anomaly
4th February 2006, 04:06
My friend seems to think it is. He wrote the following attempting to show the Bible's 'uniqueness'.
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Is the Bible reliable? Part 1
Many people ask that question. Their question is not unfounded. The oldest book in the Bible is about 4,000 years old, so how are we sure whats in there is true?
First, we must consider the Bible's uniqueness.
It is a book written over a 1,500 year span, over 40 generations, by 40 authors from every walk of life including kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, poets, statesmen, scholars, etc. Some of the are:
Moses, a political leader, trained in the universities of Egypt
Peter, a fisherman
Amos, a herdsman
Joshua, a military general
Nehemiah, a cupbearer
Daniel, a prime minister
Luke, a doctor
Solomon, a king
Matthew, a tax collecter
and Paul, a rabbi
The Bible has also been written in different places. Moses wrote in the wilderness, Jeremiah wrote in a dungeon, Daniel wrote on a hillside and in a palace, Paul wrote inside prison walls, Luke wrote while traveling, John wrote on the isle of Patmos, and others wrote in the rigors of a military campaign.
Its been written in different times. David wrote in times of war while Solomon wrote in times of peace. Its been written during different moods. Some wrote from the heights of joy and others writing from the depths of sorrow and despair.
Its been written on three continents: Asia, Africa, and Europe.
Its been written in three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
Its subject matter includes hundreds of controversial subjects. Remember a controversial subject is one which would create opposing opinions when mentioned or discussed. Biblical authors spoke on hundreds of controversial subjects with harmony and continuity from Genesis to Revelation. There is one unfolding story: "God's redemption of man." Geisler and Nix (two theologians) put it this way:
"The 'Paradise Lost' of the Genesis becomes the 'Paradis Regained' of Revelation. Whereas the gate to the tree of life is closed in Genesis, it is opened forevermore in Revelation."
F.F. Bruce observes: "Any part of the human body can only be properly explained in reference to the whole body. And any part of the Bible can only be properly explained in reference to the whole Bible."
Bruce concludes:
"The Bible, at first sight, appears to be a collection of literature--mainly Jewish. If we enquire into the circumstances under which the various Biblical documents were written, we find that they were written at intervals over a space of nearly 1400 years. The writers wrote in various lands, from Italy in the west to Mesopotamia and possibly Persia in the east. The writers themselves were a heterogeneous number of people, not only separated from each other by hundreds of years and hundreds of miles, but belonging to the most diverse walks of life. In their ranks we have kings, herdsmen, soldiers, legislators, fishermen, statesmen, courtiers, priests and prophets, a tentmaking Rabbi and a Gentile physician, not to speak of others of whom we know nothing apart from the writings they have left us. The writings themselves belong to a great variety of literary types. They include history, law (civil, criminal, ethical, ritual, sanitary), religious poetry, didactic treatises, lyric poetry, parable and allegory, biography, personal correspondence, personal memoirs and diaries, in addition to the distinctively Biblical types of prophecy and apocalyptic.
"For all that, the Bible is not simply an anthology; there is a unity which binds the whole together. An anthology is compiled by an anthologist, but no anthologist compiled the Bible."
Josh McDowell (an apologist and theologian) says this about the conclusion of continuity:
" A representative of the Great Books of the Western World came to my house recruiting salesmen for their seris. He spread out the chart of the Great Books of the Western World seris, and we spent an hour and a half talking to him about the Greatest Book.
"I challenged him to take just 10 of the authors, all from one walk of life, one generation, one place, one time, one mood, one continent, one language and just one controversial subject (the Bible speaks on hundreds with harmony and agreement).
"Then I asked him: 'Would they (the authors) agree?' He paused and then replied, 'No!' 'What would you have?' I retorted. Immediately he said, 'A conglomeration.'
"Two days later he committed his life to Christ (the theme of the Bible)."
Why all this? Very simple! ANy person sincerely seeking truth would at least consider a book with the above unique qualifications.
The Bible is also unique in its circulation. The Bible has been read by more people and published in more languages than any other book. There have been more copies produced of its entirety and more portions and selections than any other book in history. Some will argue that in a designated month or year more of a certain book was sold. However, over all there is absolutely no book that reaches or even begins to compare to the circulation of the Scriptures. The first major book printed was the Latin Vulgate. It was printed on Gutenberg's press.
The Bible is unique in its translation. The Bible was one of the first major books translated (Septuagint: Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, c. 250 B.C.). The Bible has been translated and retranslated and paraphrased more than any ohter book in existence.
Encyclopedia Britannica says that "by 1966 the whole Bible had appeared...in 240 languages and dialects...one or more whole books of the Bible in 739 additional ones, a total of publication of 1,280 languages."
