A DOCTRINAL EXEGESIS
OF THE "WE BELIEVE" STATEMENT
OF THE ASSOCIATION OF MESSIANIC
CONGREGATIONS
A Compendium of
Messianic Bible Studies
By Norman Manzon
PAGE 6 OF 6:
ADDENDUM STUDIES, Page 1
MAJOR TOPICS IN SYSTEMATIC
PROGRESSION:
PAGE 1:
The Scriptures; God the Triunity; Angels; Satan and
Demons; The Doctrine of Man; Salvation
PAGE 2: Israel; The True Roots of Anti-Semitism;
The Believer and the Law of Moses
PAGE 3: The
Church or Body of Messiah; The Ministries and Gifts of the Holy Spirit; Divine Healing:
Another Perspective
PAGE 4:
The Future, the Afterworld
and Eternity
PAGE 5: The Future, the Afterworld
and Eternity - continued from
page 4.
PAGE 6: ADDENDUM STUDIES, Page 1
PLEASE NOTE:
The studies in this compendium are copied from Shofars 1 - 52.
Updates to this Compendium have been discontinued and not all Shofar
studies by the author are in the Compendium. For links to all
studies by the author, please go to the most up-to-date
Library page (of Shofar 53) and find the author's studies under
"NORMAN MANZON."
16. All
Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for
teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training
in righteousness; 17. so that the man of God may be
adequate, equipped for every good work.
~ 2 Timothy 3:16-17 ~
|
~ ADDENDUM ~
FOREWORD
Dear Friends,
In 2005 we began our series of a detailed exposition of
the We Believe statement of The Association of Messianic Congregations
which we completed in January of 2017 with "The Heavenly Ages."
Little did anyone know when I began, including me, that it would turn out to be a
fairly well developed systematic theology, a topical exposition of the Scriptures
presented in a logical sequence. To use formal terminology, we've
covered Bibliology, the doctrine or study of the Scriptures that
addresses such questions as how we know that the Bible is the written,
inerrant, infallible word of God and how He composed it through human writers; Theology Proper, the
study of God, which includes, but is not limited to, the study of the
Trinity and God the Father; Christology, the study of the Son;
Pneumatology, the study of the Holy Spirit; Angelology, the study of
angels; Satanology, the study of Satan; Demonology, the study of demons;
Anthropology, the biblical study of man (not to be confused with the
sociological science of anthropology); Hamartiology, the study of sin;
Soteriology, the study of Salvation through the ages; Israelology, the study of Israel; Ecclesiology,
the study of the Body of Messiah or the Church; and finally,
Eschatology, the study of future events.
Though the sequence has been completed, the author has found it necessary
to back up and fill in some blanks, which he has done with the first
study to follow, "The Ambassadorial Band" which, in theological
sequence, fits right after "The Local Church."
It has been my great privilege and blessing to do this.
For Yeshua and you,
Nachum ben Avraham,
Norman Manzon
WE BELIEVE
~
THE AMBASSADORIAL BAND
By Norman Manzon
In theological sequence,
"The Ambassadorial Band" fits in right after
"The Local Congregation" on
Page
3.
As always, we will lay a foundation
by considering relevant sections of the We Believe statement of The
Association of Messianic Congregations.
AMC STATEMENT: EXCERPTS
(1)
Salvation
We
believe that anyone who
by faith trusts Messiah
Yeshua as Savior and
Redeemer is immediately
forgiven of sin and
becomes a child of God.
This salvation is not
the result of any human
effort or merit, it is
the undeserved favor of
God. Further, there is
no other way of
salvation apart from
faith in Messiah Yeshua
for any person, whether
Jewish or Gentile. We
believe that Messiah
Yeshua died as the
sacrifice for man's sin
and that all who believe
in Him are declared
righteous on the basis
of His shed blood alone.
We believe that all
believers are kept
eternally secure by the
power of God through the
new birth and the
indwelling and sealing
of the Holy Spirit.
(Genesis 15:6;
Leviticus 17:11;
Deuteronomy 9:4-6;
Habakkuk 2:4; John
1:12,13; Acts 2:37-39;
Romans 1:16,17, 3:28,
8:9,15-17; Ephesians
1:7, 2:8,9,19; Titus
3:5)
The
Body of Messiah
We
believe that all
believers in Yeshua are
members of the universal
body (community) and
bride of the Messiah.
The body of Messiah
began at Shavuot
(Pentecost) with the
baptism of the Holy
Spirit after the
ascension of Yeshua.
Membership in the body
is based solely on faith
in Messiah. This body is
distinct from Israel and
is composed of both Jews
and Gentiles made one in
Messiah. These members
are under the solemn
duty to keep the unity
of the Spirit in the
bond of love. We believe
that the ordinances of
the local congregation
are water immersion and
the Lord's Supper. We
believe that the purpose
of the local
congregation is to
glorify God through
worship, instruction,
accountability,
discipline, fellowship
and outreach. Its
eldership is open to men
who fulfill the
qualifications for elder
as set forth in the New
Covenant. The Scriptures
encourage the active
participation and
regular assembly of
believers in the local
body. (Matthew
16:15-18 Luke 22:24-27;
Acts 1:5, 2:14-36; 1
Corinthians 12:13;
Galatians 6:1; Ephesians
2:11-18, 5:23-27;
Colossians 1:18,
3:14,15) |
~
THE CALL OF THE AMBASSADORIAL
BAND
It
is the call of the body of
Messiah as a whole to
Go and make disciples of all nations
(Matthew 28:19), but it is the
pronounced call of particular
evangelists (Acts 8:5; 26-35)
and the ambassadorial band as a
whole to do the actual taking
of the gospel to regions it had
never touched before. As Paul said to the
Romans,
I aspired to preach the
gospel, not
where Christ was already named, so that I would not build on another
man's foundation; but as it is written, THEY WHO HAD NO NEWS OF HIM
SHALL SEE, AND THEY WHO HAVE NOT HEARD SHALL UNDERSTAND (Isaiah
52:15).
~ Romans 15:20-21
~ |
And to the
Corinthians:
to preach the gospel even to the regions beyond you, and not to
boast in what has been accomplished in the sphere of another
(2 Corinthians 10:16).
20. Therefore, we
are ambassadors for
Christ, as though
God were making an
appeal through us;
we beg you on behalf
of Christ, be
reconciled to God.
21. He made Him who
knew no sin to be
sin on our behalf,
so that we might
become the
righteousness of God
in Him.
~
2 Corinthians
5:20-21 ~ |
THE NECESSITY TO ACCOMMODATE
Within the
limitations of holiness, Paul
strove to accommodate to every
culture and individual to
establish common ground for communication.
19. For though I
am free from all
men, I have made
myself a slave to
all, so that I may
win more. 20. To the
Jews I became as a
Jew, so that I might
win Jews; to those
who are under the
Law, as under the
Law though not being
myself under the
Law, so that I might
win those who are
under the Law; 21.
to those who are
without law, as
without law, though
not being without
the law of God but
under the law of
Christ, so that I
might win those who
are without law. 22.
To the weak I became
weak, that I might
win the weak; I have
become all things to
all men, so that I
may by all means
save some.
~
1 Corinthians
9:19-22 ~ |
In Colossians
4:6, he wrote,
Let your speech always be with
grace, as though seasoned with
salt, so that you will know how
you should respond to each
person; and in Acts 17:22-23,
we see Paul walking out that
exhortation as he used the
Athenians' altar with the
inscription, "To the unknown
god" as a springboard for
communicating the gospel to
them.
THE ACTIVITIES AND PERSISTENCE
OF THE AMBASSADORIAL BAND
Paul and his
band preached the gospel,
established churches, appointed
elders and trained new believers
to carry on and multiply the
Word and the work of the Lord in
all of its aspects (2 Timothy
2:2). They preached in hostile areas
as readily as safer ones, not hesitating because of what may
befall them (Acts 4:19-20, 23-29; 2 Corinthians 11:21-33). The Lord
changed their plans in mid-stream (Acts 16:7-9) and they had strong
disagreements among themselves (Acts 11:2;
15:36-40; Galatians 2:12-14); yet, the urgency of their mission
superceded all resistance and human shortcoming, and they
persevered, trusting that God would do His work through them; and He
did. As Yeshua promised, so He
performed: I will build My church; and the
gates of Hades will not overpower it (Matthew 16:18).
THE NECESSITY OF A CLEAR
UNDERSTANDING OF THE MISSION
Paul’s band had a clear understanding of their mission: It was the
mission of their leader, to be an apostle to the Gentiles. It is
noteworthy that although God called Peter to the Jews and
Paul to the Gentiles (Galatians 2:7), yet, wherever the apostle to
the Gentiles went he always preached to
the Jew first (Romans 1:16) because
it was necessary (Acts 13:46) for the fulfillment of
God's promise to Abraham:
in you
all the families of the earth
will be blessed
(Genesis 12:3). As God used the
Jews to bring forth the Law of
Moses and the Messiah; as He
used them to establish and lay
the foundation for the body of Messiah
(Romans 15:20; 1 Corinthians
15:10) and bless the world with
the writings of
the New Covenant; as He will yet
use them to complete the
evangelization of the world
(Revelation 7:1-9); so God
desires for individual Jews to
receive the gospel first in
every locale so
that they may have the privilege
of being the first to share with others.
This is not to say that we are
to ignore others until we have
first shared with every Jew in a
particular locale, but it is to
say that it is biblical to focus
on them first. It is consistent
with God's promise to Abraham. A
careful reading of the Book of
Acts will affirm that Paul
always preached
to
the Jew first. Even when he returned to
a place in which he had previously ministered he again preached
to
the Jew first (Acts 18:19; 19:1-8).
To the Jew
first is a principle that has never been rescinded, and
if the apostle to the Gentiles'
practice and proclamation mean
anything, it is still
necessary for the
gospel to be brought to
the Jew first in every outreach in every locale where
there are Jews.
THE AMBASSADORIAL BAND AND LOCAL
CONGREGATIONS
The local congregation and the
ambassadorial band each recognized the other
as an authorized and specialized form of the Lord’s work. They
recognized each other as equals in authority and responsibility, and
served each other. When the Holy Spirit
said, Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I
have called them, the leaders of the congregation at Antioch
sent them out with fasting, prayer and the laying on of hands (Acts
13:1-3). When Paul’s journey was diverted by the Lord from Bithynia
to Macedonia, he
immediately. . . sought to go
into Macedonia (Acts
16:7-10), not requiring the permission of either the Antioch or Jerusalem elders.
Members of local
congregations joined Paul’s band
(Acts 12:12; 16:1-3; 20:1-4),
opened their homes to them (Acts
16:14-15), prayed for them
(Colossians 4:13; Ephesians
6:19), assisted them financially
(2 Corinthians 8:3,5, 11:9;
Philippians 4:14-16), and took
great risks for them (Romans
16:3-4). Conversely, the
ambassadorial band
established local congregations and remained with or returned to them for
long periods of time, when necessary, to ensure that they were
well-trained and established in the Word.
And
[Paul] was traveling through Syria and Cilicia,
strengthening the churches
(Acts 15:41).
He settled [in Corinth] a
year and six months, teaching the word of God among them
(Acts 18:9-11).
To the Ephesian
elders, he wrote,
night and day for a period of three years I
did not cease to admonish each one with tears (Acts
20:31).
To Titus, he wrote,
For this reason
I left you in Crete, that you would set in order what remains and
appoint elders in every city (Titus 1:5.)
Also, Acts
20:28-32; Romans 16:17-19; Philippians 3:15-16; 1 Corinthians 5; 1
Thessalonians 5:12-22.
Paul also
ministered to local
congregations by means of
letters, and he and his band
assisted in meeting the
practical needs of
congregations, as well. When the
saints in Jerusalem needed
practical assistance, members of
his band received donations from
local congregations
for that purpose (Acts 11:29-30; 1 Corinthians 16:1-3).
THE AMBASSADORIAL BAND AND
MODERN TIMES
Times have changed, and modern ministries have arisen: Bible
translation ministries, mercy ministries, modern evangelistic
organizations and the like. In addition, we can now spread the Word
through means of communication
that would seem inconceivable to
Paul and his company. These are well and good;
yet,
according to the Joshua Project of the U.S. Center for World Mission
(joshuaproject.net, 2017), the world is still forty-two per cent unevangelized,
and ambassadorial companies akin
to Paul’s are still needed.
CONCLUSION
What
Yeshua said
two thousand years ago still applies: The harvest is
plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of
the harvest to send out workers into His harvest (Matthew
9:37-38).
May God raise up
strong, bold, wise and gifted
men and women to perpetuate the
ambassadorial band and send it to
regions beyond. Let us be open
to a call beyond the people and
places that are closest and most
familiar to us, even as Paul
reached far beyond his own Jewish
brethren.
The Ambassadorial Band
~ a messianic Bible study ~
© Norman Manzon, 2017.
All rights reserved.
Scriptures chosen by the
author are in the New American Standard version unless
otherwise noted. Scriptures in quotes by others may be in
different translations. Names, titles and other terms within
quoted scriptures and elsewhere may have been changed from
the English to the Hebrew form for the sake of cultural
sensitivity. |
~
WE BELIEVE
~
EVIDENCE UPON EVIDENCE: THE BIBLE IS
THE WORD OF GOD, PART 1
By Norman Manzon
In theological sequence, the
placement of this study ought to be the very
first in this entire sequence, which begins
on Page 1.
