The Reality Of The Bible
I hope this helps you out some too.
(The Friend that is confused we will call Friend A. The one trying to help will be called Friend B)
FRIEND A:
OK, I’ve never
read The Bible cover to cover (I tried once), but I read The Bible as a
Novel and I’m certainly familiar with many of the versus. Because of my
religion I’ve been taught the most from The New Testament. As I’ve said
before, I grew up in the church, was baptized and generally believe
Jesus came to save mankind.
For the sake of our discussion, I’m going to break The Bible into two
parts, The Old and New Testaments. First off, I find the inclusion of
the Old Testament odd. Sure, there are connections, but I find it very
strange that two very different religions are connected through the
combined work called The Bible. Could it be simply that Christianity
looks meager with only the very concise New Testament? In my opinion,
Christianity would not exist without the failure of Judaism to recognize
Jesus for who he was. But their hands were probably tied. At any rate,
the advent of a Messiah –real or not– changed the face of Judaism
forever.
The Jews are a strange Middle Eastern race. Basically a problematic,
nomadic people they show up in history time and time again as oppressed.
Biblically speaking, I think we are supposed to consider them cursed for
turning away from God. Perhaps they believe Christians feel that way,
hence their complex of persecution. Still, the Christians seem to harbor
a need to connect the religions through the Old Testament.
The Old Testament is where my doubts
began. Simple questions at first, but out of them came the doubt in all
of The Bible. If one’s built on the other, then... you get the idea. So,
The Old Testament is billed as God’s instructions to ‘his’ (self
proclaimed) people, the Jews. In an era of Gods (plural), the educated
Jews proclaim that their single God is the God of all, describing how he
created the heavens and earth. They go on to say that their God created
man in his image, justifying their subjugation of women by saying she
was created not from God, but from Adam’s rib. Right from the get-go,
here comes the questions. If we believe The Bible is God’s word, then
woman could very well be inferior to man. One could list the
differences, but we believe in equality between the sexes which seems
logical if we are created in God’s image. So which one’s right? Or is it
a concept built on the era? Not exactly a concrete ‘word’ to base a
religion on. Which is the heart of my doubt.
Most of The Old Testament revolves around basic beliefs to perpetuate
the existence of a people, God’s people the Jews specifically.
Apparently the rest of the world doesn’t count. Things like what you
eat, circumcision, sexuality, hygiene, and how one person treats
another, are all aimed at social order and the prevention of disease. To
persuade the ignorant, the knowledgeable instill the idea that these are
God’s commandments. The knowledgeable, the leaders, just happen to be
the only ones who can speak to and understand what God wants so all must
obey them. And so, these self made men of God go on to rule the people
doing battle against anyone who questions their authority. Naturally
when these men fail, it’s the peoples sins against God that are to
blame. All manner of natural disaster are explained away as God’s anger
over the peoples sin. Do these guys have it good or what? And so it
goes, one religion against another breeding hate between people to
protect their individual beliefs and right to rule. But what if the
ignorant people figured this out and tried to live peacefully as one
people under one religion? They’ve got it covered. Naturally The Bible
describes the end of the world and, you guessed it, one race, one
religion is a sign of the end.
In an era of Roman domination
Judaism probably faced its greatest threat. Jewish leaders were
powerless to stop the Roman plundering of their land. To the people it
must have appeared that not even God could overcome the Romans. The
leaders needed a plan, but how could they leverage the peoples belief in
God to protect their positions of authority over a conquered people.
Jesus was how.
Earlier I questioned the connection of Christianity and Judaism through
The Bible. Certainly one could consider that the Jews, afraid they might
have made a mistake by killing Jesus, attached their Bible to the new
bible, just in case. But isn’t it just as likely that the Jesus idea
backfired? Lets go back and look at what might have happened.
A powerless religion, Judaism, is dying at the hands of the Romans. The
people quickly lose patience with their religious leaders and claims of
atonement to God for past sins. As the people stray from religion the
leaders lose power. The struggle to survive outweighed the need for
religion. They needed another Moses, but that was just a fairytale, the
leaders knew there was no one coming to save the Jews. But what if they
could convince the people that God’s kingdom was not of this world, but
of another? The Egyptians pulled it off, why not Judaism? It was time to
play the Messiah card.
