Objection 3: Inaccuracy – Isn’t the Bible myth and full of contradictions?  Why would anyone trust this book?

Two Views on the Bible…

“The Bible is a product of man, my dear, not of God. History has never had a definitive version of the Book. The Bible as we know it today was collated by the pagan Roman Emperor Constantine the Great in 325 A.D.” (Sir Leigh Teabing, The Da Vinci Code p. 231)

Dan Brown says it is an invention of man.

All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work. (2 Timothy 3:14-17 NLT)

Scripture says it is inspired and useful for teaching, revealing, correcting, preparing, and equipping us to do good.

SO, CAN YOU TRUST IT?
We’ll first, look at supposed internal contradictions and then the accusation that it is a myth. 

Contradictions: Don’t internal contradictions prove the Bible is flawed?
First of all there are logical contradictions that Christians believe, such as…

·          Trinity – Jesus is God, and yet the two are separate

·          Saved – We are saved by grace through faith. Which is it?

·          Righteous – We are sinners, yet righteous. (1 John 3:6-9 & 1:8-10, Rom. 3:10 & 23

 Other supposed contradictions can be explained with some digging.  Here are a few examples.

EXAMPLE: What did they give him to drink? Did he Drink?
Wine vinegar – Mat. 27:47-50, Mark 15:35-37, John 19:28-30 
Wine with myrrh - Mark 15:23 ,Mat. 27:34

Matthew 27:34 and Mark 15:23 are referring to a separate event from the other passages (this is evident from the fact that both Matthew and Mark describe Jesus refusing the blended wine at the start of his crucifixion, but later accepting wine vinegar from a sponge and stick). In that instance, Jesus tasted the wine but didn't drink it (i.e. he took a sip but not a mouthful).

  Concerning the latter offer of wine vinegar, Matthew and Mark don't explicitly state that Jesus drank the vinegar, but that doesn't mean that he didn't. We sometimes use "offered" to imply both an offer and its acceptance in everyday conversation. Someone might say, "Joe came by and I offered him a drink, and we talked for a while," meaning that Joe accepted the drink. Also, some translations (NASB, RSV) use "gave" instead of "offered." http://www.rationalchristianity.net/vinegar.html

EXAMPLE: Christ’s Word’s on the cross
Matthew 27:46 -About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" - which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Mark 15:34 -And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" - which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Luke 23:46 -Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last.

John 19:30 -When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. 

Matthew and Mark are readily harmonized with Luke and John by reading a little further: both Matthew 27:46-50 and Mark 15:34-37 report that Jesus drank wine vinegar and then cried out again before dying. Therefore Luke and John record Jesus' actual last words, which could have been any combination of the two phrases recorded, e.g. "It is finished, Father; into your hands I commit my spirit." (http://www.rationalchristianity.net/last_words.html)

EXAMPLE: What was the color of the robe placed on Jesus during his trial?
scarlet - Matthew 27:28      purple - John 19:2

Possibly there were two robes or 2 colors in the one robe.  Possibly the light made the robe appear different to different people.
http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/559

EXAMPLE: COCK CROW
"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times." Matthew 26:34 (also Luke 22:34, John 13:38)

"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "today - yes, tonight - before the rooster crows twice you yourself will disown me three times." Mark 14:30

…That said, what of the fact that the other gospels do not say "twice"? Strictly speaking, there is no contradiction in action, since of course if Peter denied before the cock crowed once, he also did it before the cock crowed twice! In that light, I would suggest that Mark offers the original verbiage of the prediction (as might be expected, if Mark is recording from Peter), while the other gospels contain a modified and simplified oral tradition that follows the usual oral-tradition pattern. (And we need to remind the Skeptics: Within this context, this is not considered "contradiction" or "error" -- no ancient reader would have thought this! Keener's Matthew commentary [635] adds a salient point: A cock's crowing lasted as long as five minutes and occurred at all hours; as Cicero wrote: "Is there any time, night or day, that cocks do not crow?" The "second" cockcrowing was usually associated with the dawn.)http://www.tektonics.org/af/cockcrow.html

EXAMPLE: Paul’s conversion
For instance, the Book of Acts has two accounts of Paul's conversion on the Road to Damascus. In Acts 9:7: "…the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man." In Acts 22:9: "…they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me" (King James Version). At first glance, these accounts seem contradictory -- one says that Paul's companions heard a voice, while the other says that no voice was heard. However, the Greek text solves the matter. "The construction of the verb 'to hear' (akouo) is not the same in both accounts. In Acts 9:7 it is used with the genitive, in Acts 22:9 with the accusative. The construction with the genitive simply expresses that something is being heard or that certain sounds reach the ear; nothing is indicated as to whether a person understands what he hears or not. The construction with the accusative, however, describes a hearing, which includes mental apprehension of the message spoken. From this it becomes evident that the two passages are not contradictory." (W.F. Arndt, Does the Bible Contradict Itself? , pp. 13,14.) Therefore, Acts 22:9 doesn't deny that Paul's companions heard certain sounds; it simply says that they didn't understand the sounds that they heard.
http://www.allabouttruth.org/bible-contradictions.htm