Please note: This
study originally appeared on the author's
website,
www.BibleStudyProject.org, and was
written to a non-believing, as well as
to a believing, audience. This edition
contains exactly the same content, but
certain names and terms have been changed
for appropriateness for a messianic
readership.
~
As always, we will lay a foundation
by considering relevant sections of the We Believe statement of The
Association of Messianic Congregations.
AMC STATEMENT: EXCERPTS
(1)
The Scriptures
We
believe that the
Scriptures, both the
Tenach (Hebrew
Scriptures) and the Brit
Hadasha (New Covenant),
are fully inspired and
are God's complete and
final revelation to man
until the Messiah
returns. The 66 books of
the Bible are inerrant
in the original
autographs. They are
true and authoritative
in every category of
knowledge to which they
speak. (Proverbs
30:5,6; Isaiah 40:7,8;
Jeremiah 31:31; Matthew
5:18; John 10:35; 2
Timothy 3:16; 2
Pet.1:19-21) |
INTRODUCTION
If
there is no authoritative word from God,
then, for all intents and purposes, we are
but flotsam and jetsam cast about without
known purpose or direction on a vast and
turbulent sea. But if there is an
authoritative word from God, then it stands
to reason that, by listening to it, we will
gain insight into the nature and reason for
our existence and how we stand in
relationship to God and all else.
In this study, I present evidence far beyond
the threshold of proof that the Bible is the
Word of God. Attorneys have studied the
Bible to disprove it, and have come away
believers! If you are not yet convinced
that the Bible is the Word of God, I implore
you to give these evidences serious
consideration as the consequences for
believing or disbelieving the Bible could
not be more profound. Your eternal destiny
and the quality of your earthly life are at
stake. If you do know that the Bible is the
Word of God, these evidences will strengthen
your faith and increase your ability to
launch a strong defense against attacks on
your faith, and to logically present a defense to everyone
who asks you to give an account for the
hope that is in you (1 Peter
3:15).
It is because the authorship of the Bible is
such a critical and fundamental
issue that I have piled evidence on top of
evidence that it is the Word of God. I will
present evidence from within the Bible
itself and from the natural and sociological
sciences.
Faith Pushed Aside?
The believer may wonder if I push faith
aside by appealing to evidences, an
intellectual consideration. That is not the
case. God appealed to evidences to convince
Job to trust Him (Job 38-40). Furthermore,
to the intellectual, we must be as the
intellectual. Paul said,
20. And to the Jews I
became as a Jew, that I might win
Jews; . . . 21. to those who are
without law, as without law. . .
that I might win those who are
without law. 22. To the weak I became
weak, that I might win the weak; I
have become all things to all men,
that I may by all means save some.
~ 1 Corinthians 9:20-22
~
|
and in
Colossians 4:5-6, Conduct
yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders,
making the most of every opportunity.
Let your speech always be with grace,
seasoned, as it were, with salt, so that
you may know how you should respond to
each person.
The study is extensive, but - How do you eat
an elephant? One bite at a time!
Happy dining!
DEFINING TERMS
If I am to prove that
the Bible is the Word of God, I must first
define what I mean by “the Bible,” “God”
and “the Word of God.”
The Bible. I define “the Bible” as that
compilation of sixty-six books that
comprise the Protestant Bible, is
included in the Eastern Orthodox and Roman
Catholic Bibles, and includes all of the
thirty-nine books held sacred by Jews.
God. I define “God” as the one true God of
the Bible who eternally exists as three
divine Persons in one Supreme Being. He is
divine spirit, is everywhere present
(omnipresent), knows all things past,
present, and future (omniscient), and is
all powerful (omnipotent). God has other
attributes, but the ones I have noted
include all of the attributes necessary
for Him to have authored the Bible.
The Word of God. One of the biblical uses
of “the Word of God” is in reference to the total
content of the Bible itself. As such, “the
Word of God” is the total message that God
spoke to chosen men who, under His
initiative, power and superintendence,
wrote that message in the sixty-six books
of the Bible infallibly (with unfailing
accuracy) and inerrantly (without error).
I. THE TESTIMONY
OF THE BIBLE ITSELF
Dr. Charles Ryrie said,
"The Bible, . . . like any other witness,
has the right to testify on its own
behalf." (2) If the Bible declared
that it was not the Word of God, then the
matter would be settled out of hand. If it
made no declaration at all, then its lack
of testimony would lend no strength to any
claim that it is the Word of God. But the
Bible repeatedly and emphatically claims
that it is the Word of God and contains in
its narrative actual statements made by
God. It even goes so far as to tell us how
God conveyed the biblical narrative to us.
These claims are repeated strongly and
unwaveringly and need to be examined and
reckoned with.
If you believe that the
Bible has been authored by God, the
scriptures that declare God’s authorship
will serve as affirmation to you. If you do
not yet believe that the Bible has been
authored by God, you can be sure that I
will not say to you, “Believe that the
Bible is the Word of God because it says
that it is, and the Word of God can be
trusted.” To do so would be a begging of
the question as the matter in question
would be presented as a presupposition. If
you are in the latter category, then
accept these scriptures as the testimony
of the defendant in your court of
judgment. Then consider the evidence that
will follow.
Before we examine extrabiblical
evidence from various fields, please consider the Bible’s
affirmation to believers and testimony to
all:
A.
The
Bible Claims it is the Word of God
1. The Bible Refers
to Various of Its Sections as the Word
of God
Some examples are as follows:
a. Sections of the Old Testament
1) The Law of Moses
In Deuteronomy 1:6, Moses said, The LORD our God
spoke to us at Horeb, saying, "You have stayed
long enough at this mountain [Sinai].”
The words spoken
to Moses by God at Horeb, which
were concluded by this
declaration, constitute the Law
of Moses, which comprises a
major portion of the books of
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and
Deuteronomy. Yeshua referred to the Law of
Moses as the commandment of God and the word of God (Matthew 15:3,6). He also quoted the
Law of Moses three times when the devil
tempted Him. In Matthew 4:4, He quoted
Deuteronomy 8:3; in 4:7, He quoted
Deuteronomy 6:16; and in 4:10, He quoted
Deuteronomy 6:13.
2) The Entire Old Testament
Yeshua held the entire Old Testament to
be the Word of God. He spoke of all the righteous
blood shed on earth, from the blood of
Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son
of Berechiah [not the prophet
Zechariah] (Matthew 23:35). Abel
was killed in Genesis (4:8), the
first book of the Old Testament,
and Zechariah was killed in 2
Chronicles (24:20-22), the last
book of the Old Testament
according to the Jewish
arrangement. Thus, by this
declaration, Yeshua declared the
entire Tanach (Old Testament) to be the Word of God.
b. Sections of the New Testament
1) All of Paul’s Letters
In 2 Peter 3:15-16, Peter referred to
all of Paul’s letters as Scripture:
15. just as also our
beloved brother Paul, according to the
wisdom given him, wrote to you, 16. as
also in all his letters, speaking in
them of these things, in which are
some things hard to understand, which
the untaught and unstable distort, as
they do also the rest of the
Scriptures, to their own destruction.
~ 2
Peter 3:15-16 ~ |
Paul wrote
thirteen of the twenty-seven books of the
New Testament. The apostle Peter called them
Scripture.
2) The Book of Revelation
John declared the Book of
Revelation to be the Word of God: The revelation of
Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to
show to His bond-servants, the things
which must shortly take place; and He
sent and communicated it by His angel
to His bond-servant John
(Revelation 1:1).
2. The Bible Claims that
It Is,
in Its Entirety, the Word of God
In light of all the Old Testament
scriptures quoted in the Book of Hebrews,
and all the New Testament teachings
alluded to in it (Hebrews 4:2, for
example), it is clear that the phrase, the word of God in Hebrews 4:12
(For the word of
God is living and active) refers to the
entire Bible. Paul wrote to Timothy, All Scripture is
inspired by God (2 Timothy 3:16).
Peter referred to the Bible as the Word of the Lord :
23. You have been born again
not of seed which is perishable but
imperishable, that is, through the
living and enduring word of God. 24.
For, "All flesh is like grass, and all its
glory like the flower of grass. The
grass withers, and the flower falls
off, 25. but the word of the Lord abides
forever (Isaiah 40:6,
8)." ~ 1 Peter
1:23-25 ~ |
John recognized the entire Bible as the
Word of God:
18. I
testify to everyone who hears the
words of the prophecy of this book: if
anyone adds to them, God shall add to
him the plagues which are written in
this book; 19. and if anyone takes away
from the words of the book of this
prophecy, God shall take away from his
part in the tree of life and from the
holy city, which are written in this
book.
~
Revelation 22:18-19 ~ |
"This book" refers to the
Book of Revelation, if not the entire
Bible, and its dire warnings can only be
predicated upon John’s belief that the
Book of Revelation is the Word of God (He
declared that it is
prophecy);
but inasmuch as the Book of Revelation
alludes to hundreds of Old Testament
prophecies and to the core teachings and
prophecies of the New Testament, it is
clear that John recognized the entire
Bible to be the Word of God.
B.
The Bible Claims to
Contain Ver Batim Statements Made by
God
It stands to reason
that, if the Bible is the Word of God, it
would likely contain actual statements
made by God. If all such statements were
compiled, they would fill a large volume;
but here are some examples:
1. From the Old Testament
In Genesis 1, the words God said appear eleven
times and are followed by the words that
the writer claims God said (Genesis 1:3,
6, 9, 11, 14-15, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28,
29-30). Exodus 9:1 declares, Then the LORD said to Moses,
"Go to Pharaoh and
speak to him, 'Thus says the LORD, the God of the
Hebrews, "Let My people go, that they may serve
Me.'" In Joshua 1:1, The LORD spoke to
Joshua . . . saying. . . . In 1
Chronicles 17:3, The word of God came
to Nathan, saying . . . .
Exodus 24 refers to the Law of
Moses as All the words which
the LORD has spoken (vv. 3, 7) and all the words of the
LORD
(v. 4). In fact, God is said not
only to have spoken the Ten Commandments
(which appear in Exodus
20:2-17), but to have written them (Exodus 24:1, 32:16).
In numerous instances, the prophets
professed to record actual declarations
made by God. Some examples:
Thus
says the LORD . . . (Isaiah 56:1); Thus says the LORD of
hosts. . . . introduces a statement
purported to be made by God forty-nine times in Jeremiah
(Jeremiah 6:6, 9, et al);
Then the word of the
LORD came to me saying. . .
(Ezekiel 12:1). Bible teacher Winkey
Pratney writes, “‘The LORD spoke’ appears
560 times in the first five books of the
Bible and at least 3800 times in the whole
of the Old Testament!" (3)
2. From the New Testament
The New Testament contains numerous
statements purported to have been made by
God. For example, the four Gospels are
filled with the words of Yeshua, which He
Himself recognized as divine: Heaven and earth will pass
away, but My words will not
pass away (Matthew
24:35). In Acts 9:11 we read, the Lord said to him . . . . In 2
Corinthians 12:9, Paul testifies, And He has said to me
. . . . In
Revelation 1:8, John writes, as the oracle
of God, “I am
the Alpha and the Omega," says the
Lord God, "who is and who was and who
is to come, the Almighty.”
C.
The
Bible Claims to Tell Us How God
Conveyed His Word to Us
We are told in 2
Timothy 3:16, All
Scripture is inspired by God. The Greek
phrase translated inspired by God is
Theopneustos, which means
“God-breathed” and emphasizes the
exhalation of God. Inspiration, then, is
really outspiration, the
“outbreathing” of God. God “outbreathed”
the Bible through human writers.
2 Peter 1:20-21 makes the concept and
process of inspiration even clearer: No prophecy of
Scripture is a matter of one’s own
interpretation, for no prophecy was
ever made by an act of human will, but
men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke
from God.
"Prophecy" refers to revelation
received directly from God - directly, not by means
of an intermediate person, such as a teacher, or by
means of an intermediate means of communication,
such as a scroll or book. Such revelation was spoken
by God to prophets, people specially chosen by God
to hear revelation from Him infallibly and
inerrantly. God
inspired some of His prophets to write
down their revelations as Scripture. He
also inspired some of His compilers of
records and researchers to write down the
results of their labors as Scripture (See
Luke 1:1-4, for example). What Peter says
about the prophecy of Scripture -
that men moved by the Holy
Spirit spoke from God - applies, as
well, to the compiled records and research
results of Scripture because God inspired
the writing of them also.
But what does men
moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from
God
mean? The Greek word for moved is the same
word used in Acts 27:15 and 17 to refer to
a ship being driven
along the water
by powerful winds. A prophet was one whom
God moved upon in such a way that His Word
was both heard and delivered by that
prophet infallibly and inerrantly. We can
therefore conclude that all who wrote the
Scriptures - whether prophets, compilers
or researchers - were
driven along by the Holy
Spirit of God as they wrote their revelations,
compilations or research results. God “outbreathed”
the powerful Word-bearing wind of His Spirit into
the sails of His chosen vessels to drive them
along in the writing of His Word.
So we see that the Bible not only declares
that it is the Word of God, but explains
how God delivered it to us.