The Bible is unique in its survival. Being written on material that perishes, having to be copied and recopied for hundreds of years before the invention of the printing press, did not diminish its style, correctness nor existence. The Bible, compared with other ancient writings, has more manuscript evidence than any 10 pieces of classical literature combined.
Bernard Ramm speaks of the accuracy and number of biblical manuscripts:
"Jews preserved it as no other manuscript has ever been preserved. With their massora they kept tabs on every letter, syllable, word and paragraph. They had special classes of men within their culture whose sole duty was to preserved and transmit these documents with practically perfect fidelity--scribes, lawyers, massoretes. Who ever counted the letters and syllables and words of Plator or Aristotle? Cicero or Seneca?"
The Bible has survived through persecution. It has withstood vicious attacks of its enemies as not other book. Many tried to burn it, ban it, and "outlaw it from the days of Roman emperors to present-day Communist-dominated countries."
Sidney Collett in All About the Bible says, "Voltaire, the noted French infidel who died in 1778, said that in one hundred years from his time Christianity would be swept from existence and passed into history. But what has happened? Voltaire has passed into history, while the circulation of the Bible continues to increase in alsmost all parts of the world, carrying blessing wherever it goes. For example, the English Cathedral in Zanzibar is built on the site of the Old Slave Market, and the Communion Table stands on the very spot where the whipping-post once stood! The world abounds with such instances....As one has truly said, 'We might as well put our shoulder to the burning wheel of the sun, and try to stop it on its flaming course, as attmept to stop the sirculation of the Bible.'"
In A.D. 303, Diocletian issued an edict to stop Christians from worshipping and to destroy their Scriptures: "....an imperial letter was everywhere promulgated, ordering the razing of the churches to the ground and the destruction by fire of the Scriptures, and proclaming that those who held high positions would lose all civil rights, while those in households, if they persisted in their profession of Christianity, would be deprived of their liberty."
The historic irony of the above edict to destroy the Bible is that Eusebius records the edict given 25 years later by Constantine, the emperor following Diocletian, that 50 copies of the Scriptures should be prepared at the expense of the government.
The Bible is unique in its teaching. On the prophecies of the Bible Wilbur Smith says "whatever one may think of the authority of and the message presented in the book we call the Bible, there is world-wide agreement that in more ways than one it is the most remarkable volume that has ever been produced in these some five thousand years of writing on the part of the human race.
"It is the only volume ever produced by man, or a group of men, in which is to be found a large body of prophecies relating to individual nations, to Israel, to all the peoples of the earth, to certain cities, and to the coming of One who was to be the Messiah. The ancient world had many different devices for determining the future, known as divination, but not in the entire gamut of Greek and Latin literature, even though they use the words prophet and prophecy, can we find any real specific prophecy of a great historic event to come in the distant future, nor any prophecy of a Savior to arise in the human race...."
"Mohammedanism cannot point to any prophecies of the coming of Mohammed uttered hundreds of years before his birth. Neither can the founders of any cult in this country rightly identify any ancient text specificaly foretelling their appearance.
From I Samuel through II Chronicles one find the history of Israel, covering about five centuries. "The Israelites certainly manifest a genius for historical construction, and the Old Testament embodies the oldest history writing extant.", says The Cambridge Ancient History.
The distinguished archaeologist, Professor Albright, begins his classic essay, The Biblical Period:
"Hebrew national tradition excels all others in its clear picture of tribal and family origins. In Egypt and Babylonia, in Assyria and Phoenicia, in Greece and Rome, we look in vain for anything comparable. There is nothing like it in the tradition of the Germanic peoples. Neither India nor China can produce anything similar, since their earliest historical memories are literary deposits of distorted dynastic tradition, with no trace of the herdsman or peasant behind the demigod or king with whom their records begin. Neither in the oldest Indic historical writings nor in the earliest Greek historians is there a hint of the fact that both Indo-Aryans and Hellenes were once nomads who immigrated into their later abodes from the north. The Assyrians, to be sure, remembered vaguely that their earliest rulers, whose names they recalled without any details about their deed, were tent dwellers, but whence they came had long been forgotten."
"The Table of Nations" in Genesis 10 is an astonishingly accurate historical account. According to Albright:
"It stands absolutely alone in ancient literature without a remote parallel even amond the Greeks....'The Table of Nations' remains an astonishingly accurate document....(It) shouws such remarkably 'modern' understanding of the ethnic and linguistic situation in the modern word, in spite of all its complexity, that scholars never fail to be impressed with the author's knowledge of the subject."
The conclusion is obvious. The above does not prove the Bible is the Word of God, but to me it proves that it is unique ("different from all others; having no like or equal").
NOTE: The Bible is the first religious book to be taken into outer space (it was on microfilm). It is the first book read describing the source of the earth (astronauts read Genesis 1:1--"In the beginning God....") Just think, Voltaire said it would be extinct by 1850.