EXAMPLE: Answering a fool
"Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself." [Pr 26:4]"Answer of fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes." [Pr 26:5]

The first thing to note is that these seemingly contradictory teachings are right next to each other. Could the writer of Proverbs be so stupid as to not notice this? I hardly think so. In fact, I think it is very illuminating that these teachings are closely tied. They highlight the fact that Biblical admonitions need not fall under the "either/or" criteria, but can be more properly understood in terms of "both/and." In fact, I have often found these two teachings from Proverbs quite useful.

In debating various non-Christians, I often encounter foolish responses and name-calling. I can either choose not to respond or ignore the foolishness and get to the point of contention. At such times, I follow Proverbs 26:4. In other instances, I mirror the foolishness of my antagonist in the hopes that he/she can perceive the folly of their approach when I employ it. At such times, I follow Proverbs 26:5. The key is knowing when to use which approach, and in such instances, I try to allow the Spirit to guide me. (http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/bible.htm) 

Learn More about Bible Contradictions.
http://www.apologeticspress.org/allegeddiscrepancies/
http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/bible.htm
http://www.rationalchristianity.net/apol_index.html
http://www.allabouttruth.org/biblical-contradictions-faq.htm
Books on contradictions: http://www.allabouttruth.org/contradictions-of-the-bible-faq.htm

Myth: Is the Bible historically verifiable/confirmable?
Real Evidence for the authority of the Bible, i.e. it is from God
1. Manuscripts: The number and quality of early manuscripts is overwhelming and supports dates of authorship consistent with respective authors.
See  a comparison chart of # of manuscripts www.carm.org/evidence/textualevidence.htm

2. Acceptance: The New Testament was accepted as God’s Word well before 325 AD based on 3 criteria.  The following is from “Jesus and the DaVinci Code” by John Ortberg.
*          First criterion: Does this document have roots connected to one of the Apostles? Was it written by an apostle or by a student or associate of one of the Apostles?

The four Gospels that we have in the New Testament meet this requirement. Matthew is associated with Matthew, also known as Levi the tax collector. Mark was a student of Peter. Luke was known as the “beloved physician,” a good friend of the Apostle Paul. And John is the gospel connected to the disciple John. (By the way, the other books in the New Testament like the letters of Paul or the letters of John meet the same criteria.)

It is important to understand that most scholars would agree that all these books were written within maybe 30 to 60 years after Jesus died. In other words, they were written while there were still eyewitnesses around who could challenge every word that was in them. They had to meet the task of being read by people who were alive when Jesus was around, and who would be able to say, “No. I was there,” if something was inaccurate.

The Da Vinci Code talks about how there were many other ancient books about Jesus’ life and suggests that maybe the church was trying to cover them up. In reality, essentially all of these books were written much, much later. In some cases, they were written centuries after Jesus—after that eyewitness generation. They were often given fictitious and misleading names like the “Gospel of Mary,” or the “Gospel of Peter,” even though they were written centuries after Peter or Mary had died.

*          Second criterion: To be included in the Canon, the contents of the book had to be consistent with the kind of teaching that Jesus did.

There’s one other account of Jesus’ life that’s also quite old. It was probably written about fifty years after the Gospel of John, the latest of the New Testament gospels. Some of you may have heard of the “Jesus Seminar.” It’s a group of people who get together and vote on whether or not Jesus said most of the things attributed to Him in the Bible. They have argued that the “Gospel of Thomas” ought to be taken more seriously. Here’s one of the reasons why it wasn’t. Is this consistent with the teachings of Jesus? I want to read for you the very last part of the Gospel of Thomas:

Simon Peter said, “Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life.” Jesus said, “I myself shall lead her in order to make her male so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.” (GoT 114)

Aren’t you glad that this didn’t make it into the Bible? Doesn’t that sound a little weird? This leads to the third criterion that was generally applied.

*          Third criterion: In order for a book to be included in the Canon of Scripture, it had to have widespread influence in churches both in Israel, in Asia Minor, in Rome and so on and had to have continuous acceptance and use by the church at large.

It took some time, and there were a few books where the decision was very difficult, but the materials and gospels that are included in the New Testament are the ones that fit these standards. One historian puts it like this:

None of the non-canonical gospels comes close in date of composition, breadth of distribution, or proportion of acceptance.

