St. John Studies

Apostolicity…

Remember a couple of posts back, the word canonicity?

Well here is another new word for me…apostolicity.

What does that mean and why is it important?

“Of, relating to, or contemporary with the 12 Apostles. Of, relating to, or derived from the teaching or practice of the 12 Apostles. And a reference to New Testament writings, those which were included in the New Testament canon, which have unequivocally claimed apostolic authorship.  The reference to writings is particularly important for our topic this week: “Are the Bible Documents Reliable?”

This is a question that plagues the doubter, the skeptic and maybe even Christians don’t want to admit lack of knowledge about the New Testament canon. We need to know about it so we can communicate to the doubter and the skeptic.

The New Testament is not as old as the Old Testament; yet, we do not have the original documents of the New Testament—all we have are the copies. Like the Old Testament, the question arises, “How reliable are those copies?”

Josh McDowell in his book The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict is very helpful on this topic.  He recounts that there are almost six thousand very early manuscripts of the Greek New Testament.  There are ten thousand early manuscripst of the Latin Vulgate and a least nine thousand three hundred other early versions [in other languages].

Why is this important? No book has as many early manuscripts as The Bible.  For example Homer’s Iliad is a very famous book that has existed since the 8^th Century B.C. but there are only 643 manuscript copies in existence.

McDowell states, “The sheer number of manuscript copies cannot be overstated. As with other documents of ancient literature, there are no known extant (currently existing) original manuscripts of the Bible.  Fortunately, however the abundance of manuscript copies makes it possible to reconstruct the original with virtually complete accuracy.”

Ok, I have mentioned apostolicity as a key element in constructing the New Testament canon and to understand that is very simple. When I was in college I was a history major and I had a history professor explain the value of historical documents to me [since I had to write my share of history term papers!].  Say a battle occurs, what documents would have the most value?  The first hand witnesses of the battle.   Among those witnesses, which would be the best?  The commanders who had a better idea of the “big picture” of the battle.  What documents would be less valuable?  Accounts that were written by people who were not there.

The Apostles were there with Jesus. That is simple.

But of all the books in the New Testament, not all of them were written by Apostles. Other criteria had to be introduced.  Paul Little states the idea of “ecclesiastical usage”; the more a book was used by churches and recognized by churches the more it found its way into the New Testament.  Lastly, the idea of sound doctrine was introduced.  If a book of the New Testament fit in with the basic doctrine of Christianity, it was considered.

You may be asking why was all this necessary?

Well, after Jesus was here on earth and then went on to heaven, man took over leadership of His church and if you read works like The Faith by professor Brian Moynahan, you will see that man began to muddy the waters of doctrine around the 2^nd Century A.D.

Complex questions began to arise about basic issues like the doctrine of grace, atonement, readmission of those who had lapsed, and the nature of the sacraments. Church leaders began to hurl the very dangerous label heretic at people who seemed to be “a bit off the mark.”

The problem was, there was no standardized mark for our faith and that needed to be established for Christianity.

Dr. R. A. Baker in his paper “How the New Testament Canon was Formed” states: “Many people think the New Testament writings were agreed upon at the Council of Nicea. There were 20 canons (church rules) voted on at Nicea – none dealt with sacred writings. The first historical reference listing the exact 27 writings in the orthodox New Testament is in the Easter Letter of Athanasius in 367 AD. His reference states that these are the only recognized writings to be read in a church service. The first time a church council ruled on the list of “inspired” writings allowed to be read in church was at the Synod of Hippo in 393 AD. No document survived from this council – we only know of this decision because it was referenced at the third Synod of Carthage in 397 AD.

How was the New Testament canon established?

Apostolicity…

Ecclesiastical usage…

Conformity to sound doctrine…

Even though man has muddied the waters since Jesus’ days on earth, a person very close to Jesus writes: “And He Himself gave some to be Apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:11-16).

Paul knew that challenges would come from doubters and skeptics but what we have in the New Testament is a work that will hold up under any kind of questioning.