Five more points need to be made about
inspiration that serve the purpose of this
study:
1. Inspiration applies only to the
writing of Scripture, not the inerrant
hearing of a word from God. The biblical
term for inerrant hearing from God is revelation,
though not all uses of revelation
in the Scriptures have this meaning. Not
all inspiration was preceded by revelation
(Luke 1:1-4), but most inspiration was. An example
of inspiration that was preceded by revelation
is: Then the
LORD said to Moses, "Write down these
words, for in accordance with these
words I have made a covenant with you
and with Israel” (Exodus
34:27). So under the inspiration of God,
Moses wrote the entire Law that God
revealed to him
- a major part of the Old Testament.
Whether the human author compiled
materials through strictly human means or
whether he received revelation from God,
God inspired him to write down what he
compiled or received for the sake of
producing an infallible and inerrant
record.
2. Inspiration includes superintendence.
God did not simply
drive His writers to
write: He superintended their writing so
that they wrote exactly what He wanted
them to write. He gave them free rein to
write in their own styles and
vocabularies, but His superintendence
assured that they wrote exactly what He
wanted them to write and not one concept
or word more or less.
3. On certain occasions, biblical
inspiration was accompanied by excited
emotional or mental states; but
inspiration is not, in itself, an
emotional or mental state. It is solely
the outbreathing of God upon His
chosen writers to write exactly what He
wanted them to write.
When we use the word inspiration
colloquially, that is, in everyday speech - and I
will be using it colloquially later in
this study - we do refer to an
elevated, excited, and even euphoric
emotional state that often precedes or
accompanies an insight into the natural
world, an invention, the creation of a
work of art, etc.; but it is important to
remember that the Bible's use of the word
is solely in reference to the writing of
the sixty-six books of the Bible, that it
carries in its meaning the sense of being
superintended by God, and that the canon
of Scripture is closed (Hebrews 1:1-2;
Revelation 22:18-19). People may sense the
presence of God as they paint, write music
or preach the gospel, but their works or
words must never be reckoned to be on a
par with Scripture as an authoritative,
supervised, infallible, inerrant word or
work from God.
4. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, ALL Scripture is
inspired by God. Inasmuch
as God outbreathed all of the
Scriptures, all of the Scriptures are
inspired to the fullest degree. Therefore,
all Scriptures are equally inspired: the
despondent words of Solomon in
Ecclesiastes as much as the words of Yeshua
in the Gospels. This does not mean that
God wants us to be despondent, but that He
moved and superintended Solomon to record
his despondency infallibly and inerrantly.
5. Inasmuch as inspiration refers to the
Lord’s direct work in and through the writers of the
Scriptures, it is only the original writings that
were inspired. Inspiration did not extend to copies of
the original writings, nor does it extend
to any translation or any other work.
(Nevertheless, the Scriptures that we have
today are accurate, as will be explained
below.)
To sum up, the Bible’s testimony to its
own divine origin is consistent, strong,
unwavering and certain.
II.
EVIDENCES
Some of the evidences that follow
cannot stand on their own as proof of divine
authorship, but add to the weight of evidence
presented. Others, however, lend much weight to the
claim that the Bible is the Word of God, while yet
others are sufficient in themselves to stand as
powerful proof that the Bible is the Word of God. We
will now examine a representative number of them.
A. The
Bible Stands Alone in its
Uniqueness
1. The Bible
Is Unique in the Way
It Was Written
No other book was ever written as the
Bible was written. It was written over a
period of 1600 years in three different
languages (Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek) by
about forty different men employed in at
least eleven different occupations (kings,
priests, prophets, soldiers, statesmen,
shepherds, fishermen, a tax collector, a
tent maker, a doctor, a farmer) and in at
least six different countries (Israel,
Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Arabia)
spanning three continents (Asia, Africa
and Europe). There are many compilations
of books in the world, but the Bible is no
mere compilation. It is a fully integrated
unit of sixty-six books combining to form
one Book. Consider the likelihood of the
production of such a book over a period of
1600 years. One might think that only God
could superintend such a project.
2. The Bible
Is
Unique in Its Subject Matter
The Bible is unique in much of its
subject matter, particularly in its
declarations concerning the fundamental
issues of existence and life, such as:
a. The
Bible Alone Declares How the
Universe Came to Be
According to Dr. Henry
Morris, “There are only three creationist
‘religions’ in the world - Christianity, Islam and
Judaism - and all three base their belief in
creation on the record of Genesis [1:1-2:25].
Without exception,” writes Dr. Morris, “all the
other religions and philosophies of the world have
based their beliefs concerning origins on some form
of evolutionism. That is, they all begin with the
universe (space, time, matter) already in existence
. . . . Only Genesis even attempts to tell us how
the universe itself came to be." (4)
b. The
Bible Alone Declares the Existence
of Only One God
During the entire span of time in
which the Bible was written, and
throughout the lands in which it was
written, the nations surrounding Israel
worshiped pantheons of gods. Yet, the
Bible declares the existence of but one
God.
1) In the Old Testament:
Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God,
the LORD is one (Deuteronomy
6:4).
2) In the New Testament:
We
know . . . that there is no God but one (1 Corinthians
8:4).
c. The
Bible Alone Declares a Loving God
Paul declared that the so-called gods
of the Gentile pantheons were actually
demons: The
things which the Gentiles sacrifice,
they sacrifice to demons, and not to
God (1
Corinthians 10:20).
In contrast to the pagan gods, some of whom
required child sacrifice of their worshipers, the
Bible does not portray
God as a monster given over to lusts
and jealousies and treacheries, but as One who sacrificed His own
Son, not only for His worshipers, but for the
whole world.
1) In the Old Testament:
4.
Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and
our sorrows He carried; yet we
ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
smitten of God and afflicted. 5. But he
was pierced through for our
transgressions, He was crushed for our
iniquities; the chastening for our
well-being fell upon Him, and by His
scourging we are healed. 6. All of us
like sheep have gone astray, each of
us has turned to his own way; but the
LORD has caused the iniquity of us all
to fall upon Him.
~ Isaiah 53:4-6 ~ |
2) In the New Testament:
For
God so loved the world, that He gave
His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him should not perish, but
have eternal life (John 3:16).
d. The Bible Alone
Identifies Sin as a Condition of the
Human Spirit
Some religions identify evil in the
deeds of men, but only the Bible
identifies evil as an inherent (though not
original) condition of the human spirit.
Paul wrote,
9. Are
we [Jews] better than they [the
Gentiles]? Not at all; for we have
already charged that both Jews and
Greeks are all under sin; 10. as it is
written, "there is none righteous, not
even one.” (Romans
3:9-10)
For out of the heart
come evil thoughts, murders,
adulteries, fornications, thefts,
false witness, slanders.
(Matthew 15:19)
e. The
Bible Alone Declares that
Deliverance from Sin Is a Work of
God
Whereas some other religions and holy
books prescribe certain disciplines for
the overcoming of evil, only the Bible
declares that deliverance from the power
of sin is a work of God.
1) In the Old Testament
And
[a seraph sent from the Lord] touched
my mouth with [a burning coal] and
said, "Behold, this has touched your
lips; and your iniquity is taken away,
and your sin is forgiven.” (Isaiah 6:7)
2) In the New Testament
He
[the Father] saved us . . . by the
washing of regeneration and renewing
by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out
upon us richly through Jesus Christ
our Savior. (Titus 3:5-6)
(Notice how all three Persons of the
Godhead are active in the work of
salvation.)
I have
been crucified with Christ; and it is
no longer I who live, but Christ lives
in me; and the life which I now live
in the flesh I live by faith in the
Son of God, who loved me, and
delivered Himself up for me. (Galatians 2:20)
f. The
Bible Alone Declares that One’s
Favor with God Is Predicated on
Faith in God, Not on Good or
Penitential Deeds
I
am not ashamed of the gospel for it is
the power of God for salvation to
everyone who believes, to the Jew
first and also to the Greek. For in it
the righteousness of God is revealed
from faith to faith; as it is written
[in Habakkuk 2:4], "But the righteous
man shall live by faith.”
~
Romans 1:16-17 ~ |
8. For by grace you have
been saved through faith; and that not
of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
9. not as a result of works, that no one may boast (Ephesians
2:8-9).
In the midst of a pagan world with
its wicked gods who required human
sacrifice, what or who caused a book to be
written that offers a reconciled, loving
relationship with the one God on
the basis of the sacrifice of His own
Son? It is reasonable to believe that if
there were such a loving, sacrificial God,
He would let us know by means of a
permanent written record how we might
avail ourselves of the means that He
provided for our salvation. *
~
FOOTNOTES
1. The entire We Believe
statement of the
Association of Messianic Congregations may be found
at
http://www.messianicassociation.org/believe.htm.
2. Ryrie, Dr.
Charles C., Basic Theology, Victor
Books, Wheaton, Illinois, 1986, p. 67.
3. Pratney, Winkey, "The Holy Bible -
Wholly True," Pretty Good Printing, Last
Days Ministries, Lindale, TX., 1985.
4. Morris, Dr. Henry M., The
Defender’s Study Bible, World
Publishing, Inc., Grand Rapids, Michigan,
1995, p. 1498.
Evidence Upon Evidence:
The Bible Is the Word of God
~ a messianic Bible study ~
© Norman Manzon 1999.
All rights reserved.
Scriptures chosen by the
author are in the New American Standard version unless
otherwise noted. Scriptures in quotes by others may be in
different translations. Names, titles and other terms within
quoted scriptures and elsewhere may have been changed from
the English to the Hebrew form for the sake of cultural
sensitivity.
Evidence Upon Evidence
originally appeared on
the author's website,
www.BibleStudyProject.org.
|
WE BELIEVE
~
EVIDENCE UPON EVIDENCE: THE BIBLE IS
THE WORD OF GOD, PART 2
By Norman Manzon
This study is a
continuation of Evidence, Part
1, above. The entire Evidence
study originally appeared on the author's
website,
www.BibleStudyProject.org, and was
written to a non-believing, as well as
a believing, audience. This edition
contains exactly the same content except
that the AMC statement on the Scriptures has
been added, and
certain names and terms have been changed
for appropriateness for a messianic
readership.
~
To review, here
is the relevant section of the We Believe statement of The
Association of Messianic Congregations.
AMC STATEMENT: EXCERPTS
(1)
The Scriptures
We
believe that the
Scriptures, both the
Tenach (Hebrew
Scriptures) and the Brit
Hadasha (New Covenant),
are fully inspired and
are God's complete and
final revelation to man
until the Messiah
returns. The 66 books of
the Bible are inerrant
in the original
autographs. They are
true and authoritative
in every category of
knowledge to which they
speak. (Proverbs
30:5,6; Isaiah 40:7,8;
Jeremiah 31:31; Matthew
5:18; John 10:35; 2
Timothy 3:16; 2
Pet.1:19-21) |
B.
The Bible is Consistent in
its Central Theme
and Continuous in its
Development
The central
theme of the Bible is the
love of God. This love can
be seen in that the angels,
the very first created
beings, were created with
the capacity to experience
the joy of God’s wonders.
God said to Job,
Where
were you when I laid the
foundation of the earth! . .
. . When the morning stars
[angels] sang together, and
all the sons of God [angels]
shouted for joy
(Job 38:4-7)? God’s
love can be seen, as well,
when He created Adam and Eve
and entrusted them with a
beautiful, perfect, pristine
environment to enjoy
(Genesis 1 and 2, especially
2:28-31). It can also be
seen in the fact that,
though His children rebelled
against Him (Genesis
2:16-17; 3:1-7) and, indeed,
all
have sinned
(Romans 3:23), He
sacrificed His own beloved
Son to rescue them from the
power and eternal penalty of
sin,
For
God so loved the world, that
He gave His only begotten
Son, that whoever believes
in Him should not perish,
but have eternal life
(John 3:16).
God’s love can also be seen
by His creation of the
wonderful eternal abode into
which He will escort all who
love him (John 14:1-3;
Revelation 21:1 - 22:5).
From the beginning of the
Bible to the end we see the
theme of God’s love develop
and come to fruition for
time and eternity. Is it
reasonable to believe
that forty or
more men spread over a
period of 1600 years and six
countries on three
continents could conceive,
compose and compile a
sixty-six book unit that is
perfectly consistent in
theme and seamless in the
development of that theme
from the first book to the
last? It is far more
reasonable to believe that
there was One overarching
Mind in charge of the entire
project.
C.
The Bible Contains No
Contradiction
One would
expect that, if the Bible
were authored by God, it
would contain no
contradiction; and indeed
that is the case. There may
seem to be contradictions,
but in every such case it is
because the text is not
properly understood for some
reason, whether it be lack
of understanding of the
culture or because it is not
studied in context or
because of poor translation
or some other reason; but
there actually are no
contradictions. Here are
some examples of apparent,
but not actual,
contradictions:
1. Apparent Contradiction
Due to Lack of Understanding
of the Culture
Matthew 27:5 says,
[Judas] went away and hanged
himself.
Acts 1:18 says,
and
falling headlong, he burst
open in the middle and all
his intestines gushed out.
An apparent
contradiction, but not an
actual one. There are at
least two possible
explanations:
1) A natural explanation:
Judas hanged himself over a
cliff and the branch to
which the rope was tied, or
the rope itself, broke.
2) A cultural explanation,
as quoted from Dr. Arnold
Fruchtenbaum's Messianic
Christology, Appendix 8,
The Death of Judas
Iscariot, pp. 153-154:
Judas committed
suicide at the
end of the first
night of
Passover, before
the first day of
Passover [the
Jewish day
begins and ends
at sundown, NM]
when the morning
Passover
sacrifice would
be offered . . .
