Monday, March 21, 2016

The Bible: a book like no other



       The Bible is an amazing book.  Not everyone accepts the Bible as the word of God, but nobody can make a strong argument that the Bible is ordinary, boring, not valuable, or worthless. As I will discuss below, the Bible proves itself time and time again. It is mostly those who don't look very close or don't pay good attention that find the Bible worthless.

By © 2004 by Tomasz Sienicki [user: tsca, mail: tomasz.sienicki at gmail.com] - Photograph by Tomasz Sienicki / Own work, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10711

Attacks on the Bible
Let us start by listing some of the arguments against the Bible so that when I list the arguments for the value of the Bible you can see that the arguments against the Bible fall flat when put to the test.  We will also see that people hold the Bible to unrealistic standards. Some people are happy to accept certain things as undeniable fact even though these items have less supporting evidence than the Bible.

- The Bible we have now resembles the original very little.  It has been distorted and corrupted beyond any value for today's word.
- The history in the Bible is unreliable and fantasy, so why should we believe any of it?
- The bible is full of unfulfilled prophesies like every other holy book. what makes it special?
- The bible is full of supernatural events that we know in today's scientific world, could not have happened. Therefore, it cannot be trusted and we should not waste our time with it.
 

The integrity of Bible manuscripts:


Bible manuscripts are more numerous and more accurate than other widely accepted Greek manuscripts.

Manuscript Evidence for Superior New Testament Reliability - https://carm.org/manuscript-evidence
The Manuscripts - http://www.icr.org/bible-manuscripts/

Do you ever wish you could travel back in time 1000 years prior to the oldest known copy of the Old Testament to see if maybe the text had been corrupted over 1000 years? You can! Enter dead sea scrolls:

Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation - http://www.deadseascrollsfoundation.com/#why

History of the Bible confirmed:

50 People in the Bible Confirmed Archaeologically - http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/people-in-the-bible/50-people-in-the-bible-confirmed-archaeologically/

Biblical Archaeology: Factual Evidence to Support the Historicity of the Bible - http://www.equip.org/article/biblical-archaeology-factual-evidence-to-support-the-historicity-of-the-bible/

a lot more good Bible articles here:
Bible Questions and Answers - http://creation.com/bible-questions-and-answers

Bible Prophecy:

Fulfilled Prophecy: Evidence for the Reliability of the Bible - http://www.reasons.org/articles/articles/fulfilled-prophecy-evidence-for-the-reliability-of-the-bible  [this page shows some probability statistics too!]

The Old Testament is Filled with Fulfilled Prophecy - http://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/the-old-testament-is-filled-with-fulfilled-prophecy-11652232.html

Could Jesus have fulfilled Bible prophecy by chance? checkout this short youtube cartoon:

"Jesus Historically fulfilled over 300 Prophecies...Accidentally?" (by Intelligent Faith 315) - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG37ysdWLWc

Miracles in the Bible:

some people see the old testament as mostly fairy tales while accepting the new testament, and Jesus, as much more factual. The main problem with this view is that Jesus himself mentioned portions and people from the old testament and he does not discuss them as you would a "fairy tale". see below:

Jesus Christ on the infallibility of Scripture  - http://creation.com/jesus-christ-on-the-infallibility-of-scripture

Miracles and science - http://creation.com/miracles-and-science [look at the related articles section at this link for additional articles]

Are miracles scientific? DVD - http://usstore.creation.com/catalog/miracles-scientific-p-1683.html?osCsid=gqtl2kq0beokgsb67cufgcdj95

More info:
This is a lot more information on this subject that help show the value of the Bible, not just as good history, but as the best source to build a coherent worldview. checkout http://creation.com [I like their site a lot, if you have not figured that out yet.]

In Closing
I don't expect a short blog post like this one to convert a skeptic into a believer over night. However, if you have read the suggested material, given it some serious thought, and provided an open mind, then you will find it much more difficult to discount the Bible so easy. Perhaps maybe it is worth your time and energy to consider the natural and the supernatural claims of the Bible?  You got very little to lose and a lot to gain.



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