In a time of prophets proclaiming
the arrival of the Messiah, the leaders either created, or combed one
from the flock. He proclaimed that the meek, the weary, the oppressed,
the downtrodden would inherit the kingdom of heaven, God’s kingdom. No
matter how bad your life on earth, as long as you were faithful to your
God, and naturally his leaders, you would be saved. There was an
unforeseen flaw in the plan.
Under Roman oppression Judaism was crumbling. On one extreme great
wealth could be acquired, but on the other, a hundred times fold,
poverty bred hopelessness. In both cases, the people turned away from
religion and religious leaders. Obviously their God could not save the
destitute and the opportunist could acquire wealth without God. Instead
of bolstering Judaism and their power, the introduction of Jesus into
religious unrest, fractured the religion. As the masses turned to Jesus
and probably the mistaken idea that he was going to establish a kingdom
for them on earth, the religious leadership was now faced with an even
greater threat. In a futile effort to undo what they’d done, they had
him killed, by the Romans to avoid complicity. They didn’t kill the son
of man, they made him up, but they were too late.
Rumors of Jesus rising from the dead and ascending to heaven put an end
to any notion that the problem died with his execution. Instead, a new
religion, Christianity, was born. Without a Messiah, Judaism is now
faced with the daunting task of restructuring it’s beliefs, but not
until they make every effort to squash Christianity. Christianity and
‘The Church’ is a whole new era of religious manipulation of power and
wealth, but that’s another chapter.
_______ and I have been talking
about this some. While we were talking today, I expressed my doubt like
this. The God who created heaven and earth, with all it’s intricacies,
does not make mistakes. His creation of man was not a mistake, but the
Bible is full of explanations of God’s mistakes. It is more likely that
man has created these God’s omissions or mistakes, because they better
serve man’s needs. Therefore, my doubt may lie in man’s interpretation
of God rather than in God. Our discussion also crept into the concept of
evolution, which is probably the greatest threat to religion in general.
But think about it, have we evolved? I don’t think so. We seem to be the
same basic species inside despite centuries of ‘evolving’. Can you even
think of one species that we know of that evolved. Sure some have
adapted, but evolved, I don’t think so.
FRIEND B:
I have to agree I
find it remarkable myself on how the Old and New Testament has been fit
together. As far as The New Testament looking meager without it? I guess
you could say that because the New Testament writings were based off
three things. The prophecies and events of the Old Testament. The life
and reason for Jesus Christ, and the life of Christians yesterday, today
and in the future.
As far as Christianity not existing without the fall of Judaism is an
interesting statement. Simply for a couple reasons. The whole term of
“Christian” was not something created by Jesus or His followers but was
a title given by people who lived in a city called Antioch to Paul and
the disciples. The plan of Christianity as we call it today was to
believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah. This was not intended to be the
fall of Judaism, just the passing from the “Age of the Law”, into the
“Age of Grace”
As far as the nation being cursed by God, in the beginning of the
nation’s history they were the nation chosen by God. Le 26:12 And I will
walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people.
The Jews as stated, always claimed to have been the chosen nation by
God. Why did He choose Israel though? It was all started back with
Jacob. He was a man at that time that had set God as his true God. The
only true God and God blessed him for that. Ge 32:28 And he said, Thy
name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast
thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.
Did this mean that no one else from any other nation had a chance to be
part of God’s elect nation? No not at all. We can read of a woman named
Rahab in the book of Joshua. She was a woman who lived in the greatest
city of that time; Jericho. She realized and believed that the God the
Israelites believed in was the true God. She was spared.
Another person could be Ruth, in the book of Ruth she was from a place
called Moab. She wanted this God that the Israelites believed in and
made a decision as well.
As far as some of the Laws that was given to the Jews to follow, many
were common sense laws that helped a nation survive, unlike many other
nations such as the Babylonians and Assyrians. Deut. 22:4 Thou shalt not
see thy brother’s ass or his ox fall down by the way, and hide thyself
from them: thou shalt surely help him to lift them up again.
