Is the Bible true? This is a question I have asked myself as I have navigated my walk with Christ and learned more about my faith. Billy Graham once said, “Our faith is not dependent upon human knowledge and scientific advance, but upon the unmistakable message of the Word of God” (Bickel, 2003, p.15). In our world today, there are many different religions and each one professes their book to be the Word of God. The Koran claims to be a “revelation from Allah and seen as the Word of God” (Yohn, 2013). The Book of Mormon is believed to be “divinely inspired by God”, but both of these books contradict the Bible (Yohn, 2013). All of the information collected around how the Bible was developed, the people who wrote the scriptures and how …show more content…
“It is a compilation of 66 books written by 40 separate authors” from 3 different continents (Is The Bible True, 2002). These books are divided into the Old Testament, which has 39 books and the New Testament, which has 27 books. “Some books only have one writer receiving his revelation over a period of time” (Yohn, 2013). The links which connected these circumstances together can only come from one place, God. These links are, “inspiration, canonization and transmission” (Bickel, 2003, pp.22-23). Inspiration means to “breathe or blow into” (Bickel, 2003, p.23). God brought together all 40 writers and inspired each of them what to write. Canonization is the “process by which church leaders recognized individual books of the Bible as being inspired by God” (Bickel, 2003, p.24). This process helped to determine which books in the Bible were not inspired by God’s Word and which ones were. The final link is the transmission of God’s Word. Transmission is the method which took place to bring the Bible from its beginnings to what we have now. These three links connected together as one chain delivered the Bible from God to us. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (BibleGateway, …show more content…
Some forms of communication came through dreams, visions, direct dictation and even God’s voice. Dreams and visions are a theme throughout both the Old and New Testament. In Genesis 37:1-11, Joseph not only had dreams, but had the ability to interpret dreams. Nearly the entire book of Revelation is a vision by John. Abraham had a vision from God that he would have a son and be the father of many nations. Moses actually heard the voice of God in quite a strange way, a burning bush. God spoke to Moses in Exodus 3:10 and told him “I am send you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt” (BibleGateway, 1993). These communications were penned in various styles of writing to help mankind understand the scriptures. Each book speaks to us differently. The book of Psalms is musical, parables are used in the book of Proverbs and romance in the Songs of Song. Over the course of many years, the God inspired writers brought these many messages together in one place to create the
Finally, revelation means revealing. It refers to the initiative of God in communicating with humans. Truth, scripture and revelation are all related because they are all forms of communication that allow us to know God’s message. They allow us to see stories and events of how people lived with God in history and set an example of how we should co-exist with God in our world today. The Hebrew scriptures play a vital role in the revelation of God.
William C. Plachers’ article, “Is the Bible True?” explores deeper into the subject of the Bible and if it content it contains is credible information. Through Plachers’ statement, “We need to understand the genre to understand a text. Reading a text literally is not always reading it faithfully,” we are able to reach the idea that the Bible is in fact true, but it all depends on how the individual interprets the text.
William C. Placher in his article, “Is the Bible true?”, attempts to explain to the reader the reasons why we can believe in the Bible. Placher states that to understand how the Bible is true we need to first accept its genres, recognize its attitudes toward historical details, and consider the social context of the language in which it was written. When a person understands the meaning of the Bible they then can trust the Bible as a guide to life, and a way of understanding the world. After reading the article, multiple times, I have come to the conclusion that I do not believe Placher proved his thesis with the points he presented.
The Bible comes in a variety of truths. These truths are scientific truth, historical truth, symbolic truth, proverbial truth, moral truth, and religious truth. In the Bible these truths are expressed through different types of literary forms such as myths, law, and apocalyptic writings. These different truths are understood and recognized by some, but not by others. While a story in the Bible may not be true, it has a symbolic meaning behind it, some people may not see the symbolic meaning and see the story as set in stone.
According to the dictionary a myth is a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events..(oxforddictionaries.). On the other hand, there are no myths in the Bible because the Bible tries to explain the world we live in. It is a historical account of the world and its surroundings before, during, and after Jesus' time on earth. Therefore, the Bible itself contains a timeline of historical events that include places, historical figures and also coincides with other non-biblical related events. For example, mythical stories aim to explain how things have come to be, but does not point to a particular location or involve human beings, nor do they give any information regarding the future. However, in the Bible, the events take place in places still known to people today, with historical figures such as Pontius Poilate, Herod, Jesus and many more figures. The Bible gives insight and information into many more days to come and into the distant future.Although the Bible is not a scientific book, it is accurate regarding scientific knowledge and facts. This is because in the Bible, God is the creator of the world, and is all-knowing. In 1861, the French Academy of Sciences claimed to find 51 scientific errors in the Bible. However, with the progress of scientific research and time the 'errors' found by the French Academy of Sciences were errors caused by the academy itself and not by the Bible. There were some facts written in the Bible long ago, and with the progress of life we started to discover and witness them. One of these facts is the spherical Earth:
The Hebrew Bible, better known as the Old Testament, is a collection of tomes that form part of the Biblical canon. Many scholars around the world do not think that a single author wrote the books contained in the Hebrew Bible, but rather that it represents centuries of stories frequently compiled after the events they describe . The stories were created with visions for the future, in order to allow audiences insight into communities and beliefs that were common thought during their era. The stories responded to the issues and problems of their time, but also addressed contemporary climates. While the stories themselves may not be true, they convey truth without needing literal readings. For example, the creation stories in Genesis, portray God as creating the universe, and while this is considered as not ‘literally true’; the stories communicate theological truths about mankind’s relationship with God through the eyes of Hebrew writers .