In Paul Little’s book Know Why You Believe, he spends a lot of time discussing the Dead Sea Scrolls as a way to prove the reliability of the Bible.

Because I studied history in college, I have always heard about these scrolls but like a lot of Christians, I really don’t know what they are.

So here is what they are according to Wikipedia. The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of some 981 different texts discovered between 1946 and 1956 in eleven caves in the immediate vicinity of the ancient settlement at Khirbet Qumran in the West Bank.  The caves are located about 2 kilometers inland from the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name.

Why are they so significant? The answer to this question goes to yesterday’s post—comparability.

Josh McDowell [a staunch defender of Biblical reliability] states that if you asked a Biblical scholar for a dream discovery for Old Testament study he would state “Older witnesses to the original Old Testament manuscripts.”

When you think about this, you begin to understand how we can make factual statements about the reliability of the Old Testament.

Before these famous scrolls were discovered, the oldest copy of the Old Testament dated from the 10^th Century.

We knew it had been copied over and over many times by the time copies were made in the 10^th Century.  Were these copies reliable?

Get this fact folks: with this single discovery, the Old Testament copies went back in time 1,000 years.

Dedicated skeptics can still say “You don’t have the original texts!”

That is true but we do have awesome comparability.

Why is that important?

It proves accuracy. It proves the sacred nature of the text for the copyists.  They knew they were working on something that is just not another book.

One of the scrolls was the complete book of Isaiah. Paleographers date the scroll to 125 B.C.  Scholar Gleason Archer says “Isaiah copies…proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95% of the text.  The 5 percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling.”  Millar Barrows adds “It is a matter of wonder that through something like a thousand years the text underwent so little alteration.”

Let’s pause a moment and think about what we have with the Dead Sea Scrolls. Let’s let it “soak in” about why they are important for the defense of the Old Testament.

Sure, if a skeptic says to you “You don’t have the original manuscripts of the Old Testament” you have to be truthful. You have to say, “We don’t.”

But what do we have?   We have factual evidence that the Bible is very probably the most accurate printed document in the world.  Even though original manuscripts do not exist, what copies we have are amazingly accurate.

Biblical study of the Old Testament has been greatly enhanced due to this discovery in 1947. Conclusions about the Old Testament have been greatly enhanced.  Pre-Christian writing of God’s ancient Word has been made more intelligible for the modern reader.

Now you know.

In February of 1947 when the Bedouin shepherd boy named Muhammad went searching for his lost goat, he changed the world of Biblical scholarship. He tossed a stone into a hole in the cliff on the west side of the Dead Sea.  When the stone went into the hole, to his surprise he heard the sound of shattering pottery.  When he investigated where the stone had gone, he opened a hole in the cliff and entered a cavern where several large jars contained leather scrolls wrapped in linen cloth.  The jars were sealed.  Because of that, they were in excellent condition, having existed for 1,900 years.

F.G. Kenyon in his book Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts writes about the reliability of the Old Testament:  “The Christian can take the whole Bible in his hand and say without fear and hesitation that he holds in it the true word of God, handed down without essential loss from generation to generation throughout the centuries.”

Like me, maybe you have heard about the Dead Sea Scrolls.   You know that the documents are revered by many so you know to have respect for them.  Maybe no one explained them.  Maybe no one told you of their importance.

As Christians we ought to know because this information can bolster our faith. As Christians we ought to know because this information can help us defend our faith.

Of course the picture of a cannon is a joke…

Canonicity.

Is that a word you use?

Well Paul Little has written a book about attacks on Christianity and a common attack comes from folks who question the canon.

Maybe you thought a canon was something that soldiers used to propel artillery shells at the enemy.

Well it is a multiple use word and it also means a list of texts (or “books”) which a particular religious community regards as authoritative scripture.

The “sticking points” with doubters is who picked the canon? How did they decide which books went in and which books did not go in the canon?  Aren’t there some books that got left out?

You know where the doubter is coming from. They think that mere humans made decisions that were inaccurate.  Little says “How do we know the books in our Bible, and no others, are the ones that should be there?”

