Is There Even One Mistake in the Bible? (Infallibility of the Bible) by Gary T. Panell You may have heard people say something like, The Bible is a pack of lies! The same people who believe this, when asked to point out the mistakes, cannot do it. They may, however, come up with difficulties in the Bible. By this I mean they come up with things that they do not understand about the Bible. For example, they may think that there are discrepancies between the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We will address this subject of difficulties in the Bible, and still you will find that there are no contradictions or mistakes in the Bible. We will look at how wonderful it is to hold the very revelation from the God of the universe in our hands! In order to see that the Bible is the perfect revelation of God, we need to look at the way the Holy Spirit gave us His Word. The importance of Qumran [Israel] surfaced in 1947. A Bedouin shepherd tossed a stone inside a cave on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, hoping to locate his wandering goat. Instead of hitting the animal, his rock smashed a clay jar that contained leather scrolls, which eventually were purchased by the State of Israel. Since then, hundreds of caves in the area have been explored, and some have yielded manuscripts now known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Shrine of the Book, located at the Israeli Museum in Jerusalem, displays many finds from Qumran. The Dead Sea Scrolls (they contain about 200 copies of the Jewish Scriptures, as well as other writings) were copied between 250 B.C. and A.D. 68, when they were hidden from the invading Roman army that destroyed the community. Although scholars disagree about many details, they affirm that people known as the Essenes placed the scrolls in the caves. These strict Jews abhorred the unholy priesthood in Jerusalem and lived separately, in their own community. Their writings reveal that they anticipated the end of the world, culminating in a battle between the sons of light and the sons of darkness. It may be more than a coincidence that the scrolls of ancient Israel were discovered in the very year that modern Israel was founded. (May/June 2006 Issue of Israel My Glory) First, we need to define the word Bible when we talk about the Bible being infallible or without error. The Bible is inspired by God, and no other book can prove this claim except the Bible. Inspiration is Gods superintending or oversight of human authors so that using their own individual personalities men composed and recorded, without error, His revelation to man, the Bible, in the words of the original autographs. There are 66 books in all, 39 in the Old Testament, and 27 in the New Testament. Many people wonder why the 66 books of the Bible are recognized as sacred by most of Christendom, and would like to know why some Bibles include the Apocrypha. Then, too, why havent Christians accepted as inspired anything written since the book of Revelation? To answer these questions we will consider how the canon of Scripture, the books of the Bible that are recognized, came to be established. (The Book You Can Trust by Richard W. De Haan) Meaning of the word CANON: The word canon comes from the root word reed (English word cane; Hebrew form ganeh and Greek Kanon) The Reed was used as a measuring rod and eventually meant standard. Origen used the word canon to denote what we call the rule of faith, the standard by which we are to measure and evaluate. Later it meant a List or index. The word canon applied to Scripture means an officially accepted list of books. One thing to keep in mind is that the church did not create the canon or books included in what we call Scripture. Instead, the church recognized the books that were inspired from their inception. They were inspired by God, when they were written! Test of a Book for Inclusion in the Canon: There were basically five guiding principles used to determine whether or not a book is canonical or Scripture. Geisler and Nix record these five principles. 1. Is it authoritative-did it come from the hand of God? (Does this book come with a divine thus saith the Lord?) 2. Is it prophetic-was it written by a man of God? 3. Is it authentic? [The fathers had the attitude of if in doubt throw it out] 4. Is it dynamic-did it come with the life-transforming power of God? 5. Was it received, collected, read and used-was it accepted by the people of God? 2 Peter 3:16 Peter acknowledged Pauls work as Scripture parallel to Old Testament Scripture. (Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell) The people of Israel looked upon certain books as inspired from the very beginning of their history. As the sacred Scriptures were being written, the Israelites accepted them as the Word of God. Their 24 books are precisely the same as the 39 that make up our English Old Testament. [They were divided up differently, for example First and Second Kings might be together.]