WHY STUDY THIS TOPIC?
The fundamental reason for the study of this topic lies within the reality that self claims for inspiration are made by many books in circulation today. For example the book of Mormon, the Koran, and several other writings have made the claim to be from God, so how do we know what to believe?
First of all if we can establish that the Bible is the divinely inspired word of God then it by necessity eliminates the other writings based upon passages such as Deuteronomy 4:2, Revelation 22:19, and Galatians 1:8. In a certain sense it is related to Canonicity in as much as only inspired books are accepted as canon however the focus will be on proving that the bible is inspired as a whole rather than an individual book. In A General Introduction To The Bible by Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix the statement is made and is written as follows in Chapter 11, “…as to whether or not the Bible is the Word of God is a matter of evidence. After all, there are other books, such as the Koran and the book of Mormon, that claim to be the Word of God, and yet they contradict the Bible.”
INTRODUCTION TO THE TOPIC
To open this brief study into the subject of inspiration we will consider the two types of evidence that exist concerning inspiration. The first is external evidence and is only pertinent to this short study since we need to understand what is and what is not internal evidence which is the second. External evidences are usually considered things such as historical data on events or people in the Bible that lend credibility to the Bible itself as being accurate, also archaeology will usually fall into this category. There are times when the external evidence and internal will overlap with one another, such as what is often called scientific foreknowledge found inside the text of the bible itself and verified by the external evidence, but we will do our best to focus on the internal evidences and only mention things outside of that when it is pertinent to understanding or clarifying a point that needs to be made for the subject at hand.
A LOOK AT SEVERAL TYPES OF INTERNAL EVIDENCE
There are several types of internal evidences that should be discussed when one considers the question “Is the bible from God?”, some will be direct claims while others will require logical inference. We will consider several things such as “Unity of the bible”, the facts concerning how many men were involved in writing the bible and how many years over which the writing took place, the nature of impartiality of the bible or how it does not show the typical signs of a bias that man made writings have, the scientific foreknowledge found in scripture, the endorsement of books that aren’t as easily demonstrated as being inspired than others at face value as others that are more easily shown to be inspired in the Old testament and the same within the New Testament, the fulfillment of prophecy, and certain examples of factual accuracy when pertinent.
THE BIBLE’S UNITY
One Subject more often discussed than many of the others listed in the introduction is that of the unity of the bible in message and harmony. It is fairly common knowledge, relatively speaking ,that the bible was written over a period of roughly sixteen hundred years and by more than forty men. The main theme of the bible becomes clearer as one moves from the beginning books of scripture to the final book of revelation, the theme of man’s fall and redemption through Christ Jesus and the hope and reward of Heaven that waits to those that are faithful. This type of evidence for inspiration of the bible touches on subjects such as prophecy and mutual endorsement of scripture by different writers in different books and even during different dispensations such as the New Testament verifying the Old Testament by quoting or referring to passages as scripture. The Lord Himself even quoting scripture as inspired or God breathed. God’s Prophetic Word by Foy E. Wallace states, “The consistent harmony in the contents of the old and the new testaments is an element of inspiration which critics can not deny.” He continues to say on in the next section, “The prophets of the Old testament did not understand what they prophesied, but they all spoke and wrote in agreement without discrepancy in the facts of the life, of the death and of the reign of the Messiah to come.” (11,12). He writes again later on that same page, “The writers of the New Testament were in perfect agreement on what the writers of the Old Testament meant. The old is understood in the light of the new.” and he emphasizes that by saying, “There is never the slightest disagreement among the writers of the New Testament in reference to the meaning or the application of an Old Testament prophecy or statement.” (12).