All Protestant Churches accept the same Old Testament that the Jewish people do. The Roman Catholic Church includes some of the books of the Apocrypha [more on that later].  The Christian era means the Scripture of the New Testament.  When Jesus came, the writers of the New Testament contributed material to the Bible based on the time from Jesus onward, the second part of Scripture for the Protestant Church.

For the church, the issue of the canon is simple. The church did not create the canon; it did not determine which books would be called Scripture, the inspired Word of God.  Josh McDowell says “the church recognized, or discovered, which books had been inspired from their inception.”  The following five principles guided the recognition and collection of the books in the canon: 1. Was the book written by a prophet from God?  If it was, then it was the Word of God.  2. Was the writer confirmed by acts of God?  True prophets were able to perform miracles; false prophets could not.  3. Did the message of Scripture tell the truth about God?  God does not contradict God.  4. Does the Word come with the power of God?  The presence of God’s transforming power is a strong indicator that a given book has God’s stamp of approval.  5. Was the book accepted by the people of God?  When a book was received, collected, read and used by the people of God, that was a factor in including it in the canon.

I have always thought the canon was determined by a group of “high church” officials gathering together to gerrymander the books of the Bible, maybe pushing their own political agenda. I had always heard about the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. and the Council of Trent in 1545 because I was a history major.  But the canon was determined less by high church council members and more by common people who read and worshipped Scripture.  Bart Ehrman says it best: “The historical reality [of the canon] is a good reminder that [it] is not just a man-made construct.  It was not the result of a power play brokered by rich cultural elites in some smoke filled room.  It was the result of many years of God’s people reading, using, and responding to these books. The same was true for the Old Testament canon.  Jesus himself used and cited the Old Testament writings with no indication anywhere that there was uncertainty about which books belonged.  Indeed, He held His audience accountable for knowing these books.  But, in all of this, there was no Old Testament church council that officially picked them (not even Jamnia).  They too were the result of ancient and widespread consensus.  In the end, we can certainly acknowledge that humans played a role in the canonical process.  But, not the role that is so commonly attributed to them.  Humans did not determine the canon, they responded to it.  In this sense, we can say that the canon really chose itself.”

Professor Ehrman’s ideas are echoed by Paul Little. Ehrman mentions Jamnia above, a church council in 90 A.D. that had discussion about the canon.  “The discussion [at Jamnia] seemed to center not on whether certain books should be included in the canon, but whether certain ones should be excluded.  In any case, those present recognized what already was accepted.  They did not bring into being what had previously existed.  In other words, they recognized but did not establish the canonicity of the Old Testament books as we have them.”

There’s that word again…canonicity.

A subject of concern that would shake a person’s faith?

I don’t think so.

Like the previous post about the King James Bible and the different translations of the Bible, the canon is a necessary way to get all of us “on the same page.”

“Harold Camping predicted that Jesus Christ would return to Earth on May 21, 2011, whereupon the saved would be taken up to heaven in the rapture, and that there would follow five months of fire, brimstone and plagues on Earth, with millions of people dying each day, culminating on October 21, 2011, with the final destruction of the world” [Wikipedia “Harold Camping”].

I have mentioned Mr. Camping before [in a June 24, 2015 post]. Mr. Camping felt he was a prophet.  He believed he knew something the rest of us did not know.  God had given him the prophetic vision for the end of the world.

He revised his date of rapture to October 21^st and from that point on he avoided the press.  He suffered a stroke in June 2011 and never made public appearances.  He died on December 15, 2013 and sadly was labelled by the mainstream media as a “false prophet.”

What happened to this man?

His credibility was destroyed because his prophesy was incorrect.

What happens to the Bible when the standard of prophesy is applied to God’s Word? Well, something else entirely.

Paul Little says that prophesy in the Bible proves that the Book is the Word of God. There are literally hundreds of prophesies in the Bible and as you study the Bible and see the prophesies fulfilled it becomes clear that fulfilled prophecy is evidence of the supernatural Word of God.