* (My own comment, Gary Panell) Josephus declared that no inspired writings were composed after Artaxerxes (424 B.C.), stating that there had been no prophet since Malachi. He said that the Hebrew Scriptures had not been added to, subtracted from, nor changed in any manner during that time, and that many of Gods children had endured horrible torture and even death because of their loyalty to them. The testimony of Josephus is especially valuable, for he was dealing with a subject he knew well, and concerning which he could speak with authority. The people who claim that a council of rabbis decided early in the second century B.C. which writings belonged in the Holy Scriptures are making a serious mistake. The evidence indicates that the books which make up our Old Testament were recognized by the servants of God as sacred when they were written, and that they were readily accepted as inspired. Some 400 years before Christ the same books that make up the present Old Testament were finalized as the authoritative Word of God. (The Book You Can Trust by Richard W. De Haan) The Apocrypha You may wonder about the Apocrypha. Although the Council of Trent in the 16th century officially received these 14 books [with the Old Testament]* in addition to the 39 that were recognized in Christs day, many people today refuse to accept them, being convinced that they are on a much lower level morally, spiritually, ethically, and historically than the Old Testament. (The Book You Can Trust by Richard W. De Haan) The Apocryphal books were evidently written during the period between the Old and New Testaments. Only one is dated. Two books Judith and Tobit, tell of the Assyrian and Babylonian invasions. Two more, First and Second Maccabees, record the Jewish War of Independence at about 165 B.C. Two more are books of wisdom, Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom of Solomon. One is an addendum to Jeremiah. There are also short additions to Esther and Daniel. Several other books written during this period are not accepted by either Romanists or Protestants. These give the history and thought of the inter-testamental period. They are such books as Enoch, Jubilees, and Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs. Fragments of these, found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, were not received nor quoted as Scripture. They are of some value, but have never been in the canon. The New Testament quotes from almost all 39 canonical books, but not once from the Apocrypha. Jesus referred to the Old Testament once as the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the the Psalms (Luke 24:44) The New Testament often cites the Old Testament in two divisions, the Law and the Prophets or Moses and all the Prophets (Matthew 5:17; Luke 16:29; 24:27). It never cites the Apocrypha. The Dead Sea Scrolls supply further confirmation. They indicate the Scriptures are the word of Moses and the Prophets. They quote many Old Testament books as Scripture but none of the Apocrypha. The situation is a closed case except for one problem. Present-day copies of the Septuagint [Greek translation of the Old Testament, it is often referred to as the LXX because it was thought to have been done by 70 Jewish scholars in Alexandria. The best estimate of its date seems to be around 200 B.C.] contain the Apocrypha. Since the New Testament frequently quotes from the Septuagint Old Testament, many scholars argue that the New Testament sanctions the Apocrypha. It is important, however, to know that our Septuagint copies come from a late time-about A.D. 325. There is no evidence that the early Septuagint contained the Apocrypha. Indeed there is evidence against it. (You & Your Bible, Evangelical Training Association) Moreover, the Jews themselves never listed them among their sacred books, and not one of them is quoted in the New Testament. Nor were they recognized as part of the Scriptures by early Jewish historians or philosophers. Some centuries later, Jerome, the man who gave us the Latin Vulgate, classified the Apocryphal books as valuable but not inspired. For these reasons the Apocrypha has not been accepted as part of the Old Testament. (The Book You Can Trust by Richard W. De Haan) Original Manuscripts Lets talk more about the original manuscripts as they were written down. And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:19-21) All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3: 16-17) The Bible in its entirety is Gods written Word to man, free of error in its original autographs, wholly reliable in history and doctrine. Its divine inspiration has rendered the Book infallible (incapable of teaching deception) and inerrant (not liable to prove false or mistaken). Its inspiration is plenary (extending to all parts alike), verbal (including the actual language form), and confluent (product of two free agents, human and divine). Inspiration involves infallibility as an essential property, and infallibility in turn implies inerrancy. This threefold designation of Scripture is implicit in the basic thesis of Biblical authority. (A Defense of Biblical Infallibility by Clark H. Pinnock) For the rest, go to Bible-Christian.org email us at [email protected]
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 13:52:46 +0000
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