5 ¶ The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither
shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination
unto the LORD thy God.
Like verse 4 that’s just a very logical commandment to help them out. If
someone needs help, help them, verse 5 is an verse of instruction.
During this time as mentioned in the email Israel was a nomad country
and they were constantly surrounded by nations that were constantly at
war. One nation at this time were the Canaanites. The Canaanites
worshipped many other gods, which resulted in transvestism and mingling
of other things, including temple prostitutes to just name one thing.
Verse 5 was given to help the Jews stay clear and distinct from the
nations around them. God wanted them to be clear in all dress and
actions to maintain a clarity and avoid mingling of nations. Why though?
Simply due to the fact that God wanted that nation still standing when
His Son, The Messiah was to come.
The debate on equality for women
seems to have always been around unfortunately. The Bible has never
taught that women are less important even though people try so hard to
say so. One man by the name of William MacDonald, who has studied the
Bible extensively all his life could say in his book “Believer’s Bible
Commentary” that the word “image” could be best explained in that
certain things we have in common with God are things such as intellect,
a moral nature, ability to communicate with others and emotional nature
that transcends instinct. The fact we were created in His image shows a
equality between the sexes, but does the taking of the rib from the man
actually show that women are less? One anonymous quote could say “She
was not made out of his head to surpass him, nor from his feet to be
trampled on, but from his side to be equal to him, and near his heart to
be dear to him.”
There are certain distinctions that are given between the sexes but
aren’t put in place to make one less then the other. We see in
scripture, even in Adam and Eve that the man is the one to be held
responsible for sins or problems that he and his wife do together. In
the book of Proverbs and chapter 31:(verse 26 She openeth her mouth with
wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.) The last part of the
chapter is speaking about women. A study of this will show a high praise
for a woman in this chapter. It seems to indicate that each other
working together makes the other a better person. Other verses people
will use for equality of men and woman is in the New Testament book of
Ephesians chapter 5:24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ,
so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. 25 Husbands,
love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself
for it;
33 Nevertheless do ye also severally love each one his own wife even as
himself; and let the wife see that she fear her husband. (KJV)
Verse 24 is simply restating something that has been stated in other
parts of the Bible, for the woman to be subject or to honour the
husbands, as the Christian is to honour Christ. This does not belittle
the woman in any way for the next verse tells us that the man is to love
his wife as much as Christ loved the church (which the church simply
refers to all people who have trusted in the Saviour.) And how much did
Christ love us? He died for us. Therefore a man should be willing to do
anything for his wife. And then finally verse 33 again pushes this point
home. Men are to greatly love his wife and the wife is to greatly
respect and love her husband. You can’t have one without the other. If
the man is truly loving his wife as he should then the woman will truly
be loving him back and respecting him for the love he’s showing. Nothing
is intended her to belittle the other.
This is shown again in 1 Corinthians:
7:3 Let the husband give to the wife what is right; and let the wife do
the same to the husband.
4 The wife has not power over her body, but the husband; and in the same
way the husband has not power over his body, but the wife.
Concerning the fact that only the leaders could tell the people what God
was telling them is sort of true, but the reason they were leaders were
because the people recognized the people’s ability in communing with
God. They were not born leaders. Look at Moses, he was a man born of the
Israelites during a time of slavery. He was adopted then eventually
abandoned by his Egyptian family for his actions against them. God used
him to help the people.
Look at David, he was a meager shepherd’s boy. The prophet Samuel worked
in the temple. In the New Testament the men who wrote and connected
themselves with Jesus Christ were not all political leaders etc, many
were fishermen, tax collectors, doctors, and the list goes on.
As far as them feeling they had the right “religion” they had no reason
to believe otherwise. They had been told as you can read in the book of
Deuteronomy (Chapter 18:22 When a prophet speaketh in the name of the
LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which
the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously:
thou shalt not be afraid of him.) that ones that predicted something and
it happened were ones of God. Something they could witness during their
lifetime.