. According to
Jewish law, if
there was a dead
body in
Jerusalem, then
the city was to
be considered
defiled and the
morning
sacrifice could
not be offered.
However, Jewish
law goes on to
say that if the
corpse is taken
and cast into
the Valley of
Hinnom . . .
then the city is
cleansed and the
Passover can be
offered up. . .
. When Judas
hanged himself
within the walls
of Jerusalem, he
caused the city
to become
defiled, thus
preventing the
morning
sacrifice from
proceeding. . .
. Judas' body
would have been
taken and thrown
over the wall
into the Valley
of Hinnom,
thereby
cleansing the
city. The fall
of Judas' body
is what is being
described in
Acts 1:18. |
2. Apparent Contradiction
Because of Poor Translation
The King James Version
of Exodus 20:13 reads,
Thou
shalt not kill,
but the very next chapter
commands,
And he
who smiteth his father, or
his mother, shall surely be
put to death
(21:15, KJV).
An apparent
contradiction; but there are
several Hebrew words that
can be translated kill.
The one used in 20:13 should
have been translated,
murder. In fact, most
recent translations
translate it that way:
You
shall not murder.
So, under the Mosaic Law
murder was forbidden, but
capital punishment was
commanded for one who struck
a parent. No contradiction.
3. Apparent Contradiction
Because Studied Out of
Context
In 2 Corinthians 11:8,
Paul wrote,
I
robbed other churches.
In Philippians
4:9, he wrote,
The
things you have learned and
received and heard and seen
in me, practice these things.
Did Paul exhort the
Philippians to be church
robbers? If he did, that
would be contradictory to
his exhortation to the
Ephesians,
Let
him who steals steal no
longer (Ephesians
4:28).
Let’s look
at the statement in context:
I
robbed other churches,
taking wages from them to
serve you. No, he
didn’t really rob other
churches. He spoke
figuratively because he
received wages from other
churches, enabling him to
serve the Corinthians from
whom he
did not receive
wages. No contradiction.
At times,
the immediate context
suffices to clarify a
statement, as in this case.
At other times, the broader
context of a few paragraphs
must be considered, or an
entire book, or the entire
Bible. In any case,
considering a scripture in
context will often resolve
an apparent contradiction.
It is not reasonable to
think that the sixty-six
volumes of the Bible, so
varied in authorship, time,
place of composition, etc.,
would contain no
contradiction - unless their
composition was
superintended by God.
D.
The Bible Does Not
Contradict the Proven Facts
of Science
At the very
least, the minimum test that
a book must pass to possibly
be the Word of God is its
consistency with proven
natural facts. Any book that
fails this test could not
possibly be the Word of God
inasmuch as any reasonable
conception of God must
include the premise that
only truth proceeds from
God’s lips. In fact, the
Bible itself declares,
It is
impossible for God to lie
(Hebrews 6:18). I
think you’ll see from these
amazing examples that the
Bible passes this test far
more than minimally!
1. From Anthropology
"An astonishingly
accurate document." Genesis
10, often referred to as the
Table of Nations, delineates
- in detail - the lines of
descent of the earth’s first
nations proceeding from Noah
and his three sons.
According to Unger’s
Bible Handbook, Young’s
Analytical Concordance
(page 25) declares that Dr.
William F. Albright, former
director of the American
School of Oriental Research
in Jerusalem, called the
Table of Nations “an
astonishingly accurate
document." (4) Its accuracy
is truly astonishing in
light of the fact that it
was written by Noah’s son,
Shem (Genesis 11:10), about
2300 B.C. and was included
in the Pentateuch (the Five
Books of Moses) about
1450-1400 B.C. No ancient
fable here, but a reliable
anthropological document.
2.
From History
Joshua's conquest of Jericho
took place about 1400 B.C.
According to Halley's
Bible Handbook, (5) Dr.
John Garstang, director of
the British School of
Archaeology in Jerusalem and
of the Department of
Antiquities of the Palestine
Government, excavated the
ruins of Jericho between
1929 and 1936. Let's see how
the Book of Joshua (authored
by Joshua about 1400-1370
B.C.) matches up with Dr.
Garstang's findings.
a. Dr. Garstang found that
Jericho's wall consisted of
an inner and an outer wall
linked together by houses
built across the top. Joshua
2:15 says of Rahab,
Then she let them down by a
rope through the window, for
her house was on the city
wall, so that she was living
on the wall.
Rahab's house was on
the
city wall.
b. Dr. Garstang determined
that the city was destroyed
around 1400 B.C., and
confirmed that the walls
fell down flat - not
partially, but flat - an
amazing phenomenon for a
wall of such thickness.
Joshua 6:20 states,
the
wall fell down flat.
c. Dr. Garstang found "great
layers of charcoal and ashes
and wall ruins reddened by
fire" and that "houses along
the outer wall were burnt to
the ground." Joshua 6:24
says that the lsraelites
burned the city with fire,
and
all that was in it.
d. Under the ashes
and fallen walls, Dr.
Garstang found storerooms in
which there was "an
abundance of foodstuffs,
wheat, barley, dates,
lentils, and such, turned to
charcoal by intense heat,
untouched and uneaten:
evidence that the conquerors
refrained from the food."
Joshua 6:18 declares that
before the conquest, Joshua
warned the lsraelites,
Keep yourselves from the
things under the ban.
(Leviticus 27:28b declares,
Anything devoted to
destruction is most holy to
the LORD. The
Hebrew word for
devoted to destruction
is cherem,
which means devoted to
destruction because of being
cursed.)
The conquest of Jericho took
place 3,400 years ago. The
Bible describes it in detail
with unfailing and absolute
accuracy! A Hebrew myth? Not
at all. Simply more evidence
that the Bible was authored
by God.
3. From Chemistry or Nuclear
Physics
There are many examples of
the Bible's accuracy
concerning scientific
phenomena. Dr. John Morris
of the Creation Research
lnstitute lists thirty-nine
of them from six areas of
science. (6) Perhaps the
most astounding example is
the following:
2 Peter
3:10-13 declares,
10. But the day
of the Lord will
come like a
thief, in which
the heavens will
pass away with a
roar and the
elements will be
destroyed
with intense
heat, and the
earth and its
works will be
burned up. 11.
Since all these
things are to be
destroyed
in this way,
what sort of
people ought you
to be in holy
conduct and
godliness, 12.
looking for and
hastening the
coming of the
day of God, on
account of which
the heavens will
be destroyed by
burning, and the
elements will
melt with
intense heat!
13. But
according to His
promise we are
looking for new
heavens and a
new earth, in
which
righteousness
dwells. |
The literal
sense of the passage is that
there will be a literal
burning of the present
heavens and earth. Scripture
refers to three heavens: the
heaven where God dwells and
the two naturally observable
heavens, the starry heavens
(outer space) and the
atmospheric heavens, where
the birds fly and the clouds
hover. In a future study, I
will show God's Heaven will
not be destroyed. The
passage refers solely to the
starry and atmospheric
heavens.
Three times
the passage declares that
the
elements will be destroyed
by burning with intense heat
(to combine the
instances).
According to
Strong's Concordance, two of
the meanings of the Greek
word translated
destroyed in each
of the three verses are
"break up" and "dissolve."
[7] In addition, both
Strong's and Young's
Concordances give two of the
meanings of the word
translated
elements as "element[s]"
and "rudiment[s]." ln other
words, the most fundamental
particles of the entire
physical universe will be
dissolved
with
intense
heat.
Fisherman
Peter never studied
chemistry or nuclear
physics; yet, in about 64
A.D., he wrote in the most
apocalyptic of tones that
the most fundamental of
physical particles will one
day be destroyed, dissolved
with
intense heat.
Dr. Morris writes,
Possibly this
will be a global
atomic fission
reaction or else
simply a vast
explosive
disintegration
involving
transformation
of the chemical
energy of the
elements into
heat, light and
sound energy.
What remains
after the global
fiery
disintegration
will be other
forms of energy
so that,
although God's
principle of
conservation
still holds, the
solid earth will
seem to have
fled away"
(Revelation
20:11). (8) |
Dr. Morris
associates this
conflagration with
Revelation 3:20, which is
after the Millennium and
before the Great White
Throne Judgment. Others
consider it a pre-millennial
phenomenon. Whatever the
case, we catch the point
that Dr. Morris is making.
Whether the passage refers
to atomic fission (as it
seems to many Bible
scholars) or the explosive
transformation of all
chemical energy into other
forms of energy, Peter
speaks of an explosion of a
magnitude that would have
been unthinkable in the
early part of the twentieth
century - let alone two
thousand years ago. This
Scripture was scoffed at
early in the twentieth
century for that very
reason; but since then,
mankind has beheld such
spectacles as exploding
stars through the use of
telescopes, and nuclear
holocausts - and the lips of
scoffers have been sealed.
4.
From Biology
ln Genesis 3, we read that
the serpent tempted Adam and
Eve to disobey God by eating
the forbidden fruit, and
thereby brought about the
Fall of the human race.
Because of this, God cursed
the serpent, and one of the
aspects of that curse was,
You
shall go upon your belly
(verse 14). The implication
of this is that the serpent
had, until that time, either
stood on legs or upright on
its tail, like a kangaroo.
To many, the story is but a
fairy tale or myth; but
consider this article from
the lsrael Today
newspaper of August 8, 2008:
Study on
snake evolution
upholds Bible
account
An international
team of
scientists
including a
professor from
lsrael's
Technion
Institute
concluded in a
recent study
that snakes were
once four-legged
creatures.
The findings,
which were
published in the
scientific
journal
Nature,
seemed to uphold
the account in
the biblical
Book of Genesis
where God curses
the serpent for
having played a
role in
deceiving
mankind and
sentences the
creature to
thereafter
slither on its
belly.
The study
attributes the
change to a slow
evolutionary
process, but
indirectly
acknowledges
that the loss of
limbs was not a
positive change
for snakes,
contradicting
the belief of
evolutionists
that
evolutionary
changes are
always a step
forward. |
5. From Genetics:
Genetic Entropy Points
to a Young Creation and
Humanity
Genetic entropy is the
breakdown of the genome
(the complete set of
genes or genetic
material present in a
cell or organism) due to
the accumulation of
mutations from
generation to
generation. In an
article entitled
Genetic Entropy Points
to a Young Creation,
Ph.D. Jeffrey Tomkins of
the Institute of
Creation Research
reports on data
resulting from recent
research by both secular
and creation scientists:
Shofar
editor's
note: The
following
subtitles
were added
by the
compiler of
these
evidences.
~
Data that
confirm a
young
creation are
rapidly
emerging
from genetic
studies
performed by
both
creationist
and secular
scientists.
How
Long Could
the Human
Genome Have
Existed?
One of the
most
important
finds in
recent years
came from
modeling the
accumulation
of mutations
(genetic
code errors)
in the human
genome over
time using
computer
simulations.
Researchers
found that
this buildup
of mutations
can only
reach a
certain
level before
the genome
completely
deteriorates
and humans
go extinct.
This process
of
degradation,
called
genetic
entropy,
fits
perfectly
with a
recent
creation of
six to ten
thousand
years ago. .
. .
How
Long Did It
Take for
Today's
Diversity of
Races to
Develop?
These new
studies use
demographic
models of
human
populations
over known
historical
time and
geographical
space. The
resulting
data showed
a very
recent,
massive
burst of
human
genetic
diversification—mostly
associated
with genetic
entropy. One
author
stated, “The
maximum
likelihood
time for
accelerated
growth was
5,115 years
ago.”5
This places
the
beginning of
the period
of genetic
decline
close to the
Genesis
Flood, when
the earth
began its
repopulation
through
Noah’s
family and
humans
rapidly
diversified.
Decline in
Human Life
Expectancy
Amazingly,
this recent
explosion of
human genome
variation,
mostly
associated
with genetic
entropy,
also fits
the same
pattern of
human life
expectancy
rapidly
declining
after the
Flood as
recorded in
the Bible. .
. .
How
Long Ago Was
Animal Life
Created?
By comparing
[mutation]
rates [of
mitochondrial
DNA] in a
few very
different
animals, Dr.
Jeanson
demonstrated
that a
creation of
not more
than 10,000
years ago is
confirmed by
these
genetic
clocks.
Conclusions
Affirm
Scripture
The results
of these
genetic
studies fit
perfectly
with the
predictions
of a
young-earth
creation
timeframe
but make no
sense when
millions of
years are
added to the
mix—the
clocks
simply
cannot have
been ticking
that long.
In the
case of
humans, Adam
and Eve were
originally
created with
perfect,
error-free
genomes—no
mutations
present.
Then sin
entered the
world, and
the whole
creation
became
cursed. The
human genome
has
essentially
been on a
downhill
slide ever
since. We
are not
gradually
evolving
better
genomes.
Instead, the
recently
measured
degradation
patterns and
rates
clearly
match the
biblical
model and
timeframe. |
Dr.
Tompkins then
presents a curved
line graph that
shows an amazing
correlation between
"human genome
variation, mostly
associated with
genetic entropy" and
"the declining
lifespans of Noah
and his descendants"
over the generations
from the 950-year
lifespan of Noah to
today's average
lifespan of seventy
years. (9) Once
again, science
affirms the Bible.
The
Bible's amazing accuracy
in all scientific
phenomena that it
touches on must
reasonably be recognized
as the signature of God.
E.