The Bible is full of prophesies about the Jewish people, historical events, kings, nations and cities. There are too many prophesies to mention in such a limited discussion in this blog format.

To focus our discussion, let’s look at a sampling of prophesies regarding the life of Jesus. I remember the first time I became aware of some of these prophesies.  I was in a Disciple Bible Study with my pastor at that time and I was (to use a common expression) “blown away.”

Isaiah 7:14 says “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”

Isaiah 9:6: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

Micah 5:2: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”

Concerning Jesus’ ministry and death—Zechariah 9:9: “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

Psalm 22:16-18: “Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.”

Likely the clearest prophecy about Jesus is the entire 53rd chapter of Isaiah. Isaiah 53:3-7 is especially unmistakable: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.”

The “seventy sevens” prophecy in Daniel chapter 9 predicted the precise date that Jesus, the Messiah, would be “cut off.”

Isaiah 50:6 accurately describes the beating that Jesus endured.

Zechariah 12:10 predicts the “piercing” of the Messiah, which occurred after Jesus died on the cross.

We could go on and on, but I have vivid memory of my feeling the day I was reading some of the passages from Isaiah and we were discussing our reading in the Bible study class.

I thought truly this book is the word of God. How could all this be said in the Old Testament, written by a prophet [for example, Isaiah] in the mid to late 700’s B.C. and it be fulfilled in the life of Jesus Christ?

There could only be one answer.

Harold Camping probably fell prey to the temptation that is out there for many who want to prophesy today. Maybe he had pride in his Bible knowledge.  Maybe he wanted to make money or promote his organization.  I don’t know.  I did not look into his heart while he was alive.  I can’t do that type of thing and we are not supposed to judge people as Christians.

But the poor man was wrong and he paid the price for being wrong.

When you hear someone question the Bible as the word of God, don’t let them do that without telling them about some of the fulfilled prophesies.

Those prophesies are there for a reason, not to destroy The Book’s credibility, but to get us to realize exactly what I realized in that Disciple Bible study…

Truly this book is the word of God.

Inerrancy is a topic that I have addressed before but Paul Little brings it up in his chapter “Is the Bible God’s Word” so we need to discuss it again [see St. John Studies November 17, 2015 for the earlier discussion].

What is it and why is it a concern for believers and non-believers?

Inerrancy means “that when all the facts are known, the Scriptures in their original autographs [original documents], properly interpreted, will be shown to be wholly true in everything they affirm, whether this has to do with doctrine or morality or with social, physical, or life sciences” [Josh McDowell, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict].

As in yesterday’s discussion of the literal interpretation of Scripture, the inerrancy question is a “no win” question. If a believer asks you about it and you explain that you don’t ascribe to inerrancy, it may sound like there are weak spots in your Christian belief system.  For the unbeliever to ask you about inerrancy is to walk into a trap, a trap where you may find yourself denying contemporary knowledge of the social, physical and life sciences.  That will make you look stupid to the unbeliever.

Where are the sticking points that a believer needs to avoid in this debate?

Paul Little lays out some of those.

Let’s talk about phenomenology. If you are like me, that is not a word you use every day.   A simple definition of phenomenology is it is the study of consciousness and the objects of direct experience.  Let’s make it simpler to understand with some examples.  When the Bible was written, the people of that time described the world as they knew it.  Demonic possession occurs in many places in the Bible but today much of that can be explained by contemporary psychiatric and medical knowledge.  A convulsion caused by an epileptic seizure was a sign of a demonic possession but today we know the reason for the seizure.  It is not demonic possession of course.   Personality disorders are very real today but they were not “real” in Bible times because ancient peoples had limited knowledge of the human brain and human behavior.  What we would call schizophrenia today may have simply been called demonic possession in ancient days.  Were they wrong to label this behavior this way?  No, that is what they knew; that is what they were conscious of and their direct experience had to have some explanation.  Demonic possession seemed appropriate.

