The Proof that the Bible is indeed-THE WORD OF GOD
I will show you that the Bible is indeed the Word of God, Spirit Breathed and has not changed, been added to, or taken from, by man. AND that it was written by men whom the Lord, God ordained to write HIS words.
The Bible was written by 40 men, chosen by GOD, over a period of 1600 years, and those 40 men lived on three separate continents, and they were all writing the same thing at the same time!!! The Bible is 40% prophecy, there are over 7,000 verses of prophecy in the Bible. Of those 7,000 verses, 90% have come to pass WITHOUT fail and with complete ACCURACY!!! The remaining 10% are in works now, or are future events!!! The Bible is our final authority, it is GOD'S revelation to man. The Holy Spirit, supernaturally inspired the writers of the Old Testament to record the very words of GOD. Jesus Christ sent the Holy Spirit to the New Testament writers and it was also written by divine inspiration!!! The Old Testament and The New Testament are entirely about Jesus Christ!!!
First--let us examine the manuscript evidence:
There are 3 lines of evidence in which we have available to us to prove that the New Testament is the original Word of GOD!!
1---The Greek Manuscripts 2---The Versions (Translations) 3---The Writings of the Church Fathers
The Greek Manuscripts: Papyri-------this is the first group of manuscripts, papyri is the material that the original New Testament was written upon. There are 98 New Testament fragments in existence today, all dating before A.D. 300.
Unicals------these are inch-high manuscripts, meaning the letters are one inch high. There are 300 unical manuscripts of the New Testament, all written on parchment (animal skins)Unical writing consists of upper-case letters with no spacing or punctuation.
Miniscules---in the ninth century A.D. unical writing was replaced by miniscule writing. It is a script of smaller letters, it was in use until the sixteenth century.
Lectionaries-Scripture portions were written on these, allowed people to read scripture portions in church. Fragments of lectionaries come from as early as the sixth century A.D. and complete manuscripts were found from as early as the eigth century.
So as you can see, there is actual, hand written scripture that dates clear back in history, proving that the New Testament is the Word of God. Below, I will give you an example of how many fragments that are in existence today. The total number of surviving Greek Manuscripts is larger than all other ancient works.
Versions are translations of the different New Testament books into languages other than Greek. The New Testament was the exception, because most all other ancient books were not translated into different languages. Christian missionaries, in order to spread the faith, translated the New Testament into various languages of the people they encountered. Below is a list of the versions and how many original manuscripts are in existence.
Latin Vulgate------------10,000+ Ethiopic---------------------2,000+ Slavic------------------------4,101+ Armenian-------------------2,587+ Syriac Peshitta--------------350+ Bohairic-----------------------100+
Though not as valuable as the Greek Manuscripts, they are valuable in proving that the text of the New Testament has not been altered from the original Greek.
When compared to the other translations of Ancient writings, you will see that the New Testament, has more manuscripts in existence.
Work----------Date Written------Earliest Copy------Years span------Number of copies in existence
Seven letters have survived that were written by Ignatius in A.D.70-110, in these letters, he quoted eighteen different books of the New Testament.
William Shakespear wrote 37 plays in the seventeenth century--the original printing of his works have NOT survived, and so the missing gaps in the copies of his works were filled in with "educational guesses" of textual scholars.
Since we do possess so many manuscripts, and are aided by the different versions, we never need to worry about "filling in gaps" of the New Testament and do not need to re-create the contents.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, prove the accuracy of the Old Testament, and the textual transmission of the Bible. In the Scrolls found in Qumran in 1947, there are Old Testament manuscripts that date 150 B.C. When one compares the manuscripts, it is clear that they are essentially the same. A full copy of the Book of Isaiah was found at Qumran. The Dead Sea scrolls prove that the copyists of biblical manuscripts took great care in making sure that they translated them correctly.
NOW--Let us look at some Archaeological proof:
In Bet Shean (one of the oldest cities) Twenty layers of settlement have been found dating back to more than 3000 years B.C.
In Egypt, bricks were found with paintings on them showing the Exodus of Moses
At Tel Dan, in upper Galilee in Northern Israel, a fragment of an inscription on basalt stone was uncovered. It was part of the paving of the outer gate of the ancient city of Dan. In cleaning the area, a heap of debris was uncovered that dated from the time of the Assyrian destruction of the city by Tiglath-pileser III (2 Kings 15:29). Also a hidden gate to the city was uncovered, the entrance led to a courtyard where a stone platform stood, large enough for a throne, where possibly kings sat on ceremonial occassions. (1 Kings 22:10) Inscribed on the commemorative stones are scenes of conquests of one of the kings of Aram, it is written in Aramic, a language closely related to Hebrew. (1 Kings 15:16-20; 1 Kings 20; 2 Kings 15:29)
At a site in Syria, on a site called Tel Mardikh, there was found a 4000 year old fortification. There were 18,000 Tablets found that tell of an empire and refers to areas named Ebla, Sinai, Assyria, Lebanon, Cyprus, Carchemish, Lachish, Gaza, Hazor and others. There are 3 different languages on the tablets one resembling Hebrew and names recognized from the Old Testament are written on them. Such as Abraham, Esau, Ishmael, Israel, Michael, Micah and Jerusalem. One of the tablets tells the story of the Creation (Genesis) and the Flood in Noah's day. Also long lists of zoological, geographical and mathematical material has been found on the site. Proverbs and literary works were there as well and contain the oldest vocabulary lists. The Tablets have indicated that the language was the "language of Canaan"(Isaiah 19:18) and support the Biblical reference. Hebrew is now recognised as one of the worlds oldest languages, and is perhaps the language spoken by Noah (Genesis 10:6) The Bible records Abraham with his father Terah, left the city of UR in southern Mesopotamia to go into Canaan. (Genesis 11:31-32) They settled in Haran which was 300 miles north east from the site of Tel Mardikh, and appears to be named after Abrahams brother Haran (Genesis 11:27).
Found: A tunnel was constructed from the spring at Gihon, which is now called the Virgin's Fountain, under the city walls and through the rock to the southern end of the city of Jerusalem, to the pool of Siloam. It is the Aqueduct of Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 32:2-4; 2 Kings 20:20)
Three accounts have been left by the Assyrian monarch-Sennacherib-about his campaign against Israel and Judah. The tell of how he came against the cities of Israel and then Judah, and how he "shut up" Hezekiah in his capital city Jerusalem. But, Sennacherib failed in his campaign (2 Kings 19:35-36). In 1938 archaelogists found a mass grave outside the city of Lachish, which Sennacherib had conquered and which was the base for the Assyrian move to Jerusalem. There found was 2000 skeleton's. There are stone panels on display today in the Lachish Gallery in the British Museum-- depicting the seige of Lachish. Sennacherib was assasinated (2 Kings 19:36-37) and also on display are tablets of this event.
BABYLON: Babylon was prophesied by Jeremiah and Isaiah and Daniel that it would "disappear" (Jeremiah 51:58; Isaiah 45:1-2; Daniel 4:30) It disappeared completely for over 2000 years. The palace ruins were discovered by archaelogists in the 19th century--proving that the Word of God stands!!!!
The Dead Sea Scrolls: In 1947, a bedouin shepherd found scrolls--The Isaiah Scroll is 23 feet long and made of leather, it was made in 100 B.C. Comparisons made in today's book of Isaiah and the scroll accurately reflect what was originally written.
There are so many other proofs that the Bible is the written word of God, and that it is infallible, but to continue writing them I would run out of Web Space. Please study, and search the Scriptures if you have any questions about it's validity in today's world.!!!!!
