Bible's Uniqueness Points to God

Imagine a book written by more than forty authors, each with different levels of education, social position, and age. Then imagine that these authors used three different languages to write this book. Assume that at the time they wrote it, some of them were in a situation of war, some were at peace, some were imprisoned, some were living in splendor, others in poverty. In addition, imagine that the authors of this book lived at different times during a 1,500 year time span. What do you suppose the result of this writing would be?

The Bible was written under these conditions. Its contents describe hundreds of controversial topics and are of a variety of literary types, yet there is a unity in the writing that binds it together: the theme of God's redemption of man. The Bible is philosophically consistent. The conditions of its writing and the resulting unity of the text speak of a supernatural direction, the Holy Spirit, directing chosen men who authored the Bible. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. -- 2 Timothy 3:16.

The Bible is also unique in its content. The Bible's perspective of the universe, man's existence and man's origin is described from an external observation point outside of the created dimension, which is unique in religious works. John 1:3, Colossians 1:16-17 and Hebrews 7:3 speak of God being above time and space. Job 26:7 speaks of God suspending the earth in space: "he suspends the earth over nothing", something that until modern times required an external viewpoint to comprehend. The Bible alone among religious works clearly states that time had a beginning. In Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

Prophecies described in the Bible were accurately fulfilled centuries later. No other religious writings have such accuracy of prophecy fulfilled. Scientific facts in the Bible are accurate far beyond human knowledge of science at the time they were written. Scientific facts in other religious writings are no where near as accurate. The Bible is historically accurate as well. Archaeological discoveries substantiate Bible accounts.

Unmatched Fulfillment of Prophecies

The Bible stands alone among literature. Prophecies written hundreds of years before an event have been fulfilled with 100% accuracy. There are approximately 2500 prophecies in the Bible, 2000 of which already have been completely fulfilled -- the remaining 500 speak of future events.

The chance of any one man fulfilling just eight prophecies has been calculated by Peter W. Stoner in Science Speaks at 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000 -- yet 60 major Old Testament prophecies, having 270 ramifications were fulfilled by the life of Jesus. An example of the precisely fulfilled prophecies include the place of His birth, Bethlehem (prophesied in Micah 5:2, fulfilled in Luke 2:4-7); that He would be born of a virgin (prophesied in Isaiah 4:17, fulfilled in Luke 1:26-31); that He would be despised and rejected by Jews (prophesied in Isaiah 53:3, fulfilled in John 1:1, Luke 23:18); that He would be betrayed by a friend (Judas) for thirty pieces of silver cast on the floor of the Temple and used to buy a potter's field (prophesied in Zechariah 11:11-13, fulfilled in Matthew 27:3-10).

Fulfilled prophecy extends to the present day -- consider the people of Israel. In Genesis 12:2,3 and 13:13-15, God promised Abraham a great nation, a great name and a land that will belong to his descendants forever and through Abraham, that all families of the earth will be blessed. At the time, Abraham was 75 years old and his wife was barren. The prophecy was fulfilled when Abraham was 90 years old (Genesis 21:2) when his wife Sarah miraculously bore him a son. Over the next several hundred years, the nation promised to Abraham appeared (Exodus 1:7).

2 Peter 1:20-21 describes how Bible prophecy can be so accurate: "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."

Being a Hebrew prophet in ancient times was a serious and unenviable position. The prophet was purporting to speak for God and the penalty for any error was death. "But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, must be put to death." -- Deut. 18:20. Prophets had to be 100% accurate. Deuteronomy 18:21-22 gives a test to determine whether the prophet is speaking for God: "You may say to yourselves, "How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD?" If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously."

Table 1 illustrates just a few fulfilled prophecies whose precise fulfillment attests to the Bible as the accurate Word of God.

Archaeological Evidence Substantiates Bible

Archaeological evidence substantiates many Biblical accounts. To quote Millar Burrows of Yale. "...archaeological work has unquestionably strengthened confidence in the reliability of the scriptural record. More than one archaeologist has found his respect for the Bible increased by the experience of excavation in Palestine." Nelson Glueck, reformed Jewish scholar notes: "It is worth emphasizing that in all this work no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a single, properly understood Biblical statement."

Archaeological discoveries have proved the accuracy of Bible accounts that had long been considered inaccurate by scholars who had insufficient information. Because of Luke's detailed descriptions of historical events, some of his writings -- and thus the credibility of the entire New Testament -- had been in dispute for over a century by Bible scholars who didn't believe the details supplied by Luke were accurate. Bible scholars thought that Luke's writings were a fraud, written in the second century by someone who didn't know the history or geography of the time. For example, in Acts 14:6, Luke relates that Paul and Barnabas fled from Iconium to the cities of Lyconium. Bible scholars had believed that Iconium was located in the province of Lyconium -- thus the statement made no sense. It would be like saying someone fled from Miami to Florida. An inscription was later found that proved that when Paul and Barnabas fled from Iconium, the city was part of the province of Phrygia, proving Luke's writing was correct.

Some examples of archaeological evidence supporting Biblical accounts are shown in Table 3. For many more examples of archeological finds substantiating Biblical accounts including geography, rulers, conflicts, and more, see the references at the end of this article.

Luke had stated that Quirinius was the Governor of Syria at the time of Jesus' birth, however secular records showed that Saturninus was the governor at that time. An inscription was later found in Antioch which showed that Quirinius indeed was governor of Syria at the time.