On Matters of Science that
are Unobserved or
Unobservable,
the Bible Offers the Most
Plausible Explanation
Not only is
the Bible accurate in its
scientific presuppositions
and declarations, but it
offers the most plausible
explanation in those matters
that are unproven or
unprovable by direct
observation. The most
glaring example involves the
most fundamental, central
and critical of all
scientific issues: the
origin of the universe and
natural life
.
1. Only Two Possibilities:
Evolution or Creation
Dr. Henry Morris
says, "lt is axiomatic that
there are only two possible
basic models of the origins
of the universe, of the
earth, of animate life, of
human life and of all the
basic systems of the cosmos.
These are, in simplest
terms, evolution or
creation." (10)
The two are mutually
exclusive, and it must be
one or the other as there is
no other possibility. Some
entertain the possibility
that the universe existed
from eternity past, but this
is an impossibility. The
Second Law of Thermodynamics
states that all the energy
in the universe is coming to
a place of balance, or rest,
as when the heat from a
glass of water flows into a
cold object placed in it.
The heat flows until the
water and the object are the
same temperature; then, net
heat flow from the water
into the object ceases. At
this moment, however, energy
still moves, often on
massive scales, from
location to location in the
universe on both microcosmic
and macrocosmic scales - but
if the universe had existed
from eternity past, net
energy flow would have
ceased an eternity ago.
Therefore, the universe
could not possibly have
existed from eternity past.
lt had to have a beginning,
and "there are only two
possible basic models . . .
. evolution or creation."
Nothing has done more since
the mid-nineteenth century
to destroy people's faith in
the Bible than the so-called
theory of evolution except,
perhaps, the skepticism
concerning the Bible itself
that arose in some German
seminaries in the middle of
the nineteenth century.
(Some German theologians
declared that the Bible was
not a divine book at all,
but a mere fabrication of
man.) Evolution, propounded
by Charles Darwin in 1865 in
regard to the origins of
life, has been extrapolated
to include the very origins
of the universe itself. lt
holds that, by means of
continuing natural processes
unguided by any divine
Person, the universe simply
popped into existence from
the absolute vacuum of
empty, endless space, and
evolved into all of its
present forms, inanimate and
animate. These twin
doctrines, born in Hell,
have ruined the faith of
hundreds of millions of
people and of entire
denominations and nations.
Having robbed life of its
Creator, they set the stage
for the devaluation of life
and the multiple holocausts
that characterized the
twentieth century even unto
the murder of a million and
a half unborn babies a year
in the United States since
1973.
Let us now pick the
evolutionary fantasy to
pieces and observe the logic
of believing the Bible's
creation account.
2. Examining the Theory of
Evolution
The so-called theory of
evolution is no theory at all.
There are two methods by which
scientists discover facts. One
is by strict observation, as is
carried out by those who observe
wildlife with a minimum of human
interference. The other is
termed the scientific method,
which involves identifying an
issue to be resolved,
hypothesizing and experimenting.
A hypothesis is a reasonably
possible explanation for an
observed phenomenon. Experiments
are formulated and carried out
to test a hypothesis. If the
results of the experiments
support the hypothesis, the
hypothesis is elevated to the
status of a theory. If further
experimentation by other
scientists supports the theory,
the theory is elevated to the
status of a fact.
How does
evolution shape up in relation
to these procedures and
standards? Evolution has never
been observed occurring
naturally nor has any
observation or experiment ever
provided any evidence that it
has ever occurred at any time.
In fact, scientists have run
computer simulations of original
cosmic conditions and duplicated
billions of years of random
variations in the hope of
proving evolution - and have
embarrassingly admitted that all
that such computer simulations
have generated was CHAOS. (11)
Nevertheless, the vast majority
of the educational institutions
in the world teach evolution as
fact though it has never met the
qualifications of a theory and
should have been rejected even
as a hypothesis many thousands
of observations and experiments
ago. It is most scientific to
call it a fantasy.
Did you know that a
single human brain processes
more information per given unit
of time than all of the computer
systems in the world combined?
In light of the fact that it
took the cumulative efforts of
the finest scientific minds
until the middle of the
twentieth century to invent the
electronic calculator - let
alone the computer! - do you
think that a human could
possibly have evolved by the
random sloshing about of cosmic
mud? But a human is far more
than a brain! The human body is
composed of over ten billion
cells, each of which contains
about forty-five internal organs
called organelles that function
together with greater complexity
than a major city, and far more
efficiently. The cells, in
various specific combinations,
compose the body’s tissues
which, in turn, form all of the
organs in each of the body’s
systems: skeletal, muscular,
nervous, endocrine,
cardiovascular, lymphatic,
respiratory, digestive,
excretory, reproductive (half a
system in males, the other half
in females, each perfectly
complementary to the other!),
all of which work to sustain the
whole and perpetuate the race.
But a human is more than a body!
He or she is alive and thinks
and experiences emotions and
searches for ultimate answers.
The product of matter times
movement times time?
Unthinkable! The odds against it
are infinitesimal beyond
imagining.
According to Dr. Scott M.
Huse, the chance development of
a system composed of 200
integrated parts is 1 in a
number written as 2 followed by
270 zeroes, which is 2 followed
by 190 zeroes times greater than
the number of electrons in the
universe (1 followed by 80
zeroes)! (The likelihood of just
spelling the word “evolution,”
containing a mere nine
integrated parts [in this case,
alphabet letters] by randomly
selecting nine letters from the
alphabet is one in
5,429,503,080,000.) “And yet,”
says Dr. Huse, “a 200 part
system is ridiculously primitive
compared with living systems."
(12) Keep in mind that even
bacteria qualify as living
systems. How preposterous to
think that a human could evolve
by chance!
Dr. Morris writes,
There is no evidence
whatever that
evolution is
occurring today -
that is, true
vertical evolution,
from some simpler
kind to some more
complex kind. No one
has ever observed a
star evolve from
hydrogen, life
evolve from
chemicals, a higher
species evolve from
a lower species, a
man from an ape, or
anything else of
this sort. Not only
has no one ever
observed true
evolution in
action, no one knows
how evolution works,
or even how it might
work. . . . No one
has ever seen it
happen (despite
thousands of
experiments
that have tried to
produce it). . . .
There is no evidence
at all that
evolution ever took
place in the past. .
. . All known
vertical changes
seem to go in the
wrong direction. An
average of at least
one species has
become extinct every
day since records
have been kept, but
no new species have
evolved during that
time. Stars explode,
comets and meteors
disintegrate, the
biosphere
deteriorates, and
everything
eventually dies, so
far as all
historical
observations go, but
nothing has ever
evolved into higher
complexity.
The story is one of
extinction, not
evolution. . . . No
fossil has ever been
found with half
scales/half
feathers, half
legs/half wings,
half-developed
heart,
half-developed eye,
or any other such
indicator. . . .
If evolution
were true, there
should be millions
of transitional
types among these
multiplied billions
of fossils - in
fact, everything
should show
transitional
features: But they
do not!
In living
organisms, true
vertical changes go
down, not up -
mutations cause
deterioration,
individuals die,
species become
extinct. In fact,
everything in the
universe seems to be
headed downhill
toward ultimate
cosmic death. (13) |
Drs. Duane Gish
and Richard Bliss write, "Life
appears abruptly and in complex
forms in the fossil record, and
gaps appear systematically in
the fossil record between
various living kinds." (14)
When I was a boy I was
fascinated by portraits of my
hunched-over, hairy "missing
link" ancestors. I gaped with
wonder as I noted family
resemblances in Java Ape-Man,
Neanderthal Man, Piltdown Man,
Heidelberg Man, Nebraska Man,
Peking Man and Cro-Magnon Man.
But how disappointing! The
skeletons or skeletal fragments
from which these “men” were
constructed all turned out to be
either distinctly human
or another completely distinct
specie. Not a one was a missing
link! Nebraska Man, who played
the leading male role in the
Scopes Trial of 1925 (which
opened American public schools
to the teaching of evolution),
was eventually found to have
been built up - very
scientifically, I might add -
from
the tooth of an extinct
pig! One Java Ape-Man was built
up from the knee-bone of an
extinct elephant! Missing link
Lucy, accorded posthumous
celebrity status after her
discovery in Ethiopia in the
1970's, was probably just an
ape. Nothing personal, Ma’am.
That’s Byron Nelson’s conclusion
based on computer analyses of
the positional relationships
between your bones. (15)
“‘The fossil record,’ says
Douglas Dewar, a British
naturalist and once an ardent
evolutionist, 'cannot be
regarded as other than a HOSTILE
witness against evolution; the
earliest known fossils of each
class and order are not
half-developed but have all the
essential characteristics of
their class and order." (16)
Consider this poignant
confession after a lifetime of
labor:
As we look at the
main group of
fossil flora, we
find there that at
definite intervals
they are all at once
and quite suddenly
there, in full bloom
in all their
manifold forms. Any
change is entirely
lacking. This all
stands as crass a
contradiction to the
evolution theory as
could possibly be
imagined. . . . All
my investigations
have led to
incredible
contradictions . . .
on account of which
the theory of
evolution ought to
be entirely
abandoned . . . it
is a serious
obstruction to
biological
research. My
attempts to
demonstrate
evolution by
experiments carried
out for over 40
years have
completely failed.
(17) |
One more
consideration: Have you ever
considered the concept of
devolution, evolution in
reverse? If, indeed, viruses can
evolve into Einsteins, why, in
all my years of formal and
informal study (until I read the
Israel Today article on snake
"evolution") have I never heard
of even one scientist who
believed that Einsteins can
devolve into viruses?!! Apart
from that article, have you
ever heard or read of even one
advocate of devolution in the
sense of a complex specie
changing into a less complex
one? Given that all of nature is
in a state of breakdown and
decay (the Law of Entropy or the
Second Law of Thermodynamics),
is not devolution
infinitely more likely than its
heralded opposite? And yet,
evolutionary evidence supposedly
abounds everywhere!
Renaissance genius Leonardo da
Vinci - painter, anatomist,
civil engineer and inventor -
was a religious skeptic all his
life; but in his last days he
exclaimed, “This earth, it’s all
so perfect! It’s all so
perfectly designed! It’s
impossible that a single mind
didn’t create it, that there’s
no plan to it!” One of his last
paintings was of a lady pointing
upward to a cross. (18)
The evidence is in.
Mindless, purposeless, random
evolution did not create the
complex systems and wonders of
the universe. No, the patriarch
of your bloodline was not a
baboon, nor were you descended
from a pond scum as my high
school Biology teacher told me I
was, or even something as
sophisticated as a mutated fish.
It is as the Bible says:
In the
beginning, God created the
heavens and the earth
(Genesis 1:1).
Then the LORD God formed man of
the dust of the ground, and
breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life; and man became a
living being (Genesis
2:7).
On matters of science that are
unobserved or unobservable, the
Bible offers the most plausible
explanation. Powerful evidence,
indeed, that the Bible is the
Word of God!
F.
The Bible has Profoundly
Influenced the World for the
Good
A bright light
shone in the ancient Middle
East. It was the Law that God
gave to Israel through Moses.
The light brightened
dramatically with the life,
atoning death and resurrection
of Yeshua and the teachings that
flowed from his life and lips.
This biblical light has been
monolithic in its influence
around the world for respect for
human life in general, for
spouses, women, parents, the
elderly, children, the poor and
strangers. It declares,
You shall
love your neighbor as yourself
(Leviticus 19:18; Matthew
22:39) and even
“Love your enemies, and pray
for those who persecute you”
(Matthew 5:44). It has
upheld the beauty and blessing
of marriage and the family and
has condemned all that would
threaten these most wonderful of
human relationships.
Brian T. Collidge, opponent of
the public display of the Ten
Commandments, “concedes that the
Commandments reflect universal
teachings that are beneficial
to a civil society." (19)
Thomas Huxley, nineteenth
century agnostic and outspoken
defender of Darwin’s theory of
evolution, argued for the
reading of the Bible in the
public schools with these words:
By the study of what
other book could
children be so much
humanized, and made
to feel that each
figure in that vast
historical
procession fills,
like themselves, but
a momentary space in
the interval between
two eternities, and
earns the blessings
and the curses of
all times, according
to its effort to do
good and to hate
evil, even as they
are also earning
their payment for
their work? (20) |
Sherwood Wirt,
former editor of Billy Graham’s
Decision magazine, wrote
of
the changes effected throughout
the Roman Empire after the
conversion of Constantine to
Christianity:
Many permanent legal
reforms were set in
motion by Emperors
Constantine
(280?-337) and
Justinian (483-565)
that can be laid to
the influence of
Christianity.
Licentious and cruel
sports were checked;
new legislation was
ordered to protect
the slave, the
prisoner, the
mutilated man, the
outcast woman.
Children were
granted important
legal rights. Infant
exposure was
abolished. Women
were raised from a
status of
degradation to that
of legal protection.
Hospitals and
orphanages were
created to take care
of foundlings.
Personal feuds and
private wars were
put under restraint.
. . . Branding of
slaves was halted."
(21) |
The specific
reforms of Constantine mentioned
by Mr. Wirt were all in keeping
with the teachings of Scripture.
In those areas of life and
thought in which Constantine
properly applied the Bible’s
teaching he wrought tremendous
good, confirming the
wholesomeness of the Bible's
teachings and providing more
evidence for its divine origin.