What happens when a believer says the Bible is inerrant? What they may be saying is that epileptic seizures are demonic possessions when we strongly suspect they are just epileptic seizures.  When an unbeliever tries to trap you with a question about inerrancy, it may be best to say the Bible was written in some instances to reflect the truth of the day.   Are we making a mistake to apply contemporary knowledge to a world many years ago?  I think so.  Some of the truth of Bible times may be surpassed by contemporary explanation. However much of the truth of the Bible is timeless. I am reading the Old Testament now and I can see a common theme in all the sacrifices that are offered to God: a sacrifice is only a worthy offering when it costs something of the giver.

As Paul Little says, “let’s not kill the goose that lays the golden egg.” Just because some contemporary knowledge may alter how we see the world, let’s not throw God’s Word away because we know more than the Bible authors knew when they wrote the Bible.  Very important truths are still in God’s Word.

Let’s talk about practical matters like transmissional errors. The doctrine of inerrancy also refers to the original copies of the Bible.  Let’s be “real”.  The original documents of the Bible do not exist but very old copies do and Biblical scholars have spent countless hours poring over very old autographs [manuscripts].  The scholars try to compare old autographs to detect errors in transcription.  Until the printing press was invented, the Bible had to be copied by hand for at least a thousand years.  It is entirely possible that transmissional errors crept into the text.

Wow, does that mean my Bible is full of errors?

No, it does not mean that.

Archeological discoveries and painstaking Biblical scholarship have confirmed that Masoretic Jews in charge of copying texts were amazingly accurate due to comparing fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls with older text. Josh McDowell reports of the 40,000 fragments that exist, the oldest texts date back to a century before the birth of Christ [125 BC to 916 AD].  There is a 95% accuracy rate for the comparison of texts.

Let’s be realistic and let’s be fair.

It is not fair to apply today’s level of knowledge to Bible-time level of knowledge. What we know today definitely shapes the way we view the world.  What the writers of the Bible knew in their timeframe shaped the way they saw their world.

That does not mean they were wrong.

The Bible has a rich history as a document. It has been passed down to us from many sources as it has been translated to the language of the day.  That transmission through history does not mean that it was handled carelessly.  Unbelievable effort was made to present an accurate text to the Bible reader.

The “bottom line” is this. Do I or do I not have a Bible that is the inspired and inerrant Word of God?  Can I be confident that what I read in the Bible is truly from God?  The answer is yes, the Bible today is the inspired Word of God.   Truths like those found in Luke when Jesus tells the parable of the prodigal son will always be relevant.  We need to recover the lost who have drifted away, we need to minister to the self-righteous, and forgiveness should be extended as one is restored to relationship with the Father God.

Let’s not get too anxious about our Bibles. “You can trust your Bible….The pollution which intruded in the transmission and translation of the Bible is minor, under control and diminishing” [McDowell, 349].

Read your Bible.

Your reading and study is definitely not a “no win” situation.

As Paul Little says, “The presence of problems does not prevent our accepting the Bible as the supernatural Word of God.”

I guess I have studied words all my life. I am not so great with numbers but I have always been fascinated with words.

Sometimes I hear a Christian ask another Christian “Do you take the Bible literally?” Sometimes I hear a nonbeliever ask the same question of the believer.  As Paul Little says, any way you answer this question you have problems.  If you say no, it calls into question your devotion to the Bible.  If you answer yes, it can lead to harder questions from the nonbeliever like “Did the trees literally clap their hands” in Isaiah 55:12?”  How do you defend your literal stance to a questioner like that?

How are we supposed to respond to the person who believes that the Bible is literal or the unbeliever who is “laying a trap”?

Well for me it goes back to the nature of words and before we go too far here, let me tell you that my knowledge of words does not get in the way of my belief in the inspired Word of God.

But what is a word?

A word is a symbol used to communicate a message [if you are reading this right now, you have a lot of symbols on your screen, of course].  What is a symbol?  Something used for or regarded as representing something else.

The Bible is full of words and consequently, full of symbols.

Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near so I can touch you my son to know whether you really are my son Esau or not” [Genesis 27: 21]. The whole sentence is a collection of symbols.

The writer [many attribute the author as Moses] writes the symbols in this manner to convey the interaction between Isaac and Jacob along with the idea of touching and the reason why Isaac wants Jacob to come near and be touched.

How “literal” is this passage?

I guess to the extent that the symbols call up specific images in the reader’s brain, the message is literal.  The writer hopes the images are the correct images that they intended to covey with their symbols.

If you are a student of words, you know that some words call up more images than others. Connotative words are common in language and they call forth more of a feeling response from the reader.  For example, the word “blood” makes most readers associate some blood-letting episode from their past and maybe even feelings associated with that event.  Language has its share of denotative words such as chair, which can summon up images of a thing to sit in.  The word has less feelings associated with it usually so the meaning is maybe more clear.

We have concrete words like axe, cup and ink pen. These words are specific and if I said to you “I picked up an axe” I think you could pretty clearly see my precise meaning.  We also have abstract words.  Jesus talks so much about love but have you ever thought about the imprecise abstract nature of love?  Love is what we call an abstract term.  Ask someone to give you a pound of love or go to the store to buy you a loaf of love.  Send the next door neighbor some love and you will get a strange look.  Why, because the word is abstract.  The definition of abstract is “expressing a quality or characteristic apart from any specific object or instance.”

Would our language be as effective without denotative and connotative words? Probably not.  Would we be able to get along without concrete and abstract words?  I guess so but we appreciate preciseness at times and if you have ever been around a tedious, detailed, descriptive person, abstraction is very nice at times.

Did the writers of God’s Word use these types of words? Of course they did.  Hebrew was the language of a lot of the Old Testament with Aramaic mixed in as Hebrew began to be used less around 200 BC.  Of course Greek was the primary language of the New Testament.  All languages use these types of words.

How are we to feel about the nature of words and the Bible as the Word of God?

I know that God spoke the Word to man. Man had to write it down.  In the New Testament, God spoke through Jesus and man had to record what Jesus said and did.

God inspired it all.

The big question is, “Is God’s inspiration just limited to the Scripture writers?” I don’t think so.  God is capable of inspiring me as a Scripture reader.

Depending on the ability of your brain and heart to comprehend the meaning of God’s Word, you are understanding God’s thought. Can some respond better to God’s Word than others?  Of course they can.  They have larger vocabularies, more experience as a Christian, more experience as a Bible reader and student of the Bible. Can one get better at understanding God’s Word over time?  Of course they can.

As we circle back to our original concern, the Christian who asks another Christian if they believe the Bible is the literal Word of God, the answer should be no, based on a good understanding of the word literal and a thorough understanding of how words work. It is not necessary for God’s Word to be literal.  It is almost like we are trying to put God in a box for the convenience of our own limited cognitive ability.  God can speak to us on many levels of language.

For the unbeliever who is trying to “lay a trap” for you to fall into with his question about literal interpretation, he probably knows how language works and he is wanting you to show your limited knowledge of how language works.

Don’t fall into that trap. Paul Little has an excellent response: “We believe that the Bible is to be interpreted in the sense in which the authors intended it to be received by readers….we need not insist on the historicity of Biblical events and records to enjoy and realize the truth they convey.”

The Bible does not have to be literal for it to be God’s Word.

This gives some “wiggle room” for God and His writers and it gives us growth room for our reading skills and for the development of sensitivity to God and God’s Word [also known as the ongoing development of Christian maturity].

And folks, that is a good thing.

I just don’t believe the Bible. I think the Bible is just like any other book. It is not special.  The Bible is full of contractions; that makes it unbelievable.  God inspired so much cruelty in the Bible; how could it be a good book to read?

This list could go on and on. Reasons that people reject the Bible as God’s special Word.

So many nonbelievers get “hung up” on the Bible before they even consider their relationship with Jesus Christ. Paul Little says they should be asking “What do you think of Christ?”  Instead they are focusing on this question:  “What is your view of the Bible?”