------------------------------------------------------
What are your takes on this? Is his hypothesis correct; is the Bible unique?
------------------------------------------
Is the Bible reliable? Part 1
Many people ask that question. Their question is not unfounded. The oldest book in the Bible is about 4,000 years old, so how are we sure whats in there is true?
First, we must consider the Bible's uniqueness.
It is a book written over a 1,500 year span, over 40 generations, by 40 authors from every walk of life including kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, poets, statesmen, scholars, etc. Some of the are:
Moses, a political leader, trained in the universities of Egypt
Peter, a fisherman
Amos, a herdsman
Joshua, a military general
Nehemiah, a cupbearer
Daniel, a prime minister
Luke, a doctor
Solomon, a king
Matthew, a tax collecter
and Paul, a rabbi
The Bible has also been written in different places. Moses wrote in the wilderness, Jeremiah wrote in a dungeon, Daniel wrote on a hillside and in a palace, Paul wrote inside prison walls, Luke wrote while traveling, John wrote on the isle of Patmos, and others wrote in the rigors of a military campaign.
Its been written in different times. David wrote in times of war while Solomon wrote in times of peace. Its been written during different moods. Some wrote from the heights of joy and others writing from the depths of sorrow and despair.
Its been written on three continents: Asia, Africa, and Europe.
Its been written in three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
Its subject matter includes hundreds of controversial subjects. Remember a controversial subject is one which would create opposing opinions when mentioned or discussed. Biblical authors spoke on hundreds of controversial subjects with harmony and continuity from Genesis to Revelation. There is one unfolding story: "God's redemption of man." Geisler and Nix (two theologians) put it this way:
"The 'Paradise Lost' of the Genesis becomes the 'Paradis Regained' of Revelation. Whereas the gate to the tree of life is closed in Genesis, it is opened forevermore in Revelation."
F.F. Bruce observes: "Any part of the human body can only be properly explained in reference to the whole body. And any part of the Bible can only be properly explained in reference to the whole Bible."
Bruce concludes:
"The Bible, at first sight, appears to be a collection of literature--mainly Jewish. If we enquire into the circumstances under which the various Biblical documents were written, we find that they were written at intervals over a space of nearly 1400 years. The writers wrote in various lands, from Italy in the west to Mesopotamia and possibly Persia in the east. The writers themselves were a heterogeneous number of people, not only separated from each other by hundreds of years and hundreds of miles, but belonging to the most diverse walks of life. In their ranks we have kings, herdsmen, soldiers, legislators, fishermen, statesmen, courtiers, priests and prophets, a tentmaking Rabbi and a Gentile physician, not to speak of others of whom we know nothing apart from the writings they have left us. The writings themselves belong to a great variety of literary types. They include history, law (civil, criminal, ethical, ritual, sanitary), religious poetry, didactic treatises, lyric poetry, parable and allegory, biography, personal correspondence, personal memoirs and diaries, in addition to the distinctively Biblical types of prophecy and apocalyptic.
"For all that, the Bible is not simply an anthology; there is a unity which binds the whole together. An anthology is compiled by an anthologist, but no anthologist compiled the Bible."
Josh McDowell (an apologist and theologian) says this about the conclusion of continuity:
" A representative of the Great Books of the Western World came to my house recruiting salesmen for their seris. He spread out the chart of the Great Books of the Western World seris, and we spent an hour and a half talking to him about the Greatest Book.
"I challenged him to take just 10 of the authors, all from one walk of life, one generation, one place, one time, one mood, one continent, one language and just one controversial subject (the Bible speaks on hundreds with harmony and agreement).
"Then I asked him: 'Would they (the authors) agree?' He paused and then replied, 'No!' 'What would you have?' I retorted. Immediately he said, 'A conglomeration.'
"Two days later he committed his life to Christ (the theme of the Bible)."
Why all this? Very simple! ANy person sincerely seeking truth would at least consider a book with the above unique qualifications.
The Bible is also unique in its circulation. The Bible has been read by more people and published in more languages than any other book. There have been more copies produced of its entirety and more portions and selections than any other book in history. Some will argue that in a designated month or year more of a certain book was sold. However, over all there is absolutely no book that reaches or even begins to compare to the circulation of the Scriptures. The first major book printed was the Latin Vulgate. It was printed on Gutenberg's press.
The Bible is unique in its translation. The Bible was one of the first major books translated (Septuagint: Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, c. 250 B.C.). The Bible has been translated and retranslated and paraphrased more than any ohter book in existence.
Encyclopedia Britannica says that "by 1966 the whole Bible had appeared...in 240 languages and dialects...one or more whole books of the Bible in 739 additional ones, a total of publication of 1,280 languages."
The Bible is unique in its survival. Being written on material that perishes, having to be copied and recopied for hundreds of years before the invention of the printing press, did not diminish its style, correctness nor existence. The Bible, compared with other ancient writings, has more manuscript evidence than any 10 pieces of classical literature combined.
