time they put odds on the eight specific
prophecies about Jesus. And then they turned
those numbers over to... a governing board in
statistics who then approved their statistics
as reliable. Yeah, you're basing the odds on
this situation. Yeah, we agree that that's about
right for what the odds would be that this would
happen. And they took eight of them and put them
together, and they said, what is the possibility
of these eight specific things happening to one
specific person? And the odds were 1 and 10 with
17 zeros behind it. That number. That would be
the chances of eight prophecies of dozens about
Jesus being fulfilled. 1 and 10 with 17 zeros.
Now, you think, that's humongous. And it's so
humongous. that you're not even going to be able
to figure this out. This probably won't even
make sense. But let me give you an example of
what one and this number is. You guys ever been
to Texas? Let's think about how wide Texas is,
first and foremost. Did you guys know that it's
closer from El Paso to Los Angeles than it is
from Houston to El Paso? shorter, sorry, it's
less distance to drive to L .A. from El Paso
than just cross the state from Houston to El
Paso. That's how big Texas is. Now, let's see.
Take a silver dollar and put a red X on one silver
dollar and then drop it somewhere within the
boundary of the state of Texas. anywhere in the
state of Texas you want. It could be Austin,
Lubbock, Dallas, Beaumont, anywhere in a field,
on a highway, in the bottom of a creek, the bottom
of a lake, right? Okay. But wait, before I ask
you to go find it, what I want you to do is I
want you to have enough silver dollars that you
could dump silver dollars over the entire surface
of the state of texas to a depth of two feet
two feet is that about right the entire state
of texas is this deep in silver dollars and yours
is somewhere in there in the state of texas and
a miracle of all miracles you stop one day after
days and weeks and months and years of deciding
where you want to go to try to look for the one
with the X. And finally, you realize just where
you think it might be, and you reach down and
you pick up the one. That is the same odds as
these things being true about this one person.
I want to wrap up with a few prophecies. Isaiah
7 says, The virgin with child shall give birth.
And that was fulfilled. See, your king comes
to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle
riding on a donkey. That's fulfilled. Even my
close friends whom I trust have lifted his heel
against me. That will come true. The betrayer
has arranged a signal. The one I kiss is the
man. Arrest him. Going at once to Jesus, Judas
said, Greetings, Rabbi, and kissed him. Psalm
118 shows that the Messiah, will not completely
die but rise again. I will not die but live and
will proclaim what the Lord has done. The Lord
has chastened me severely and will not give me
over to death. Revelation 19 says, I saw heaven
standing open and there before me was a white
horse whose rider is called Faithful and True.
Justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are
like a blazing fire and on his head are many
crowns. He has a name written on him that no
one knows but he himself. He's dressed in a robe
dipped in blood, and his name is the word of
God. The armies of heaven are following him,
riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen,
white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp
sword with which to strike down the nations.
He will rule them with an iron scepter. He treads
them, the wine press with the fury and the wrath
of the God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh,
he has the name written, King of Kings and Lord
of Lords. So friends, I hope that in looking
at these various ways in which we might examine
the reliability of the God, I hope that I've
been able to show you tonight that there seems
to be, to me, be more evidence and to trust in
what the Bible says than clearly anything that
might contradict it. But more important than
that. I think what the scriptures more than anything
shows us is God's desire to have a relationship
with us by sharing in the creative process, the
creating process of making this book by which
we might know God and ourselves that much better.
Amen? Amen. Amen. Thank you, guys. You know,
when I look at the media -filled world in which
we all exist now with the Internet and social
media and the information that just flows through
us on a constant basis, one of the things that
I seem to notice is that over time, there has
definitely been this... This idea that it's okay
to challenge everything. And don't get me wrong,
I think we should challenge everything. But based
on a certain set of ideas, despite their evidence,
people are at times reasonably people. Reasonable,
rather, people. are completely prepared to believe
in the unreasonable. We see this through conspiracy
theories all the time. And yet, we're not even
often, because of our skeptical nature, close
to giving Holy Scripture that same treatment.
The idea is quite simply, There is more evidence
to seem to indicate that the stories we find
contained in this book we call the Bible is true
than not true. I'm not even trying to argue that
it's overwhelming. I'm certainly not trying to
argue that it's absolute, because if it was absolute,
well, we wouldn't even need faith. There has
to be a mystery to it. But at the same time,
as reasonable people, is it completely unreasonable
to believe in the evidence we find that the words
contained in Scripture are in fact true? We're
willing to accept that the moon is made of cheese.
We certainly never landed on it. And the world
is flat. And yet, despite the evidence we find
that Scripture is in fact what it appears to
be, we remain skeptical. What is it that gets
in our way when it comes to this? Something to
think about. Anyway, until next week, friend,
be well.