As far as the Old Testament goes any
claim in it prophetic or just archaeological has never been proven
wrong. Archaeologists and historians agree that the “Table of Nations”
recorded in Genesis 10, there is nothing in Greek Literature that
compares to it.
Just a few of the prophecies that were fulfilled were things such as the
Destruction of Edom (Obadiah 1), Babylonian Curse (Isaiah 13),
Destruction of Tyre (Ezekial 26), and also the Destruction of Nineveh
(Nahum 1-3)
As far as the Jews accepting just any books to call Inspired and come
from God, they had a guidelines in place that they followed. If a book
fell outside of this, it was not considered, inspired by God:
1. They abound in historical and geographical inaccuracies and
anachronisms
2. They teach doctrines that are false and foster practices that are at
variances with inspired scripture.
3. They resort to literary types and display an artificiality of subject
matter and styling out of keeping with the inspired scripture.
4. They lack the distinctive elements that give genuine scripture its
divine character, such as prophetic power and poetic and religious
feeling. --- Unger’s Bible Dictionary
Concerning the time of the new testament. I will admit, prophets were
gone, and the Romans in control of Jerusalem was a bit uncomfortable for
the Jews, but they were managing as best they could. When Jerusalem was
taken over, it was reported that around 12,000 Jews were killed. 400
years had passed sense the closing of the prophecy of Malachi and now
news of Jesus the Messiah was spreading across the country side. Herod
the king at that time heard news about this King of the Jews that was
born and he felt threatened by it. So the king, a man who reportedly had
10 wives he used awfully and a son that stated he’d have rather been
“Herod’s hog than his son.” sent out to search and kill this new King.
(Matthew chapter 2)
In historical writings such as 1 Maccabees 14:41 we can read of a man
named Simon who was made a leader and priest until a trustworthy prophet
should rise. Another writer of 2 Baruch 85:3 could complain over the
fact that all the prophets had fallen asleep.
There were three wise men. Men who
practiced magic and studied the stars. They one day during calculations,
noticed a star out of place. So traveling from the east came to
Jerusalem wanting to see this one that obviously had to be a king. These
three men were not Jewish leaders.
There were other men that visited Jesus Christ that we have record of
too. They were shepherds, (Luke 2). They most likely were Jews, but had
no authority to make a nation believe that this baby was a prophet or
the Messiah.
For the Jews to try to make this man the Messiah was something that from
that day until today was something they did not want to do. One man by
the name of Louis S. Lapides, M.DIV., TH.M. born a Jew felt that the
first time he opened the New Testament he would be struck down by God.
The Jewish nation is not willing to accept that Jesus Christ was the
Messiah. Of course leaders and others could attempt to say “look this is
your Messiah!” in an attempt to either make the people “happy” or lead
them further astray. Jesus Christ warned of this in Luke 21:8.
But did Jesus Christ, the one born as a baby, the one we all know about,
was he sincerely the Messiah? There are around 40 prophecies in the Old
Testament that speak about the Messiah, the deliverer. A mathematician
by the name of Peter W. Stoner could calculate for someone to match 48
of the claims of the Messiah would be one chance in a trillion,
trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion,
trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion.
Acts 3:18 But those things, which God before had shewed by the mouth of
all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled.
Some of just the main prophecies could be the time in Daniel 9, the city
in Micah 5:2 and the nature in Isaiah 7:14 and the death in Isaiah 53.
There was a great reason why Christ was hated by the leaders. The
Pharisees and Sadducees were running the show. They were the ones who
wanted things to go their way, and Christ was saying otherwise. These
two verses help explain the hatred.
Joh 15:22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin:
but now they have no excuse for their sin.
Joh 15:24 If I had not done among them the works which none other did,
they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and
my Father. (nasb)
As far as Christ’s resurrection is concerned that is constantly attacked
due to the very fact that it is a very vital point of Christianity.
Without the resurrection we have nothing. We have no Saviour.
Many people seem to be quick to discredit the Bible. They are not
willing to accept the fact that it is a very carefully selected group of
writing that is telling history. The “North American Review” could write
once.. “It seems strange that the text of Shakespeare, which has been in
existence less then 280 years should be far more uncertain and corrupt
then that of the New Testament now over 18 centuries old.”