Let me get personal.

The Bible is not an easy “read”. I do not tell you that to discourage you.  I tell you that to support Paul Little.  An unbeliever who is focused on the Bible before making a commitment to Jesus will see the Bible as a real problem, a real stumbling block.

I have been a Bible reader off and on for many years. Off and on reading was not doing me much good.  Can a person focus on contradictions and raise personal doubts?

Yes they can.

But look at how an unbeliever approaches the Bible. Not only are they looking for contradiction but they are not allowing God to work in them as they read the Bible.  Hint: I never read my Bible today without asking for God to reveal Himself to me in the pages I am about to read.  I believe God does that.  It makes a big difference.

Off and on reading or reading bits and pieces robs you of the unity that you can see if you engage in concentrated effort to understand God’s Word.

Yes, you can “cherry pick” verses and pinpoint contradictions. Doubters point to Genesis 1:20 where it says that fowl were created out of the waters; Genesis 2:19 alleges they were formed from the ground.  What is the “real” story here?  The real story is in the use of the words and how we can parse our words and twist meanings.  Depending on your translation [mine is the New International] it says that the water “teems” with living creatures [1:20], the birds are an example.  Teem is not a word that we use much today; it means bring forth or produce.  Genesis 2:19 says that God formed “out of the ground all of the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air.”

What do we have?

A contradiction.

What must we do?

Throw out the baby with the bath water.

Really?

The Old Testament is a collection of thirty-nine books written between 1450 BC and 400 BC. As you begin to understand the purpose of the Old Testament, you see that it is a story of God’s special relationship with one human family, the family of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  This family became the Jewish people.  These special people were God’s people and they were picked to show the world how the worship of God can save all mankind.  This was God’s plan to save all men from sin.

Are there contradictions in the Bible? I would imagine so.  But when one examines the contradiction examples, they seem pretty minor compared to the overall unity of the text.

But God inspired so much cruelty in the Bible. How can I believe in such a cruel God?

Yes, the Bible is full of instances of the Israelites destroying groups of people. An example is Deuteronomy 2:33-34:  “And the Lord our God delivered him over to us; and we defeated him with his sons and all his people. So we captured all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, women and children of every city. We left no survivor.”

How can I believe a God who inspires people to do this? The history of this event is in God’s Word.

First of all man’s cruelty is not uncommon today. That’s not an excuse but we are not a perfect people.  We kill unjustly today and even in large numbers [Nazi Germany].

Secondly, God expected the Israelites to be a special people, set aside from other peoples. A practical way to prevent intermarriage from occurring was to totally destroy conquered peoples.  In the Old Testament the Israelites failed to destroy other people with horrible results [Psalm 106: 34-38] “They did not destroy the peoples as the LORD commanded them, but they mingled with the nations and learned their practices, and served their idols, which became a snare to them. They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons…”

Thirdly, God demanded obedience and if He said destroy a people, He meant it. The Old Testament is full of examples of people who refused God’s direct command.  God spoke through Joshua to the people telling them to not have pity on the people of Canaan and not only destroy the people but destroy their possessions.  “But the people of Israel weren’t faithful to the Lord. They didn’t do what they were told to do with the things that had been set apart to Him in a special way to be destroyed. Achan had taken some of those things. So the Lord’s anger burned against Israel.” [Joshua 7: 1].  Because of this disobedience, the Israelites suffered horrible losses in the next battle.

Today I know I have focused on the Old Testament but Paul Little states the unbeliever should not pick apart the Bible as much as deal with the relationship he or she has with Jesus Christ. “What do you think of Christ?” is the first step, not plunging headlong into a doubter’s reading of the Bible.  The New Testament is the story of Jesus, and God’s effort to have a personal relationship with man through the gift of His Son.

It is a different approach at reaching out to man than the Old Testament.

But it is the answer to that question “What do you think of Christ?” that can open up a person today to God’s redeeming grace.

First things first and then the Bible will mean so much more.