The Bible, Charlton Heston, and arguing with my imaginary staff

 If you've been reading ye ole' blog for the last couple of weeks then you know I've been attempting to start at the beginning of the Bible in an attempt to lay a foundation for understanding the Bible as a whole. I want to lay the groundwork for my readers to understand the story of the Bible, which is God's Word. I want to try and go from the very beginning, at Genesis 1:1, to the Gospel accounts of Jesus. It will be a difficult task, but I am being well paid...(INTERRUPTION)

Me: What?

Imaginary producer guy: You're not being paid. 

Me: Why not? 

Imaginary producer guy: Because you're doing it out of the good will of your heart, etc, and you want some excuse to combine your journalism and Bible degrees, which you are otherwise not using. 

Me: But there's no money in it?
Producer: No. 

Me: You're sure?
Producer (annoyed): Yes.

Me: Yes, there's money, or 'yes' you're sure there's no money. 

Producer (more annoyed): Yes, I'm sure there's no money. You're so poor you're making your producer up. 

Me: Oh. Right.

Anyways, so out of the goodness of my heart, I'm trying to lay the groundwork for understanding the Bible story.[i] I’ve already completed two blogs on the subject. But I started thinking that it would be good if I explained where I am coming from when I teach/write/blog. So what I’m going to do is explain a bit about the Bible itself and where it came from. This is not the place for an all-out debate about the Bible. I’m not trying to skirt the issue, but there are other, smarter men who have already done this. My goal is to teach through the core story of the Bible and I am doing that on the basis of certain beliefs. You don’t have to agree with me, but I do want you to understand where I’m coming from.

I believe the Bible was written by God, through 40 men, over 1600 years of history. The authors of the books of the Bible were all Jewish but one, (Luke was a Gentile, or a non-Jew). The authors were incredibly diverse in background, but unified in its truth and message. It was written by fishermen, nomads, shepherds, priests, physicians, politicians, warriors, kings, prophets, the young and old, the educated and uneducated. I believe the Bible is without error and was sovereignly and purposefully created by God throughout history to reveal to man the truth about God, man, the world, evil, and man’s ultimate redemption by God. This is the basis for the blog you’re reading.
                           

So first off, how did we get the Bible? Jews, throughout their history, were given the books of the Bible by God. He either spoke to certain men, (Moses/Charlton Heston)[ii], telling them what to write, revealed the truth through visions and dreams to others, or so worked through men as they wrote and spoke that their words were exactly what he planned to say. Here’s how Paul and Peter, two messengers and preachers immediately after Christ, explained the Scriptures.

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” (2 Timothy 3:16) (Paul)

“knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit,” (2 Peter 1:20-21).

John Stott, a really smart Christian pastor/theologian/writer/apologist once wrote:

“Out of whose mouth did Scripture come, then? God’s or man’s? The only biblical answer is ‘both’. Indeed, God spoke through the human authors in such a way that his words were simultaneously their words, and their words were simultaneously his. This is the double authorship of the Bible. Scripture is equally the Word of God and the words of human beings. Better, it is the Word of God through the words of human beings.”[iii]

But then, you may ask, “how did we get the present day Bible from however many thousands of years ago, (Moses/Charlton Heston), to our present day? If I tell a friend something, he has a hard enough time telling another person what I originally told him without distorting what I said in one way or another. How do we know the message of the Bible hasn’t been distorted and the meaning lost over the last 6,000 years? How do we know the Bible is trustworthy?” Good question. Here are my answers:

1. The Jews throughout history were extremely laborious about how they copied the transcripts of the Bible writings. Here I’ll quote from the book Firm Foundations, which is quoting from the Illustrated Bible Dictionary,

“They (the Jews) used every imaginable safeguard, no matter how cumbersome or laborious, to ensure the accurate transmission of the text. The number of letters in a book was counted and its middle letter was given. Similarly with the words, and again the middle word of the book was noted…”[iv]

I follow this up with the story of the Dead Sea scrolls, also quoted in Mcllwain’s book. In 1947, a shepherd near Jerusalem threw a rock into a local cave and heard the sound of pottery breaking. He investigated and found the cave was full of pottery holding ancient scrolls. It was later discovered that these scrolls contained fragments of ancient Biblical and non-Biblical writings. Scholars who compared the most recent manuscripts of the Bible, which were written in 900 A.D., with the Biblical writings among the scrolls, (written in the second or third centuries), found no significant differences between the texts. Think about that, a difference in transcripts over several centuries and no discernible differences found![v]

2. Jesus viewed the Bible as inerrant, trustworthy, and true. I could try and say it better than Josh McDowell, but either I can’t or I’m just lazy. Either way, he says it pretty well here.

3. God is in total control. This may be circular logic, but then again, maybe I’m just making really good sense here. Follow me on this. If God is in complete control of the universe and he wanted to make sure he communicated exactly and specifically with the human race the truth about life, marriage, sexuality, goodness, righteousness, love, peace, wisdom, money, and so on, don’t you think he would take pains to ensure this knowledge and information was recorded accurately?

4. The Bible has consistently been proven to be accurate on matters of history and prophecy, which has been verified by archeological finds throughout time. (See also any of the Indiana Jones movies).

Look, I’m not saying there are not some things in the Bible that aren’t really hard to understand and explain. I’m not saying there aren’t difficult matters within the Bible that make you scratch your head or make you angry. I’m not saying you even have to agree with me about the Bible or about God. I am saying that for the purposes of this blog we, (I say ‘we’ to include myself and my imaginary producer), will be working/writing on the belief that the Bible is true and without error. I wanted to lay that groundwork before we got too far into the writing. I apologize for the rather tedious nature of this blog posting, but it had to be done. If you have any questions or concerns, please write my producer. 

Stay tuned for the next blog where I'll write more about Genesis and introduce you to my fake secretary, Lolita. But not that guy down there.

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[i] I'm basing a good bit of my thinking off "Firm Foundations: Creation to Christ" by Trevor McIlwain. The book is a very large book that breaks down the Biblical story in 52 lessons. Full disclosure: I'm 99.5% certain he has done a better job than I will, so if you'd like to read it, check out Amazon.com. (He even probably had enough money for a non-imaginary producer).

[ii] If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then go rent the Ten Commandments. Other Charlton Heston movies are good too, but not necessarily related to the Bible. I also like Jaws, which isn’t really Biblical, nor does it include Charlton Heston, but it is about a large shark and has a great soundtrack. But I digress…

[iii] John Stott, The Contemporary Christian (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 168-69

[iv] Firm Foundations, Creation to Christ, Trever Mcllwain. He lists The Illustrated Bible Dictionary, part 3, J.D. Douglas. And yes, I am too lazy to figure out the right way to properly cite my sources.

[v] Another good quote someone smarter than me said, “Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard, Biblical Interpretation, 72, conclude: ‘Estimates suggest that at least 97 percent, if not more, of the original New Testament can be reconstructed from the existing manuscripts beyond any measure of doubt. The percentage for the Old Testament is lower, perhaps only about 90 percent.” Quoted from J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays, Grasping God’s Word.