None of them comes close. So the idea that we have the New Testament gospels today because Constantine put them together in 325 AD for political purposes is way off the mark. The reality is that by 325 AD when councils were pulled together to talk about important questions (which they sometimes were), in a sense they were formally recognizing the authority of these Scriptures that had already been guiding followers of Christ for centuries. There is a lot of evidence of this. More than one hundred years before Constantine, a man by the name of Origin said, “The four gospels,”—and he goes on to name them—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John— Are the only undisputed ones in the whole church of God throughout the whole world.

That’s a quote from at least a century before Constantine and the Council of Nicaea. A great New Testament professor by the name of William Barclay from Edinburgh wrote once,

It is the simple truth to say that the New Testament books became canonical because no one could stop them from doing so.

They had that power to them.

“Jesus and the DaVinci Code” by John Ortberg  © Copyright 1995-2001 Menlo Park Presbyterian Church  950 Santa Cruz Avenue • Menlo Park • California • 94025 www.mppc.org

3. Archeology: Does archeology support the Bible?
VIDEO: Jesus Fact or Fiction #36
(The following is taken from “The Physical Resurrection of Jesus Christ Is Historical Fact” by Randy Singer, www.randysinger.net/randysinger/apologetics/Christres2.pdf)

For years liberal New Testament critics, following in the footsteps of the German “higher school of criticism,” insisted that the entire New Testament was an invention of the second century church to justify the growing Christian influence in the Roman Empire.  But just when the volume of this criticism reached a crescendo, God used archaeology and the discovery of ancient papyrus manuscripts to reveal new confirmations that the New Testament was written in a relatively short period of time following the resurrection of Christ by those who claimed to be the authors of the New Testament books.

For example, in the hundred years following the ascendancy of these New Testament critics in eighteenth century Germany, they argued strenuously that the fourth gospel was not even composed until the last half of the second century – and certainly not by the Apostle John – and was therefore too distant from the events of the life of Christ to be of much use.  But in the early twentieth century important papyrus manuscript fragments were discovered, including a fragment containing five verses of chapter 18 of the gospel of John.  Judging from the style of the script, numerous prominent paleographers have confirmed that this fragment originated between A.D. 100 and A.D. 150. (Lee Strobel,  The Case for Christ, (Zondervan, 1998), p. 80 citing Dr. Bruce Metzger, Dr. C.H. Roberts, Sir Frederick Kenyon, Sir Harold Bell, Adolf Deissmann, W.H.P. Hatch, Ulrich Wilcken, and others.) Thus, by a very early date, a fragment of a copy of the Gospel of John could be found in a community along the Nile River in Egypt, far removed from Ephesus in Asia Minor, where the gospel was probably composed.  

What the papyrus suggests, the rocks confirm.  Respected archeologist William F. Albright, in considering the entire mass of archeological, historical and textual evidence surrounding the authenticity of the New Testament, concluded that: “In my opinion, every book of the New Testament was written by a baptized Jew between the 40s and the 80s of the first century AD…very probably sometime between AD 50 and 75.” (An Interview with William F. Albright,” Christianity Today, January 18, 1963.)

“In extraordinary ways, modern archeology has affirmed the historical core of the Old and New Testaments – corroborating key portions of the stories of Israel’s patriarchs, the Exodus, the Davidic monarchy, and the life and times of Jesus. (“Is the Bible True?” US News and World Report, October 25, 1999.)

More on Archeology:
http://www.biblehistory.net/
www.christiananswers.net/archaeology/
www.allaboutarchaeology.org/

4. Prophecy:
VIDEO: Jesus Fact or Fiction #32
See http://www.allaboutthejourney.org/bible-prophecies-fulfilled.htm

5. Power: God’s Word changes lives.  It’s changing me and others
It’s the best seller every year for a reason.  Ask me or any other believers who walking the walk (actually reading their Bible).
VIDEO: Jesus Fact or Fiction #33
Check out what believers have said…

“For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.” (Heb. 4:12 NLT)

“We have never heard anyone speak like this!” the guards responded.” (John 7:46 NLT)

“When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching,  for he taught with real authority—quite unlike their teachers of religious law.”  (Mat. 7:28-29 NLT)

“There, too, the people were amazed at his teaching, for he spoke with authority… 36 Amazed, the people exclaimed, “What authority and power this man’s words possess! Even evil spirits obey him, and they flee at his command!” 37 The news about Jesus spread through every village in the entire region.” (Luke 4:32,36,37 NLT)

APPLICATION:  If the Bible is true, you may want to

1. Accept Jesus as your Leader and Forgiver to receive eternal
2. Study it daily
3. Memorize key passages
4. Discuss it with other believers
5. Share it with your family (dinner devotion)