On the other hand, in certain
other matters, Constantine
established policies and set
precedents that contradicted the
Bible’s teachings and wrought
harm even to this day. One
example is his official
references to the Jews as "a
nefarious sect" (22)
and other such epithets
spoken in conjunction
with exhortations to ostracize
them. Such actions by
Constantine fueled the fire set
by many before him for the
incessant and virulent
persecution of the Jews, and
demonstrates the great evil that
follows when biblical
exhortations and examples are
transgressed. This, too,
in a roundabout way, provides
evidence of the Bible's divine
origin!
In the Middle Ages, it was the
Bible that inspired believers to
establish hospitals and
universities, the latter of
which were established for the
propagation of the gospel and
Christian service. It is because
God intended the Bible to be
read and practiced by all people
everywhere that believers have
been motivated to promote
literacy and education in the
farthest reaches of the earth.
It is the Bible that motivated
believers in Messiah to fight for the
abolition of slavery in England
and the United States and, in
our present day, some Muslim and
other nations. Martin Luther
King, leader in the fight for
civil liberties in the 1950's
and ‘60's, continually appealed
to the God of the Bible as his
source of direction and
strength.
What magnitude of change can the
Bible bring to a people? In
1876, Mary
Slessor left Scotland to
bring the Word of God to the
interior of Nigeria, where lived
four million cannibals.
Witchcraft and
drunkenness were
rampant. The savages
worshiped fetishes;
they murdered
twins; they turned
the mother of twins
out into the jungle
to be devoured by
beasts because they
believed twins were
brought about by a
conjunction with a
demon. Almost half
of the population
were slaves. When a
man died, they would
eat fifty slaves;
twenty-five more
would have their
hands tied behind
them and their heads
would be whacked
off. Unmarried women
were chattel. They
could be raped,
tortured, or
murdered at will. .
. . Children were
considered no better
than animals, often
simply left to die.
Mary’s heart was
touched by the
plight of twins
always left to die
or ground to pieces
in a pot. She would
snatch them up and
take them in. . . .
One after another
the chiefs of the
various tribes
yielded their lives
to Christ. One after
another the
tremendously
horrible customs
plaguing these
people for years
were abolished; the
murder of twins,
infanticide, the
slaughter of wives
and slaves, the
trial by poison and
boiling oil, and all
other terrible
customs.
Through her
ministry, thousands
from the Ibo tribe
became Christians
and abandoned their
degrading ways. (23)
|
To what depth
can a nation sink when the
Bible’s influence is removed? In
a Breakpoint radio byte, Chuck
Colson quoted South African
Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu as
saying, “Africa is bleeding.” In
the same context Bishop Tutu
said, “The awful truth is that
in Africa there was far greater
freedom in the colonial days
than there is now.” Alluding to
historian Paul Johnson’s
authority on the subject, Colson
went on to say,
The colonial days
were not perfect by
any means. Yet the
colonial powers were
Christian in
culture, if not in
personal belief. And
wherever the
colonial powers
went, around the
globe, they brought
with them basic
principles derived
from biblical faith:
things like the rule
of law, individual
responsibility,
political freedom,
care for the weak,
respect for
learning. |
Colson pointed
out that Uganda, which had been
“Christianized by Anglican
and Catholic
missionaries” was not long ago
considered “the most delightful
country in all of Africa,” but
after it threw off colonial rule
it fell victim to [Muslim]
military dictator Idi Amin “who
choked the rivers of Uganda with
his victims.” He also spoke of
Ethiopia, a Christian country
from ancient times until its
Christian leader, Haile Selassie,
was assassinated in 1974. It
then fell victim to a Marxist
regime and has, since that time,
been stricken with famine, civil
war and wars with its neighbors.
(24)
U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Joseph Story, wrote, in his
Commentaries on the Constitution
of the United States (1883),
The promulgation of
the great doctrines
of religion, the
being, the
attributes, and
providence of one
Almighty God; the
responsibility to
him for all our
actions, founded on
moral freedom and
accountability; a
future state of
rewards and
punishments; the
cultivation of all
the personal,
social, and
benevolent virtues;
these can never be a
matter of
indifference in any
well ordered
community. It is,
indeed, difficult to
conceive, how any
civilized society
can well exist
without them. (25) |
The world would
be far more wicked than it is
now were it not for the Bible.
I’ve
heard more than one
well-traveled missionary say how
much more respect there is
for life and how much more
livable life is in those
countries in which the Bible’s
influence is the strongest.
Certainly, the immeasurable
beneficial effect that the Bible
has had on the nations of the
world is powerful evidence of
its divine origin.
G.
The Bible has Profoundly Changed
Individual Lives for the Good
It is
impossible, of course, for
nations to be changed without
individual lives being changed.
Living conditions for the Ibo
could not have changed were it
not for the radically changed
lives of many individual Ibo.
The message of the Bible has
changed lives wherever it has
gone. John Newton (1725-1807)
earned his living as a captain
of slave
ships. During a storm, he cried
out to God for protection. His
survival marked the beginning of
his conversion. Several years
later, because of his Christian
convictions, he abandoned the
slave trade and eventually
became pastor to William
Wilberforce who led the fight in
the British Parliament against
the slave trade. Newton wrote a
hymn that
contained the following
words:
"Amazing
grace! How sweet the sound that
saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am
found, was blind, but now I
see!"
Chuck Colson,
whose underhanded activities as
President Nixon’s “hatchet man”
landed him in jail, was
subsequently touched by the
Bible’s message of salvation
through Messiah Yeshua. He now
spends his life ministering to
all aspects of prisoners’ needs
and speaking out against
injustices and atrocities and
destructive philosophies and
policies of governments and
societies.
The power of the Bible’s message
to convert lives from evil to
good is further evidence that
the Bible is the Word of God.
H.
The Bible is a Literary
Masterpiece in a Class of its
Own
One would think
that if the Bible were authored
by God it would be a superlative
literary work. Indeed it is. The
Bible contains at least eight
different literary forms:
historical narratives,
biographies, letters, sermons,
proverbs,
drama, poetry, psalms.
Its stories have become
ingrained in Western thinking:
the Creation, the Garden of
Eden, Noah’s Ark, the Tower of
Babel, the Exodus, the Giving of
the Law at Sinai, David and
Goliath, Jonah and the “Whale,”
the Christmas and Easter
stories, the Sermon on the
Mount, the Feeding of the Five
Thousand. The 23rd Psalm is
universally acclaimed for its
lyrical, pastoral beauty; the
Beatitudes for its gentle,
poetic cadences. Yearning for
adventure on the high seas? The
gripping account of the
shipwreck in Acts 27 has
been touted as the most
realistic rendering of a
shipwreck in all literature.
Dying for apocalyptic drama?
Read the Revelation; then find,
if you can, a more captivating
or intriguing tour de force.
Where can you find a more
intriguing plot? God, in the
presence of the holy angels,
creates a magnificent universe,
forms man of the dust of the
ground and breathes into his
nostrils the breath of life. The
man sins, the earth and the
universe become cursed and the
human race becomes separated
from God. God, who justifiably
could have wiped out the human
race, sets in motion a rescue
plan that involves the virgin
birth of His Son, His Son’s
living a sinless life, dying for
the sins of the world, being
resurrected, setting all things
in the spiritual and material
universe in order and presenting
to His Father a perfected
universe crowned by
the church in all her glory,
having no spot or wrinkle or any
such thing; but . . . holy and
blameless
(Ephesians 5:27) which,
with the saved of all ages, will
live in the presence of the holy
angels and the Triune God
forever. Search all literature
and let me know if you find a
more original and thrilling and
wonderful plot at the end of
which the reader is lifted to
join in such a gleeful chorus of
never-ending Hallelujahs!
No other book comes close to the
Bible in literary quality! It is
the kind of masterpiece that one
would expect from the Master
Creator of the endless wonders
of the universe, Himself.
I.
The Bible has Inspired A Great
Multitude of
the World’s Great Works of Art
If God were to
write a book, one would expect
that its theme would be so lofty
and its artistry so consummate
that it would inspire copious
amounts of the world’s most
wonderful works of art. The
Bible has done just that.
The great cathedrals of
Europe lift their spires in
expressions of heavenly
adoration and aspiration. The
Last Supper of Da Vinci; the
great paintings of Michelangelo
on the ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel in Rome, and his great
sculptures - the Pieta (the body
of the deceased Yeshua draped
across His mother’s lap), the
Moses, the David - all were
inspired by the Bible. The
inspiration for the Praying
Hands so often seen on wall
plaques and greeting cards and
in magazine articles, came to
Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) as he
beheld a friend in prayer. The
Messiah, by George
Frederic Handel (1685-1759),
perhaps the most wonderful of
all musical compositions, was
written in less than twenty-five
days during which Handel felt he
was under the inspiration of
God. The manuscripts of Johann
Sebastian Bach (1686-1750),
contain copious inscriptions
which reveal the source of his
inspiration: “S.D.G.,” Soli
Deo Gloria: “Solely to the
Glory of God;” “J.J.,” Jesu
Juban: “Help me, Jesus;” “I.N.J.,”
In Nomine Jesu: “In the
Name of Jesus.” According to Dr.
James Kennedy, “[Bach] told his
pupils that unless they
committed their talents to the
Lord Jesus Christ, they would
never be great musicians, for
music, according to Bach, was an
act of worship." (26) The
Pilgrim’s Progress is among
the world’s great literary
masterpieces. Written by John
Bunyan during his imprisonment
for his faith, it
contains wonderful allegories of
the believer's walk and of the
pitfalls which believers
must beware. Next to the Bible,
more copies of The Pilgrim’s
Progress have been printed
than any other book. Among the
most inspiring of Hollywood
productions are stories taken
from, or inspired by, the Bible:
The Ten Commandments,
Ben-Hur, Chariots of Fire.
What other book, or any other
medium of communication for that
matter, has inspired so many
wonderful works of art? None. No
other book comes even close.
This fact constitutes even more
evidence that the writing of the
books of the Bible was initiated
and divinely controlled by the
God of the Bible, the Creator of
the endless natural wonders of
the universe, which themselves
inspire breathtaking works of
art.
J.
The Preservation of the
Scriptures
If God wrote the
Bible for the enlightenment of
all people for all time, one
would think that He would
preserve it - and preserve it He
did. As far as we know, He did
not preserve the original
autographs. (If He did, He has
not yet revealed where they may
be found.) Nevertheless, many
times more early manuscripts
of the Scriptures have
been preserved than the
manuscripts of any other ancient
document.
1. The Preservation of the Books
a. The Preservation of the Old
Testament Books
It can be inferred from the
Bible that Adam was not a
grunting, troglodytic
knuckle-walker. He was an
intelligent man who spoke in a
fully developed language,
conversed with God and named the
animals. Adam and some of his
descendents wrote much of what
was later to be included in the
Book of Genesis. In Genesis 2:4,
we see the phrase,
These are the generations of . .
. . (KJV, ASV)
This phrase is also
found in Genesis 5:1; 6:9; 10:1;
11:10,27; 25:19; 36:1,9; 37:2.
In all except Genesis 2:4, the
name of a specific patriarch is
attached. Parallels with the
terminology of ancient
Babylonian tablets indicate that
these names are actually the
signatures of the original
writers of the particular
tablets. That is, each of these
primeval patriarchs kept the
narrative records of his own
generations, inscribing them on
stone or clay tablets and then
appending his name at the end
when he was ready to turn over
the tablets and
the task of writing the
toledoth (Hebrew.
these are the generations of)
to the next in line. (27)
In Genesis 5:1, we read,
This is
the book of the generations of
Adam,
indicating that Adam
wrote the second half of Genesis
2:4 through the first half of
5:1, and similarly with the
other sections. These tablets
eventually came into the
possession of Moses, who
included them in the book we
call Genesis.
Despite its history of loss due
to Israel’s disobedience to God,
God preserved His Scriptures
intact and repeatedly returned
them to His people. (For
examples, see 1 Samuel 6:21-27:1
and 2 Kings 22:8.) As late as
the fifth century B.C. we read,
in Nehemiah 8:8, that Ezra and
his assistants
read from the book, from the law
of God . . . .
Dr. Morris writes,
The book of the law of Moses
(Joshua 8:31; 23:6; 2 kings
14:6; Nehemiah 8:1) undoubtedly
included all the Pentateuch, and
possibly is used here
generically for all the
Scriptures which had been
received by this time. Ezra is
generally believed to be largely
responsible for organizing the
canon of the Old Testament
Scriptures. (28)
So, we see that the Law
of Moses, which contained even
the writings of Adam, was intact
and in the possession of God’s
people in 444 B.C. By the time
of Ezra or thereabouts, the
entire Old Testament had been
written and compiled.
In about 335 B.C., Alexander of
Macedon gained control over
Syria and Israel. Upon his death
in 323, four of his generals
divided his vast empire among
themselves. Syria and Israel
fell under the rule of the
Seleucids. In 167 B.C., Seleucid
king Antiochus Epiphanes invaded
Jerusalem with the purpose of
crushing all vestiges of the
worship of Yahweh. Among his
measures were the forbidding of
the reading of the Law and the
ordering of all scrolls of the
Law to be confiscated and
burned. Compliance was mandatory
upon pain of death - but God did
not allow His Scriptures to be
destroyed. He raised up the
Maccabees, a Hebrew family, to
lead a revolt against Antiochus.