Eyewitness testimony is something that is very important. If a crime is
committed in our countries today, one of the best pieces of evidence is
a creditable eye witness.
The writers of the New Testament mention eyewitness accounts quite
often. A list of them are:
2 Peter 1:16
1 John 1:1-3
Luke 1:1-3
Acts 1:1-3
1 Corinthians 15:6-8
John 20:30,31
Acts 10:39-42
1 Peter 5:1
Acts 1:9
Acts 2:22
Acts 26:24-28
If someone went on a trip to the Arctic and came back and told us all
about it, and wrote papers and books on it we would trust his or her
judgment. If someone started to critique and try to find fault with that
person’s writings yet could find no proof of any error, we would laugh
at that person and tell them they are just trying to stir up trouble.
The same is happening with the New Testament. We have a group of men who
were around during the time of Jesus Christ who are telling us about
Jesus Christ yet we are trying to tell them we don’t believe them.
Historians and Archaeologists can date 1 Corinthians 15 and the first
part of the chapter as far back as 2 years after Christ left earth. That
is remarkably close. There are over 25,000 manuscript copies and
portions of the New Testament in existence today. No other book has that
much information about it to support it.
As far as evolution goes. That is a
huge topic in itself. You have Evolution, Creation and Theism Evolution.
Theism Evolution we’ll deal with first. This one basically means that
sure evolution could have happened but God was in control. There’s one
huge problem with this. You’re trying to hold on to the bible yet a
theory of science as well, and it can’t mix. Here’s the scriptural
reason why. According to evolution man was one of the last in the chain
of evolution. Same as they were created on the 6th day of creation. For
evolution to happen, species and organisms have to die for new ones to
take it’s place. According to the Bible though, nothing died until sin
came into the world (Romans 5:12). Sin didn’t come into the world until
Adam and Eve sinned, so therefore you have a problem with Theism
Evolution. What it boils down to is, do you believe in Evolution, or do
you believe in Creation?
As far as saying “how long did it take God to create all things?” Joshua
and his men walked around Jericho six days, do we ever hear people ask
how long did Joshua walk around the walls of Jericho? Ofcourse not. Six
days as it meant in Joshua is the same in Genesis 1 -- six literal 24
hour periods.
Some problems with evolution is well first the fossil record. The main
one the Cambrian period, is the one that is in the worse shape. There
are not many fossils in it, some museums go as far as making up fossils
to fill the gaps. If they find a fossil of an animal we don’t have today
they immediately assume it’s a “missing link” not taking into account
it’s most likely an extinct species.
Some very basic problems with evolution is DNA and proteins, everything
has to evolve into something greater, so which came first? The DNA or
the protein? Both had to be made at the same time to interact with each
other.
What about the exact language of the DNA? The creationist Ken Ham, uses
the story of an evolutionary lesson used in classes. If you draw the
alphabet from a hat in a classroom eventually you’ll get a word. Let’s
say the word is BAT. Great you’ve got a word. Three random letters
formed together makes a word. But who is that a word to? Could a German
read it or a Russian? No it’s an English word. An English person
familiar with the language can therefore read that word and make sense
of it. The same with DNA. Imagine that millions and millions of DNA fell
into place to form a human being. There it is sitting there the perfect
DNA language, but it’s not doing anything. Why not? Cause there’s no one
to understand what it’s saying? There has to be a designer behind the
design to make that design work.
Another illustration he uses is if you walk into a brick building. Do
you look at that brick building and go “yes over many many years with
those bricks flying all around the sky they all eventually landed into
place and made this really nice sturdy building.” no you know that there
was a designer behind it.
These are just basic examples but there’s a tonne of science behind it
too. Sites like answersingenesis.org and icr.org help explain why
evolution can’t work. A really good book on it too is “A Case For A
Creator” by Lee Strobel.
I guess I’ll end this now. It has gotten pretty long. Each point made a
whole book could be written on it. Hope this helped out some.