The Old Testament and the Bible itself has been studied extensively for centuries. Archeologists and Scholars have labored and pondered over texts trying to decipher its clues. It does not matter how many times the Old Testament has been studied there will always be something new to learn about it or the history surrounding it. In the book Reading the Old Testament: an Introduction, the author Lawrence Boadt presents us with a few different authors of the Old Testament that used different names for God and had a unique insight into the texts. These four sources are titled P for priests, E for Elohim, J for Jehovah, and Y for Yahweh (95). These four unique sources help us realize that there is more than one author of the Pentateuch. These authors took the text and adapted for their culture. This independent source is used by scholars to help gain insight into what was behind the texts of the bible so we are not left with an incomplete picture of what went into the creation of the bible. Julius Wellhausen used these four sources to publish a book to able us to better understand the sources and to give it credibility with the Protestant scholars at the time (Boadt 94). These sources that is independent of the bible as in the DVD Who Wrote the Bible? and the Nova website aide in shedding light on the history that surrounded the writers who wrote the text and what inspired them to write it in the first place. The DVD shows the discovery of The Dead Sea Scrolls and the extensive history of the texts and all its sources in an effort to try to find exactly who wrote the bible (Who Wrote). These scrolls have aided scholars immensely by giving us some of the oldest known manuscripts of the bible in the world today. It shows that the bible w...
The Bible is read and interpreted by many people all over the world. Regardless, no one knows the absolute truth behind scripture. Walter Brueggemann, professor of Old Testament, wrote “Biblical Authority” to help people understand what he describes as six different parts that make up the foundation to ones understanding of scripture. He defines these six features as being: inherency, interpretation, imagination, ideology, inspiration, and importance. As Brueggemann explains each individual part, it is easy to see that they are all interconnected because no one can practice one facet without involuntarily practicing at least one other part.
Writings of historical scholars, Josephus, Aristotle, and Plato, to name a few, are taken as truth and fact, yet the writings of the Scripture are constantly disputed. Why? Perhaps because of the ethical imperatives imposed to which people do not want to adhere. Perhaps because of man’s ego and pride that disallows them to submit to a Higher Authority. Nonetheless, The Bible has been, and still remains, the most widely read and revered book of all
For centuries now Christians have claimed to possess the special revelation of an omnipotent, loving Deity who is sovereign over all of His creation. This special revelation is in written form and is what has come to be known as The Bible which consists of two books. The first book is the Hebrew Scriptures, written by prophets in a time that was before Christ, and the second book is the New Testament, which was written by Apostles and disciples of the risen Lord after His ascension. It is well documented that Christians in the context of the early first century were used to viewing a set of writings as being not only authoritative, but divinely inspired. The fact that there were certain books out in the public that were written by followers of Jesus and recognized as being just as authoritative as the Hebrew Scriptures was never under debate. The disagreement between some groups of Christians and Gnostics centered on which exact group of books were divinely inspired and which were not. The debate also took place over the way we can know for sure what God would have us include in a book of divinely inspired writings. This ultimately led to the formation of the Biblical canon in the next centuries. Some may ask, “Isn’t Jesus really the only thing that we can and should call God’s Word?” and “Isn’t the Bible just a man made collection of writings all centered on the same thing, Jesus Christ?” This paper summarizes some of the evidences for the Old and New Testament canon’s accuracy in choosing God breathed, authoritative writings and then reflects on the wide ranging
Spanning fifteen hundred years with over 30,700 manuscripts, extensive archaeological evidence and 2000 prophecies that have been fulfilled, the Bible is God 's word to us. (Yohn, 2013). In the Bible, the Father is essentially giving us a picture of the history of the world and is also leading us to a place where we must make a decision that involves whether we choose to accept his son or reject him and remain guilty. Additionally, the Word of God tells us what happened that caused this breach between us and God, the result of this and how God has rectified it through the blood of his son. In fact, from the beginning of the Bible (written 1400 B.C.) to the last book (A.D. 96), God is showing us why we need Jesus and how to find him. Just as a plant’s root system propagates and occupies the pot that encloses it, Jesus permeates the entire Bible. Therefore, the motif of the Bible is the story of the redemption of mankind and it all points to Jesus as the messiah and savior who secures this for all.
The Hebrew Bible is studied, analyzed, and worshiped by millions each day, it gives insight into the teachings and laws of God. The article “Pentateuch”, obtained from The Zondervan Pictoral Encyclopedia of the Bible by Merrill C. Tenney, deeply examines the authorship of the Pentateuch and displays two compelling arguments of weather the Pentateuch is of Mosaic authorship, or written by authors other than Moses. The Pentateuch is the bases of the entire Bible, it contains the first five books, including Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, thus the literal meaning of “five volumes”. Theses five books make up the Old Testament and are roadmap to God’s teachings. The two views of Pentateuch authorship are Mosaic authorship
Before we are going to talk deeply about how God communicates to human being, we need to distinguish some terms that relating with the works of the prophets
means full and verbal means word for word therefore every Word in the Bible comes
The term 'Scripture' refers to the sacred writing of the Old and New Testament. Sacred Scripture are the books which 'contain the truth of God?s revelation and were composed by human authors inspired by the Holy Spirit' (CCC 105). Sacred Scripture is one of the several names denoting the inspired writings which make up the Old and New Testament. The words of the Sacred Scriptures, 'for their part proclaim the works and bring light to the mystery they contain'.