In 164 B.C., against
overwhelming odds, the ragtag
Jewish army defeated two of
Epiphanes’ armies and drove them
out of Jerusalem, for which Jews
celebrate Hannukah. Not a bad
holiday for Christians to
celebrate also: God’s Book
remained intact!
b. The Preservation of the New
Testament Books and the Entire
Bible
No ancient classic has nearly as
much manuscript representation
as does the New Testament.
According to the International
Standard Bible Encyclopedia, ten
or fifteen ancient manuscripts
of a classic are generally
considered a good
representation, but “The
manuscripts of whole or parts of
the New Testament are reckoned
by thousands, the oldest
fragment going back to ca. A.D.
150, and several papyri dating
from about 200." (29)
No book in history has come
under attack like the Bible, yet
God has preserved His Book for
all who would read it.
-
In 303 A.D.,
Roman Emperor Diocletian
demanded that all sacred
books be burned, and
declared, “The Christian
religion is destroyed and
the worship of the gods
restored.” However, it was
Diocletian’s attack on the
Bible that led to the
compilation of the
twenty-seven books of the
New Testament. (30)
-
To turn the
tables even more, Emperor
Constantine became a
professing Christian.
Subsequently, in his Edict
of Toleration (313 A.D.),
Constantine granted freedom
of religion throughout his
vast Roman Empire. He
favored and supported
Christians and Christian
works in many ways,
including the exhorting (in
325 A.D.) of all his
subjects to
become Christians -
and the ordering of
the production of fifty
Bibles for the churches of
Constantinople. (31)
-
In the
eighteenth century, French
philosopher Voltaire
declared, “Fifty years from
now the world will hear no
more about the Bible.”
Exactly fifty years later,
the Geneva Bible Society
bought the very press that
Voltaire used to publish
such statements, and used it
for the printing of Bibles.
-
In the
twentieth century, Richard
Wurmbrand was imprisoned for
fourteen years for preaching
and teaching the Word of
God. Today, the organization
that he founded, Voice of
the Martyrs, uses one of the
Romanian prisons in which he
was incarcerated under the
Ceausescu regime as a
warehouse for the Bibles and
related literature that they
print and distribute.
-
The Soviet
Union, the world’s only
officially atheistic empire
in all of history, collapsed
in 1989 from internal decay.
Subsequently, its master
nation, Russia, opened its
floodgates to the influx of
millions of Bibles and
thousands of Bible teachers.
-
Communist
China ruthlessly suppresses
its vast number of
unregistered (and therefore
uncontrolled by the
government) churches; but
the more the underground
church is persecuted the
more it explodes in numbers;
and millions of Bibles,
contraband if not printed
and distributed by the
government, are
printed inside and outside
of China,
distributed within
China and treasured above
all possessions by millions
of Chinese.
Much persecution
has accompanied the translation,
production and distribution of
the Bible in many of the world’s
languages, including English,
the language in which most of
the Bibles of the world are now
translated. Virulent attacks
against the Bible have been
launched in full force in
Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist
countries. All have failed! God
has been guarding His Word. No
one will ever bring it down!
2. The Preservation of the
Accuracy of the Books
God, who took such care to
preserve His Bible throughout
history, took care to preserve
the accuracy of its contents.
a. The Preservation of the
Accuracy of the Old Testament
Until the middle of the
twentieth century, the oldest
known copy of the Old Testament
was the Masoretic Text.
This monumental work
was begun around the
6th century AD and
completed in the
10th century by
scholars [known as
Masoretes] at
Talmudic academies
in Babylonia and
Palestine, in an
effort to
reproduce, as
far as possible, the
original text of the
Hebrew Old
Testament. Their
intention was not to
interpret the
meaning of the
Scriptures but to
transmit to future
generations the
authentic Word of
God. To this end
they gathered
manuscripts and
whatever oral
traditions were
available to them. .
. . The rigorous
care given the
Masoretic text in
its preparation is
credited for the
remarkable
consistency found in
Old Testament Hebrew
texts since that
time. The Masoretic
work enjoyed an
absolute monopoly
for 600 years, and
experts have been
astonished at the
fidelity of the
earliest printed
version [late 15th
century] to the
earliest surviving
codices [late 9th
century]. The
Masoretic text is
universally accepted
as the authentic
Hebrew Bible. (32)
|
From about 500
A.D. until the present, the
standard Hebrew text of the Old
Testament has been perfectly
preserved; but after 1947, the
faithfulness of the Masoretic
Text to much earlier Old
Testament texts was put to the
test. In 1947, about five
hundred scrolls dating from
about 125 B.C. to 100 A.D. were
found in a cave near the Dead
Sea. Of these, about 175 were
biblical, containing several
copies of many of the books of
the Old Testament and sections
or fragments of others. All Old
Testament books were represented
except the Book of Esther.
These Dead Sea Scrolls
were written, on the average, a
thousand years nearer the time
of the original autographs than
the final Masoretic Text.
Naturally, scholars expect older
texts to reflect the original
autographs more faithfully than
later texts. Among the Dead Sea
scrolls was a scroll of Isaiah
from 125 B.C., 1125 years nearer
the original than the final
Masoretic Isaiah. Astoundingly,
a comparison of the Dead Sea and
Masoretic Isaiahs revealed
virtually no difference between
the two. In speaking of the
biblical Dead Sea Scrolls and
the Masoretic Text overall, Dr.
Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum writes,
“Where there is a variation,
there is absolutely no change of
meaning. For example, one scroll
may say, ‘he went to Jerusalem.’
The other scroll may say, ‘he
went unto Jerusalem.’ . . . so
the text has remained intact."
(33)
It is reasonable to conclude
that, if God preserved the
integrity of the Old Testament
for the last two thousand years,
He preserved it from the time of
the original autographs.
b. The Preservation of the
Accuracy of the New Testament
As concerns the New
Testament, over 20,000
hand-copied manuscripts of the
Greek text are in
existence. (34) According to Dr.
Fruchtenbaum, “by virtue of
these many Greek texts it is
possible to determine what the
original Greek New Testament
was." (35)
Peter wrote,
You have been
born again not of
seed which is
perishable but
imperishable, that
is, through the
living and abiding
word of God. For,
"All flesh is as
grass, and all of
its glory like the
flower of grass. The
grass withers, and
the flower falls
off, but the word of
our God abides
forever
(Isaiah 40:6,8)."
And this is the
word which was
preached to you.
~
1 Peter 1:23-25 ~ |
Peter addressed
this letter to Jewish believers
(1 Peter 1:1, 2:12) to whom
the Word of God
and
the Word
of the Lord
referred not only to
specific messages that God spoke
or revealed to individual
prophets, but to the entire body
of Hebrew Scripture.
God promised through Peter that
His Bible, whether written on
tablets of clay or stone or
parchment or paper or digital
media or in the glorified
memories of the saints in the
eternal ages, will always be
preserved
forever!
Amazingly, despite
attempts to destroy them, all
sixty-six books of the Bible
have been preserved, and their
faithfulness to the original
writings has been confirmed to a
far greater degree than has any
other book of antiquity. Sir
Isaac Newton said, “There are
more sure marks of authenticity
in the Bible than in any profane
history." (36)
It’s as if the
Bible enjoys supernatural
protection. Yes, the
preservation of the sixty-six
books and of their accuracy is
even further evidence that the
writing of the Bible was
inspired - initiated and
superintended - by God.
K.
The Preservation of the Jew
The preservation
of Jewish national identity is
powerful evidence of the Bible’s
divine authorship. Consider this
assessment by David Egner of The
Radio Bible Class:
By all reckoning,
the Jews should have
died out long ago.
Their survival as a
distinct people is a
miracle of history.
. . .
You cannot talk to a
Babylonian today,
nor a Hittite. You
will not meet a
Moabite or a
Phoenician on the
street. But you can
converse with a Jew.
By every measuring
stick of history
there should not be
even one
identifiable Jew
alive today. For
4,000 years they
have endured
unbelievable
hardships: exile
from their land more
than 60 per cent of
the time; organized
efforts to destroy
them; the crumbling
of the civilizations
in which they sought
refuge; the
sophisticated
brutality of the
20th century. Yet
the Jews are alive
and flourishing.
They survive every
effort to destroy
them. (37) |
How is it that they survive
every effort to destroy them?
Let’s look to the latter half of
the New Covenant:
Thus says the LORD,
who gives the sun
for light by day,
and the fixed order
of the moon and the
stars for light by
night, who stirs up
the sea so that its
waves roar; the LORD
of hosts is His
name: If this fixed
order departs from
before me, declares
the LORD, then the
offspring of Israel
also shall cease
from being a nation
before me forever.
Thus says the LORD,
If the heavens above
can be measured, and
the foundations of
the earth searched
out below, then I
will also cast off
all the offspring of
Israel for all that
they have done,
declares the LORD.
~ Jeremiah
31:35-37 ~ |
For I, the
LORD, do not change; therefore
you, o sons of Jacob, are not
consumed
(Malachi 3:6).
These Scriptures, written in 597
B.C. and 397 B.C., respectively,
purport that God declared that
He would preserve Jewish
national identity for as long as
there are sun, moon and stars
and until the universe is fully
measured and the foundations
of the earth fully searched
out. Despite the repeated fury
of Satan and the nations to
destroy the Jews, there are
still 13,000,000 of them alive
and identifiable today, 2400 and
2600 years after these passages
were written.
Were these
purported declarations by God
the hallucinations of heat
struck Hebrew holy men - or were
they the Words of God? Look to
history - and decide.
L.
Detailed Prophecy and Detailed
Historical Fulfillment
Perhaps the most
amazing phenomenon in the Bible
is its containment of hundreds
of detailed prophesies that have
come to fulfillment - in detail:
prophecies as broad as the
blueprint of history and as
focused as the details of
Messiah’s life and crucifixion;
prophecies of the destruction of
specific nations, of the
endurance of others, of the
scattering and gathering of
Israel and of political and
military alliances in the
distant future.
1. The Blueprint of History
In about 601 B.C., an
amazing dream was given to
Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon,
and its interpretation to his
Hebrew advisor, Daniel (Daniel
2:1-45). The dream and its
interpretation revealed the
succession of the world empires
central to Bible and world
history and prophecy: Babylon,
Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, the
split of Rome into eastern and
western divisions, and an empire
consisting of ten kingdoms which
will, in turn, be crushed and
replaced by a kingdom which
the God of heaven will set up
. . . which will never be
destroyed (v. 44).
The first five of these elements
have already come to pass in
world history!
2. The Fate of Nations
-
Around 850
B.C., Obadiah prophesied the
destruction of the then
mighty Edomite nation
(southeast of the Dead Sea),
saying,
There
will be no survivor of the
house of Esau
(Obadiah 1:18).
Between 450 and 400 B.C.,
God declared through the
prophet Malachi,
I have
made [Esau’s] mountains a
desolation
(Malachi 1:1-3).
Today there are no known
surviving Edomites.
-
In about 625
B.C., God declared through
Zephaniah,
O
Canaan, land of the
Philistines; . . . I will
destroy you, so that there
will be no inhabitant
(Zephaniah 2:5).
Today the Philistines are
gone without a trace.
-
In
Deuteronomy 28, written
about 1400 B.C., Moses
declared that if Israel will
not obey the LORD,
The
LORD will scatter you among
all peoples, from one end of
the earth to the other end
of the earth (v.
64). In 135 A.D., Israel was
crushed by Rome and
scattered to the four
corners of the earth.
-
About 600
B.C., God declared,
“As I live,”
declares the
Lord GOD,
“surely with a
mighty hand and
with an
outstretched arm
and with wrath
poured out, I
shall be king
over you. I will
bring you from
the peoples and
gather you from
the lands where
you are
scattered.”
~ Ezekiel
20:33-34 ~ |
735 years before
Israel’s most profound
scattering (by the Romans, in
135 A.D.) God declared that He
would gather her. Has
this prophecy of the gathering
of Israel yet been fulfilled?
Yes. Its milestone was the year
1948, when Israel became a
modern nation.
2,540 years
after Ezekiel’s prophecy, 1800
years after being scattered from
their homeland and immediately
following Satan’s greatest
effort to annihilate them
(1939-1945), God gathers them!
Compound the odds against this
gathering of Jews to their
national homeland with the odds
against Jewish survival, as
described above; then consider
whether these Biblical
declarations were the creative
inventions of men - or
revelations of future history
declared by God.
3. Political and Military
Alliances Far Off in the Distant
Future
4. They have said,
"Come, and let us
wipe them out as a
nation, That the
name of Israel be
remembered no more."
5. For they have
conspired together
with one mind;
Against You they
make a covenant: 6.
The tents of Edom
and the Ishmaelites,
Moab and the
Hagrites; 7. Gebal
and Ammon and
Amalek, Philistia
with the inhabitants
of Tyre; 8. Assyria
also has joined with
them; They have
become a help to the
children of Lot.
~ Psalm
83:4-8 ~ |
Dr. Fruchtenbaum writes,
Edom is in southern
Jordan; Ishmael was
the father of one
segment of the Arab
world; Moab is in
central Jordan; the
Hagarenes were from
Egypt. . . . Gebal
is up in Lebanon;
Ammon is in northern
Jordan; Amalek was
in the Sinai
Peninsula; Philistia
is in the Gaza
Strip; Tyre is up in
Lebanon. . . .
Assyria comprises
all of what is today
Iraq and quite a bit
of Syria. [Lot was
the father of Ammon
and Moab.]
The only time in
history that all
these nations listed
in these verses
combined themselves
together against
Israel has been only
since 1948. This was
never true in
ancient history.