Bernard Ramm speaks of the accuracy and number of biblical manuscripts:
"Jews preserved it as no other manuscript has ever been preserved. With their massora they kept tabs on every letter, syllable, word and paragraph. They had special classes of men within their culture whose sole duty was to preserved and transmit these documents with practically perfect fidelity--scribes, lawyers, massoretes. Who ever counted the letters and syllables and words of Plator or Aristotle? Cicero or Seneca?"
The Bible has survived through persecution. It has withstood vicious attacks of its enemies as not other book. Many tried to burn it, ban it, and "outlaw it from the days of Roman emperors to present-day Communist-dominated countries."
Sidney Collett in All About the Bible says, "Voltaire, the noted French infidel who died in 1778, said that in one hundred years from his time Christianity would be swept from existence and passed into history. But what has happened? Voltaire has passed into history, while the circulation of the Bible continues to increase in alsmost all parts of the world, carrying blessing wherever it goes. For example, the English Cathedral in Zanzibar is built on the site of the Old Slave Market, and the Communion Table stands on the very spot where the whipping-post once stood! The world abounds with such instances....As one has truly said, 'We might as well put our shoulder to the burning wheel of the sun, and try to stop it on its flaming course, as attmept to stop the sirculation of the Bible.'"
In A.D. 303, Diocletian issued an edict to stop Christians from worshipping and to destroy their Scriptures: "....an imperial letter was everywhere promulgated, ordering the razing of the churches to the ground and the destruction by fire of the Scriptures, and proclaming that those who held high positions would lose all civil rights, while those in households, if they persisted in their profession of Christianity, would be deprived of their liberty."
The historic irony of the above edict to destroy the Bible is that Eusebius records the edict given 25 years later by Constantine, the emperor following Diocletian, that 50 copies of the Scriptures should be prepared at the expense of the government.
The Bible is unique in its teaching. On the prophecies of the Bible Wilbur Smith says "whatever one may think of the authority of and the message presented in the book we call the Bible, there is world-wide agreement that in more ways than one it is the most remarkable volume that has ever been produced in these some five thousand years of writing on the part of the human race.
"It is the only volume ever produced by man, or a group of men, in which is to be found a large body of prophecies relating to individual nations, to Israel, to all the peoples of the earth, to certain cities, and to the coming of One who was to be the Messiah. The ancient world had many different devices for determining the future, known as divination, but not in the entire gamut of Greek and Latin literature, even though they use the words prophet and prophecy, can we find any real specific prophecy of a great historic event to come in the distant future, nor any prophecy of a Savior to arise in the human race...."
"Mohammedanism cannot point to any prophecies of the coming of Mohammed uttered hundreds of years before his birth. Neither can the founders of any cult in this country rightly identify any ancient text specificaly foretelling their appearance.
From I Samuel through II Chronicles one find the history of Israel, covering about five centuries. "The Israelites certainly manifest a genius for historical construction, and the Old Testament embodies the oldest history writing extant.", says The Cambridge Ancient History.
The distinguished archaeologist, Professor Albright, begins his classic essay, The Biblical Period:
"Hebrew national tradition excels all others in its clear picture of tribal and family origins. In Egypt and Babylonia, in Assyria and Phoenicia, in Greece and Rome, we look in vain for anything comparable. There is nothing like it in the tradition of the Germanic peoples. Neither India nor China can produce anything similar, since their earliest historical memories are literary deposits of distorted dynastic tradition, with no trace of the herdsman or peasant behind the demigod or king with whom their records begin. Neither in the oldest Indic historical writings nor in the earliest Greek historians is there a hint of the fact that both Indo-Aryans and Hellenes were once nomads who immigrated into their later abodes from the north. The Assyrians, to be sure, remembered vaguely that their earliest rulers, whose names they recalled without any details about their deed, were tent dwellers, but whence they came had long been forgotten."
"The Table of Nations" in Genesis 10 is an astonishingly accurate historical account. According to Albright:
"It stands absolutely alone in ancient literature without a remote parallel even amond the Greeks....'The Table of Nations' remains an astonishingly accurate document....(It) shouws such remarkably 'modern' understanding of the ethnic and linguistic situation in the modern word, in spite of all its complexity, that scholars never fail to be impressed with the author's knowledge of the subject."
The conclusion is obvious. The above does not prove the Bible is the Word of God, but to me it proves that it is unique ("different from all others; having no like or equal").
NOTE: The Bible is the first religious book to be taken into outer space (it was on microfilm). It is the first book read describing the source of the earth (astronauts read Genesis 1:1--"In the beginning God....") Just think, Voltaire said it would be extinct by 1850.
------------------------------------------------------
What are your takes on this? Is his hypothesis correct; is the Bible unique?