THE BIBLE’S IMPARTIALITY
Another evidence of inspiration is that when one reads writings from any other book he or she can begin to notice a certain romanticism of characters or ideals that follow unrealistic plot lines and are even out right fanciful at times. Certain characters will be shown in only good ways while others will come to typify evil or the things which that particular writer is disgusted with during the writing on that work. Certain characters will often be placed in a position of never making mistakes while others are altogether corrupt and flawed. Our modern comic book industry does a sufficient job at illustrating such idealism and romanticism that the writings of men will often find themselves easily organized into. The Bible however always shows both sides of the coin equally and without respect to persons or positions. We often put the King David into a position of hero and champion of Israel, brave, valiant, honest and loyal and illustrate him as such with the battle between he and Goliath in many of our Children’s bible classes, however we have divine record of his shortcomings and sins. He was a murderer and adulterer at one point of his life, a man deprived of the privilege of building God’s temple because he shed so much blood during his life. He was no super man so to speak full of nothing but good character and moral uprightness at all points. This isn’t said to vilify the good king but to illustrate the point that even our glorified bible heroes of which we have record concerning their sins are often portrayed in a partial way, slanted always for the good; however, as mentioned scripture reveals all to us and does not place men in a position of perfection when they are not deserving of such a place. There are many other examples of what we would call good men that made mistakes throughout their lives, Abraham who allowed his wife to be taken to protect himself, Noah who was a preacher of righteousness but was later found naked and drunk in his tent, Saul the first king of Israel who started well but grew conceited and jealous, and of course several of the kings who started well but finished badly or in some cases reversed that and started badly but finished well in a right relationship with God. Speaking of the entire nation of Israel it records both the victory and defeat that they suffered throughout time while the histories of many other nations are recorded as nothing but shining examples of noble victory and glorious triumph even when they were soundly defeated and shamed in many cases. Many books written in more recent times show that the losers of a battle or war will often try to mitigate the losses incurred or glorify their stubborn defense even when they are clearly shown by history and facts to be the villain, such is the case with certain writers of Germany following the second world war who would portray themselves and their fellow soldiers as brave, honest, long suffering men abstaining from any part played in war crimes committed against millions of people during the Nazi aggression. These points of glorification and respect to one group over another are never seen throughout scripture as they are in literature written by men alone.
SCIENTIFIC FOREKNOWLEDGE
Scientific foreknowledge can be broken down into the categories that the knowledge pertains to. There are examples of knowledge that pertains to Oceanography, physics, medicine, archaeology, astronomy, geology, and more within scripture. As we begin this section let us begin by prefacing that the examples are only valid to internal evidence for inspiration of the Bible since they are found to be recorded in scripture before it is even remotely possible that the writer could have any modern understanding of the application or implication of such statements during their time. There is no way they could have known such things or made such statements without divine aid and the fact that we have them recorded and verified as predating modern discoveries begs the question of how many coincidences can really occur before we cease to call them coincidences? These things in mind let us examine some cases of scientific foreknowledge to both illustrate the point and bring those things to mind so that we may be able to notice others as we study our bibles in the future. In The Book God “Breathed” by Keith A. Mosher, Sr. there is the statement “One of the greatest objections to the Bible, today, is that it contradicts scientific truth. Such a position of denial is to be rejected. The Bible, though not a science textbook…” and he continues “…nor weighed down with scientific terms of the twentieth century, is completely correct in its statements of fact of a scientific nature. A conflict between true, proven science and the Bible has never been established.” (130). The first couple of passages to mention are Isaiah 40:22 “It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:” and wisdom personified speaks in Proverbs 8:27 “When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:”. The significance in these two verses is that they refer to the earth as a circle or …”set a compass…” which is to say a circle or round about, thus describing the earth as round well before the time of early secular philosopher and scientist coming to the same conclusion and certainly before it was confirmed outside of scripture. When one simply makes the casual observation from ground level the earth, more or less, seems to follow a plane or that is to say that you can not tell that there is a curvature to the planet on which we reside. The question then becomes how could Solomon, having lived during the ninth century B.C., have known this fact outside of it being revealed to him by one who could know such things? Namely God. Jeremiah 33:22 “As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me.” Long before man could have any idea of how many stars there may have been the bible documents that there are too many to count. Some men from the past have attempted to count the number they could observe but as time has gone forward science now recognizes that an accurate number is beyond our ability to determine. The bible stated this fact long ago. Based upon a quick search it seems that the first known record of barometric pressure was taken in 1644 by a man named Evangelista Torricelli which is relevant to the bible passage Job 28:25 “To make the weight for the winds; and he weigheth the waters by measure.” The first secular recognition of air having weight took place some twenty-five-hundred years plus after the bible record stating that it had weight, showing again that divine revelation in the text of scripture reveals proofs for its source being supernatural and inspired rather than from man alone. Job 38:18,19 “Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if thou knowest it all. Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof,” Long before man had any way of recognizing that light was something that moved or had wavelengths God spoke of it. Job 26:7 “He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.” Many people from ancient times used to believe that the earth sat upon the shoulders of a giant man, others upon the back of an animal or a turtle. No one seemed to know what was below their feet or what the earth sat upon but we understand now that it floats freely through space, orbiting the sun and being held in place by gravity. God spoke of the earth being suspended in space long before we could have ever come to such conclusions in the above listed verse. Ecclesiastes 1:6 “The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.” We find a couple of modern observations in this verse, number one that the wind blows in a circular motion and two that there are what we now call jet streams. These are understood and used to predict weather patterns today but had the inspired penman write of these things far before we understood such to be the case. 2 Samuel 22:16 “And the channels of the sea appeared, the foundations of the world were discovered, at the rebuking of the LORD, at the blast of the breath of his nostrils.” and Jonah 2:6 “I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God.” In these passages we see the undersea topography mentioned and alluded to which is yet another recent discovery of secular science. Leviticus 17:11 “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” This verse has been cited by apologist in times past to illustrate how even in the United States of America, great men have died unnecessarily due to the old practice of bleeding a patient. It was held that there may be bad blood, contaminants, or at some points that there was a imbalance in bodily fluids and that by blood letting the issue could be resolved. In reality this practice resulted in the death of many patients at the hands of ignorant doctors who could have known better if they had taken the time to study their bibles, one such patient being George Washington, the first recognized president of the United States of America. Medical science now recognizes the critical nature of the blood and its part in sustaining life of the human body. Job 38:16 “Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the depth?” The undersea springs weren’t discovered until man reached the point of being able to explore the undersea environment with equipment such as diving suits, S.C.U.B.A. Gear, Submarines, or radar and sonar technologies but the scriptures contains references to such geological features before man was ever venturing into the deep. Concerning a subject a little more technical in understanding an article found on www.creationist.org states this regarding circumcisions. Genesis 17:12 “And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed.” The article points out medical knowledge that was only recently understood. It is circumvented by modern injections today in order to supplement the young new born children when surgery or circumcision is performed rather than waiting but the article and knowledge is still valid. The article reads, “According to the Old Testament (Genesis 17:12), circumcision of newborn males was to be performed on the eighth day after birth. Why the eighth day? In 1935 Professor H. dam proposed the name “vitamin K” for the factor in foods which helped prevent hemorrhaging in baby chicks. We now know that vitamin K is responsible for the production of prothrombin by the liver. If vitamin K is deficient, there will be a prothrombin deficiency and hemorrhaging may occur, since both vitamin K and prothrombin are necessary for proper blood clotting. Oddly enough, it is only on the 5th through the 7th days of the newborn male’s life that vitamin K begins to be produced (the vitamin is normally produced by bacterial action in the intestinal tract). and it is only on day eight that the percentage of prothrombin climbs above 100% of normal! The only day in the entire life of the newborn that the blood clotting element prothrombin is that high is day eight. The best day for surgical procedure like circumcision is therefore day eight. (1)”.
Psalm 102:25-26 “Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed:” This passage alludes to the second law of thermodynamics, known as entropy. This, put simply, is that all things wear down over time and degenerate. Job 38:22 “Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail,” We now know that the snow and ice that fall to the ground contain nitrogen which feeds the plant life. Job 38:35 “Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go and say unto thee, Here we are?” The question is asked Job who would have answered no but we today might have a different answer considering we do use the “lightning” or electricity to communicate, whether it be the early telegraph, phones, or internet. 1 Corinthians 15:41 “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.” We know now that each star and planet or heavenly body in the sky has a different nature to it. Some are made of rock, others of Gas, they all have different sizes and are made of different materials. These things weren’t know when the apostle Paul wrote these things concerning the physical world, not known of man himself that is to say but revealed through inspiration although most likely not understood we can appreciate this more so now and take heart in that we can know we are reading words from God. Another New Testament example of scientific foreknowledge has been said to be seen in Hebrews 11:3 “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” This could very well be referring to what we call atoms or even the sub-atomic particles named quarks — many see this as a possible reference to such things — these being the things which do not appear or are evident to the human eye but are of which the worlds are made.
THE INTERNAL CLAIMS OF INSPIRATION
There are many supporting observations for scripture to be viewed as “God breathed” but the point of self claim to inspiration must be dealt with as well. As we consider the text of 2 Timothy 3:16 “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:” we are left with the question as to what is scripture? This begins to deal with another subject known as Canonicity but is linked in the subject of internal evidence for inspiration by the nature that a text must be shown to be inspired in order to be recognized as Canon. The Bible makes many claims of inspiration but not every book explicitly says that the message is directly from the Lord. Text such as Genesis, or Esther make no direct claims to inspiration but as they are quoted in other sections of scripture at different times and called such themselves we begin to see that they do not require this self proclamation. Christ himself spoke of creation in a way that made it clear that Genesis was accurate and from God. This gave not only His, that is Christ’s, endorsement but also that of the book which records His teaching of the subject to the text of Genesis thus allowing one to prove the text of Genesis by proving the later text to be inspired. Joshua endorses the writings of Moses’ Joshua 1:8 “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.” The beginning of many books of the Old Testament make the claim directly. Ezra 1:1 “Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying,”. Leviticus 1:1 “And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying,” 2 Samuel 23:2 “The Spirit of the LORD spake by me, and his word was in my tongue.” Numbers 1:1 “And the LORD spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tabernacle of the congregation, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, saying,”