Only since 1948 the
surrounding Arab
states which
comprises these
names have bound
themselves together
against Israel. This
has been especially
true since the Six
Day War [1967] when
one Arab leader
after another
clearly stated that
the only way of
gaining peace in the
Middle East
is for the
total annihilation
of Israel as a
nation. (38) |
Psalm 83 was
written about three thousand
years ago. What are the odds
that the psalmist Asaph could
have guessed that the above
nations - all ten of them -
would covenant against Israel?
Some skeptics argue that what
the Bible purports to be
prophesies were written after
the fact. What are the odds that
some clever people stuck these
verses in Psalm 83 since 1948?
4. Messiah’s Life, Crucifixion
and Resurrection
According to Dr. Norman
Geisler,
There are at least
forty-eight
prophecies in the
Old Testament about
Messiah. These
include where he
would be born (Mic.
5:2), how he would
die (Isa. 53), when
he would die (Dan.
9), that he would
rise from the dead
(Psa. 16), etc. The
odds that 48 of
these prophecies
were fulfilled in
one man are about
1/10157.
That’s right, a 1
with 157 zeroes
after it. (39) |
Winkey Pratney,
trained as a research chemist,
attempts to give us an idea of
how infinitesimal these odds
are:
We’ll take a very
small object, let’s
say an electron.
(Electrons are so
small that if you
lined them up, it
would take 2 ˝
quadrillion
of them to equal one
inch.) Now let’s go
back to our figure
of 10157.
If you tried to put
this many electrons
into a big pile, it
would be
10,000,000,000 times
larger than the
universe as we know
it - which
scientists calculate
to be 6,000,000,000
light-years across.
[A light-year is the
distance that light
travels in one year,
moving at the speed
of 186,000 miles per
second.]
Now, take just one
electron out and
color it red. Stir
it back into this
pile for a hundred
thousand years with
all the others. Then
blindfold a man and
send him in to pick
it out - first time!
Impossible? These
would be the same
odds that one man
would live and die
according to only 48
of the prophecies
about the Messiah,
if it were only an
accident. (40) |
The Bible, alone
among books, contains hundreds
of detailed prophesies that have
already been fulfilled in every
detail. Who, but God, could
possibly author such a book?
III.
ADDENDA
Choice tidbits
of evidence keep coming to my
attention. Here's one:
Evolutionist Objection: In
the Bible, Light was Created
Before the Sun Was
According to
Genesis 1:3,14-16, God created
light on the second day and the
sun on the fourth.
In an article entitled,
The Light from the Sun, Dr.
Henry Morris, Ph.D. of the
Institute of Creation Research
writes,
One of the
traditional
“discrepancies”
attributed by the
skeptics to the
Genesis account of
creation is the fact
that there was
“light” (Hebrew
or) on the first
day of the creation
week, whereas God
did not create the
“lights” (Hebrew
ma-or) to rule
the day and the
night until the
fourth day.
However, it is
interesting that
modern evolutionary
cosmologists find no
problem in having
light before the
sun. According to
their speculative
reconstruction of
cosmic history,
light energy was
produced in the
imaginary “Big Bang”
15 billion years
ago, whereas the sun
“evolved” only five
billion years ago.
Thus, even in their
attempts to destroy
the divine
revelation of
Genesis, they
inadvertently find
it necessary to
return to its
concepts.
~ Morris, H.
Ph.D./Institute of
Creation Research
(2015). The Light
from the Sun.
Retrieved from
https://www.icr.org/article/8582/ |
IV. CONCLUSION
The Bible claims
it is the Word of God, stands
alone in its uniqueness, is
consistent in its central theme
and continuous in its
development over a period of
1600 years, contains no
contradiction, does not
contradict the proven facts of
science, offers the most
plausible explanations in
matters of science that are
unobserved or unobservable, has
profoundly influenced the world
for good, has profoundly changed
individual lives for the good,
is a literary masterpiece in a
class of its own, has inspired
many of the world’s greatest
works of art, has been preserved
physically and in accuracy since
its first words were written,
has promised the preservation of
the Jew and has declared
hundreds of prophecies that have
been fulfilled in detail.
In consideration of all this
evidence, how can one still
doubt the divine authorship of
the Scriptures? We confidently
board jet planes with infinitely
smaller odds that they will land
safely than the odds in favor of
the Bible’s having been authored
by God. Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer,
founder of Dallas Theological
Seminary and author of an eight
volume standard work in
systematic theology,
said, “The Bible is not a book
that a man
could write if he would,
nor is the Bible a book man
would write if he could." (41)
William E. Gladstone said, “I
have known ninety-five of the
world’s great men in my time,
and of these eighty-seven were
followers of the Bible. The
Bible is stamped with a
Specialty of Origin, and an
immeasurable distance separates
it from all competitors." (42)
It is reasonable to conclude
with absolute certainty that the
Bible was written by men under
the perfect superintendence of
God.
V.
RAMIFICATIONS
If you are
convinced that the Bible is the
Word of God, then at least three
important ramifications follow:
A.
The Bible is to be Studied from
Cover to Cover
It is more than
reasonable to study a book
authored by our loving Creator.
We might just learn something.
The Bible, written by God
through the hands of men, is a
reflection of Yeshua, who Himself
is both divine and human.
Wouldn’t you like to get to know
Yeshua the Messiah?
B.
The Bible is to be Believed and
Embraced from Cover to Cover
The chief
message of the Bible is one of
ultimate hope for all that the
human heart could possibly long
for. It is a message which, when
embraced, brings the forgiveness
of sins, an eternal infusion of
new life from God that fills us
with joy and transforms our
attitudes and actions to be more
godly ones, and the assurance of
a most wonderful and blessed
eternity in the presence of God
forever. This is the message:
that God loved us so much that
he sent His Son, Yeshua
HaMashiach (the
Messiah), to die in
our place for our sins so that
He might forgive us of our sins
and, as He raised His Son from
the dead, raise us from the
death of sin’s power and guilt
to live a new life in His
embrace forever.
Do you believe?
Please pause and answer! If you
do, then you, too, have already
risen from the death of your old
life into new, blessed life in
Him. Thank Him. He deserves your
praise forever.
C.
We Must Conform our Thinking and
Ways to God’s
Since the God of
the Bible is a loving God, it
behooves us to change our
thinking and ways to conform to
His. It should surprise no one
that God’s values and priorities
differ from the values and
priorities of those who don’t
know Him. Even among the nations
of the world values and
priorities differ tremendously.
Which values are to be embraced:
the values of one’s own culture?
Those of another? What makes one
set of values superior to
another? Nothing - were it not
for the fact that there is an
absolute standard: the values
and priorities held eternally by
God and found in His holy Book!
These are the values that the
believer - indeed, everyone on
the planet - ought to embrace.
Embrace them to bless and be
blessed.
May God bless you forever in His
Word,
Norman Manzon
Scriptures chosen by
the author are in
the New American
Standard version
unless otherwise
noted. Scriptures in
quotes by others may
be in different
translations. Names,
titles and other
terms within quoted
scriptures and
elsewhere may have
been changed from
the English to the
Hebrew form for the
sake of cultural
sensitivity. |
~
FOOTNOTES
4. Unger, Dr. Merrill F., Unger’s
Bible Handbook, The Moody Bible Institute of
Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, 1966, p. 52.
5. Halley, Henry H., Halley's Bible Handbook,
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1959, pp.160-161.
6. Morris, Dr. Henry M., op.cit., pp. 1523-1525.
7. The New Strong's Exhaustive Concordance to the
Bible. 1996.
8. Morris, Dr. Henry M., op.cit., p. 1407.
9. Tomkins, Ph.D./Institute of Creation Research,J.P.
(2015). Genetic Entropy Points to a Young Creation.
Retrieved from
http://www.icr.org/article/8374/
10. Morris, Dr. Henry M., op. cit., p.1496.
11. Pratney, Winkey, "Creation or Evolution? Part II
- The Historical Record," Pretty Good Printing, Last
Days Ministries, Lindale, TX., 1984, p. 4.
12. Huse, Dr. Scott M., The Collapse of Evolution,
Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1983, p.
67-68.
13. Morris, Dr. Henry M., op. cit., pp. 1496-1497.
14. Gish, Dr. Duane T., and Bliss, Dr. Richard B.,
Impact, Nos. 95-96 - "Summary of Scientific Evidence
for Creation," Institute for Creation Research, El
Cajon, California, 1981, p. iii.
15. Huse, Dr. Scott M., The Collapse of Evolution,
Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1983, pp.
96-103; and Nelson, Byron, After its Kind,
Bethany House, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1967, pp.
126-138.
16. Why We Believe in Creation, p. 312,
quoted by Pratney, Winkey in "Creation or Evolution?
Part III - The Fossil Record," Pretty Good Printing,
Last Days Ministries, Lindale, TX., 1984 p. 1.
17. Nilsson, Dr. Herbert, University of Lund,
Sweden, quoted by Pratney, Winkey, Ibid., p.1.
18. "The Life of Leonardo da Vinci, Part V." Questar
Video, Inc., Chicago, Illinois 60611.
19. Moore, Roy S. “Putting God Back in the Public
Square.” Imprimis Magazine, Hillsdale College,
Hillsdale, Michigan 49242, September (?) 1999.
20. Ibid. (?)
21. Wirt, Sherwood, The Social Conscience of the
Evangelical, quoted in Kennedy, D. James, What
if Jesus Had Never Been Born, Thomas Nelson
Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1994, p. 13.
22 Egner, David C., Those Irrepressible Jews!,
Radio Bible Class, Grand Rapids, Michigan 1983, p.
50.
23. Kennedy, D. James, op. cit., pp. 168.
24. "Breakpoint" with Chuck Colson, December 29,
1995.
25. Moore, Roy S. op. cit.
26. Kennedy, D. James, op. cit., p. 186.
27. Morris, Dr. Henry M., op. cit., , p. 9.
28. Morris, Dr. Henry M., op. cit., p. 546.
29. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 1973,
v. 1, p. 492.
30. Enns, Dr. Paul P. The Moody Handbook of
Theology, Moody Press, Chicago, Illinois, 1989,
p.171.
31. Halley, Henry H., op. cit., pp. 759-760.
32. Encyclopedia Britannica CD, 1999, “Masoretic
Text.”
33. Fruchtenbaum, Dr. Arnold G., Radio Manuscript
30: The Nature of the Bible, Ariel Ministries,
Tustin, California, 1983, p. 5.
34. Morris, Dr. Henry M., op. cit., p. 1989.
35. Fruchtenbaum, Dr. Arnold G., op. cit., p. 5.
36. Halley, Henry H., op. cit., p. 19.
37. Egner, David C. op. cit., back cover.
38. Fruchtenbaum, Dr. Arnold G., Radio Manuscript
8: Arab States in Prophesy, Ariel Ministries,
Tustin, California, 1983, pp. 7-8.
39. Geisler, Norman L. and Brooks, Ronald M.,
Come, Let us Reason, Baker Book House, Grand
Rapids, Michigan, 1990, p. 145.
40. Pratney, Winkey, "The Holy Bible - Wholly True,"
Pretty Good Printing, Last Days Ministries, Lindale,
TX., 1985.
41. Chafer, Dr. Louis, quoted by Fruchtenbaum, Dr.
Arnold G., Radio Manuscript 30: The Nature of the
Bible, Ariel Ministries, Tustin, California,
1983, p. 8.
42. Halley, Henry H., op. cit., p. 18.
~
Evidence Upon Evidence:
The Bible Is the Word of God
~ a messianic Bible study ~
© Norman Manzon 1999.
All rights reserved.
Scriptures chosen by the
author are in the New American Standard version unless
otherwise noted. Scriptures in quotes by others may be in
different translations. Names, titles and other terms within
quoted scriptures and elsewhere may have been changed from
the English to the Hebrew form for the sake of cultural
sensitivity.
Evidence Upon Evidence
originally appeared on
the author's website,
www.BibleStudyProject.org.
|
All Pages of A Key Doctrinal Exegesis
Major Topics in Systematic Progression |
Page 1
*
THE SCRIPTURES
* GOD THE TRIUNITY
* ANGELS
* SATAN
AND DEMONS
* THE DOCTRINE OF MAN
*
SALVATION |
Page 2
* ISRAEL
*
THE TRUE ROOTS OF ANTI-SEMITISM
* THE BELIEVER AND THE LAW OF MOSES |
Page 3
* THE CHURCH OR BODY OF
MESSIAH
* THE MINISTRIES AND
GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
* DIVINE HEALING:
ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE |
Page 4
and
Page 5
*
THE FUTURE, THE
AFTERWORLD AND ETERNITY |
Page 6
ADDENDUM STUDIES
* THE
AMBASSADORIAL BAND
* EVIDENCE UPON EVIDENCE: THE BIBLE IS THE WORD OF
GOD, Parts 1 & 2 |
PLEASE NOTE:
The studies in this compendium are copied from Shofars 1 -
52. Updates to this Compendium have been discontinued and
not all Shofar studies by the author are in the Compendium.
For links to all studies by the author, please go to the
most up-to-date
Library page (of Shofar 53) and find the author's
studies under "NORMAN MANZON."
The
We Believe Compendium
© Norman Manzon, 2005 - 2018.
All rights reserved.
Norman Manzon is a Bible teacher in Hawaii
and may be reached at
Bible Study Project . org @ twc .
com When email, remove the spaces.
|