An interesting archaeological discovery appears to document a Roman governor's reaction to the resurrection of the dead. Matthew 28:11-15 describes the reaction of the chief priests and elders when the guards around Jesus' tomb told them about the resurrection: "When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, "You are to say, 'His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.' If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble." The governor must have heard the report and it must have upset him, because he issued a decree instituting capital punishment for the crime of violation of sepulcher, a crime which had never previously had such a severe penalty. A white marble slab inscribed with this decree was found in Nazareth in 1878. Its inscription appears in Table 4.

The possibility of grave robbers stealing Jesus' body is highly unlikely. A Roman guard was one of the greatest, strictly disciplined fighting units. A Roman security guard would never fall asleep, as the penalty was death. They rotated shifts every four hours to ensure top performance of duty. It is reasonable to conclude that the Roman guards came to the chief priests out of desperation following Jesus' resurrection. They feared for their lives and they knew that the chief priests would have influence on Roman authorities.

The Bible Was Transmitted Accurately

The Bible is the most reliable ancient document. Three factors used in determining the reliability of an ancient document ensure that the Bible we have today is very close in content to the original manuscripts.

1. The number of manuscript copies in existence, and their agreement. The greater the number of manuscripts the more reliable the text produced.

2. The time span between the copies and the original. The smaller the time span between the original and the creation of manuscript copies, the greater the reliability.

3. The method of transcription. The more rigorous the method, the more reliable the transcribed text.

The number of copies and short time span between copies supports New Testament manuscript reliability, as shown in Table 5. Old Testament reliability lies in the method used to transcribe the Bible.

Overwhelming New Testament Manuscript Evidence

The New Testament has far more manuscript evidence than any other ancient work. There are more than 24,000 manuscript copies of the New Testament, with only a 25 year time span between the original and the manuscript copies. The Iliad ranks next -- it has 643 manuscript copies with a 500 year time span between the original and the copies. Only 40 lines (400 words) of the New Testament are in doubt between the 24,000 manuscript copies, compared to 746 lines in doubt of the Iliad's 643 copies. This translates to 5% of the Iliad's text being corrupted, compared to 1/2 of 1% for the New Testament. These New Testament errors consist primarily of misspellings and duplications and affect no fundamental doctrines. To quote Sir Frederic Kenyon, an authority in the field of New Testament textual criticism:

"It cannot be too strongly asserted that in substance the text of the Bible is certain... The number of manuscripts of the New Testament, of early translations from it, and of quotations from it in the oldest writers of the Church, is so large that it is practically certain that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in some one or other of these ancient authorities. This can be said of no other book in the world. Scholars are satisfied that they possess substantially the true text of the principal Greek and Roman writers whose works have come down to us... yet our knowledge of their writings depends on a mere handful of manuscripts, whereas the manuscripts of the New Testament are counted by hundreds, and even thousands."

Rigorous Transcription of Old Testament

We can have confidence in the reliability of the Old Testament because of the rigorous transcription methods employed. Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, the oldest Old Testament manuscript found dated around AD 900, approximately 1300 years after the completion of the Old Testament in 400 BC. The Dead Sea Scrolls, however are dated before the time of Christ (about 150 BC). The book of Isaiah found in the Dead Sea Scrolls verifies the precision of the method used to transcribe the Old Testament. The book of Isaiah from the Dead Sea Scrolls is identical to today's standard Hebrew Bible in greater than 95% of the text. The 5% variation is due to slips of the pen and variations in spelling.

The Talmudists (AD 100 - 500) used a very strict transcription method. Synagogue rolls had to be written on specially prepared skins of clean animals and fastened with strings taken from clean animals. Each skin had to contain a certain number of columns. Each column had to have between 48 and 60 lines and be 30 letters wide. The spacing between consonants, sections and books was precise, measured by hairs or threads. The ink had to be black and prepared with a specific recipe. The transcriber could not deviate from the original in any manner. No words could be written from memory. The person making the copy had to wash his whole body before beginning and had to be in full Jewish dress. He could not begin to write the name of God with a pen freshly dipped in ink. While writing God's name, he was to focus on his task, not even looking up if a king addressed him.

The Massoretes (AD 500-900) also had a complicated system of ensuring that copies were accurate. By numbering verses, words and letters and calculating and enumerating various combinations, they were able to ensure precise transcription of the text.

We also be assured of the validity of the Old Testament because Jesus accepted it and quoted extensively from it.

We Can Trust

Scripture

The next time someone questions the accuracy of the Bible, you can tell them that we can trust its accuracy. The conditions of its writing and the resulting unity of the text speak of a supernatural direction, the Holy Spirit, directing chosen men to author the Bible. Prophecies described in the Bible were accurately fulfilled centuries later. Scientific facts in the Bible are accurate far beyond human knowledge of science at the time they were written. The Bible is historically accurate. Archaeological discoveries substantiate Bible accounts. Manuscript evidence and transcription methods for the Bible are far superior to that of any other ancient book.

God, the author of the Bible says "Come now, let us reason together" -- Isaiah 1:18. He also says in the New Testament to test all spirits to ensure that what people say is accurate: "Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world -- 1 John 4:1. God does not require nor desire blind faith. He presents all of creation, His written Word, the nation of Israel and the resurrection of Jesus as living testimonies of Him. Examine the evidence -- it will strengthen your faith!