THE FULFILLMENT OF PROPHECY
Prophecy is a type of foreknowledge that predicts a certain event or series of events before they or it comes to pass. There are many prophecies in the Old Testament and some in the New as well. Not all have directly deal with Christ and his coming. Some deal with punishment and reward of Israel and or Judah. Some deal with kingdoms, some individuals, others in the New testament deal with the church and things such as the falling away we read of in the book of second Thessalonians. When we can establish the date of the prophecy and connect that text of scripture to the proper event we show that the knowledge revealed is of a supernatural origin. Unlike many predictions made by pagan oracles or more modern writers the prophecies in the bible are more specific and easily ascribed to person, place, or time which becomes evident once the event comes to pass and many times let those of careful study know that the time was coming. For example, the prophecies concerning Christ coming and John the Baptizer were specific enough to let those who were diligent in their studies know that the time of the messiah was soon to be upon them. One section of scripture that is more easily understood and even has some parts nearly “spelled out” so to speak is the section of prophecy found in Daniel chapter two and the revelation of the coming kingdoms in accurate detail. Ezekiel 26:7-8 predicts the fall of Tyre to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon for one example. Isaiah 44:28 predicts the rise and the actions of King Cyrus the Great by name which certainly would have convinced the king of the existence of the God of Heaven and inspiration as it should help us today as well. This is especially meaningful when we consider that the writing concerning him was done some one hundred and fifty years ahead of time. To quote Wallace, “The prophet Isaiah mentioned Cyrus, king of Persia, and called him by name one hundred and fifty years ahead of time. He called the man’s name before he was born and told us what he would do. (Isa. 44-45).” (18).
FACTUAL ACCURACY
There are certain things to consider concerning the internal evidence for inspiration that have some ground in a study for external evidence such as titles, locations, or geography. For example we might read of people going down to a certain location and realize upon study of a map that it is referring to altitude and not latitude or longitude as we might think of it today. Time and time again the inspired text of the Holy Scriptures is verified. This is only mentioned as a brief observation that the nature of scripture is and always has been found to be accurate and free from error or fallibility concerning its assertions. There is error found in scripture in the form of records of men making false statements, such as the arguments laid against Job but no error is ever found concerning facts, dates, times, or places with many of the scientifically accurate statements having been covered in length above. Wallace writes, “There is an unexpected and seemingly unnecessary accuracy of the writers of the Bible in the incidental statements which furnish evidence in apparently unimportant things of the inspiration of their words.” (13). He gives a specific example, “Such expressions as ‘down to Samaria’ from Jerusalem to Gaza in the narrative of Acts 8; and ‘up to Jerusalem’ from Paul’s location in Damascus, mentioned in the apostle’s arguments of Galatians 1.” (13). He concludes by saying this and is true in his statements principle, “Though the references to these incidentals had no bearing on the truth of the things that were being taught they are always mentioned with precision and exactness.” (13). That is to say that they had no spiritual truth to them or bearing on the message other than the fact that they were accurate supports the claim that they were or are inspired from God and not from the fallible mind of a mere man.
CONCLUSION
There are many evidences for the inspiration of the bible and we have considered a few only briefly and while there are many who criticize and have attacked the bible throughout the many centuries, even going back to the King Jehoiakim who cut apart scriptures, up to the modern critics who attempt to find weak points in the armor of the scriptures, there has never nor ever will be any argument sufficient to disproving the Holy word of God. The many evidences discussed including prophecy, impartiality, factual accuracy, unity and harmony of scripture, self claims and supporting ties between books, and scientific foreknowledge all support the conclusion that the bible is “God breathed” and is the only divinely inspired book given to mankind. There are many other books and writings with some truth mixed in with error, and many have attempted to write material that they thought might be passed off as scripture none stand the test and meet the standard which the Holy Bible sets. There are multitudes of internal evidences for the inspiration of the bible, especially noted here the scientific foreknowledge,and not only the internal but the external as well that support the internal claims. We are left with the conclusion that we can know that the bible is a record and message from God and that every passage is inspired and has meaning to our lives as stated in 2 Timothy 3:16 “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:”
Works Cited
“Scientific Foreknowledge in the Bible.” Scientific Foreknowledge in the Bible. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2015. Electronic.
Mosher, Keith A. The Book God Breathed. Pulaski, TN: Sain Publications, 2001. Print.
Geisler, Norman L., and William E. Nix. A General Introduction to the Bible. Chicago: Moody, 1968. Print.
Wallace, Foy Esco. God’s Prophetic Word: A Series of Addresses Delivered in the Music Hall in Houston, Texas, January 21-28, 1945, Exposing Modern Millennial Theories. Oklahoma City: Foy E. Wallace Jr., Publications, 1960. Print.
“BibleGateway.” .com: A Searchable Online Bible in over 100 Versions and 50 Languages. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2015. KJV. Electronic.
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