Quick Bibliology...

Here's the text of the 'worksheet' I prepared for home group (aka Bible study this week). The idea is that the attenders would read Psalm 19 in addition to answering the open-ended questions at the beginning of the study. I then answered the rest of the questions because I wanted this to be more of a resource than a pure question/answer session.

My list of references is as follows:

• Essential Truths of the Christian Faith by R.C. Sproul
• Now that's a Good Question by R.C. Sproul
• A Ready Defense by Josh McDowell
• Starting Point by North Point Church
• Is what we have now what they had then? By Dr. Dan Wallace.

Proving that the Bible we have today is the authentic word of God.

What was your exposure to the Bible growing up?



How would you describe your current perspective on the Bible?



What role does the Bible play in your daily life?



Psalm 19 describes Scripture as perfect, trustworthy, right, beautiful, etc.. Are these descriptions overstated? Why or why not?



Why do people struggle so much with believing that the Bible is really the word of God?


How does God communicate with man?

Revelation (Hebrews 1:1-2, Psalm 19) -- Idle speculation about God is foolish. If we wish to know who God is, we must rely on what he says about Himself.
-- General - That which is expressed to all men through creation and internal conscience
-- Specific - That which is expressed in His Scripture or direct immediate 'voice of God'
The Bible contains Paradoxes and Mysteries, but no Contradictions:
-- Paradox -- an apparent contradiction that under closer scrutiny yields resolution.
-- Mystery (Romans 16:25-27) -- something unknown to us now, but which may be resolved in the future.
-- Contradiction (1 Corinthians 14:33) -- a statement that claims something both is and is not in the same time and context. These are not understandable.

If the Bible was written by man, how can it be the Word of God?

-- Its the word of God because, the Bible itself claims to be so. 2 Timothy 3:16 "For all scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness."
-- God inspired the authors to write the words of God through their direct human experience. 2 Peter 1:19-20

Who wrote the Bible?

-- Kings, shepherds, outcasts, scholars, laborers.
-- 3 Continents (Africa, Asia, & Europe)
-- 3 Languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, & Greek)
-- 40 different authors
-- Covers more than a thousand years of authorship, yet covers one theme: A loving God working to draw people to Himself via redemption.

How were the books in the Bible decided on as the authentic word of God?

-- Important to note that the church did not decide what books should be included. That would put the church above the Scripture. Instead they recognized the books that were inspired from their inception, and 'received' them from God.
-- The cannon of scripture means the standard of scripture.
-- The Old Testament cannon decided well before Christ by the Jews. A.D. 70 they codify the list to distinguish the Jewish texts from the rising Christian ones.
-- The cannon list published as early as 367 A.D. by Athanasius (church leader of the time) Repeated again at the Synod of Hippo 393 A.D.
-- New Testament books were recognized based on three criteria:
(1) They must have apostolic authorship or endorsement.
(2) They must be received as authoritative by the early church.
(3) They must be in harmony with the books about which there is no doubt.
-- No argument between Catholic and Protestant on NT. Some disagreement on apocryphal books. Those that fell between the Old and New Testament time periods. Most evidence points to a Jewish exclusion of those books in their OT. Also some things in those books contradict things stated in the New Testament. Council of Trent in 1546, the Roman Catholic church officially recognizes apocryphal books as cannon. A bit late if you ask me....

How do we measure the authenticity of any ancient text?

(1) How many copies do we have of the original and how close are they to when we think the original was written?
(2) Are the texts internally consistent and truthful?
(3) Is there external archeological evidence to support claims in the ancient text?

What are some facts and figures to support the authenticity of the document we have today is the same document they had back then?
Old Testament
-- Dead Sea Scrolls found in 1947 & 1956 are dated around 100 B.C.
-- Talmudists (A.D. 100 - 500) Followed a strict 17 rules about copying the OT books, including rules like not copying anything from memory, or only using new skins etc.
-- Massoretics (A.D. 500 - 900) Followed additional word counts and calculations to ensure that nothing was out of place in a copy. For instance they calculated teh middle word and middle letter of each page geographically and made sure that each copy matched the original.
New Testament
-- More than 5,700 copies in Greek; 10,000 in Latin; another 10 - 15,000 copies in other languages and more than 1,000,000 quotations of early patristic writings that cover the entire NT except for eleven verses.
-- Earliest NT fragments are from 100 A.D. that's within decades of when the authors probably wrote. Its well assumed that Book of John was written between 70 and 90 A.D., 1 Revelations, around 95 A.D.
-- Of the supposed translation differences, 90% of them are actually untranslatable as differences in English. E.g. 500 different ways to say Jesus loves Paul in Greek.
-- Less than 1% of variants are both meaningful and viable. They concern no important doctrinal issues. E.g. The number of the beast is either 666 or 616.

How do we interpret the Bible? (2 Peter 1:19-20, 3:14-18; 2 Tim 2:14-15)

-- Scripture always interprets scripture. Meaning that we understand a passage by understanding both its local context, and all of scripture's perspective on a particular topic.
-- Scripture must be interpreted with respect to the original audience and their intended understanding of the words spoken to them.
-- Scripture's genres must be interpreted as those genres would be in non-scripture. I.e. poetry as poetry, history as history, hyperbole as hyperbole etc...
-- The explicit scriptures always interpret the implicit verses.
-- The rules of logic apply to interpreting scripture.
-- A particular passage can only have one correct meaning. It is our responsibility to do our best to seek that singular correct interpretation.

What about those "contradictions" like the seemingly different accounts of Christ's death?

• Matt. 27:46,50: "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?" that is to say, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" ...Jesus, when he cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost."
• Luke 23:46: "And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, "Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit:" and having said thus, he breathed his last."
• John 19:30: "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, "It is finished:" and he bowed his head, and gave up His spirit."

At first glance these may appear to be contradictions, but they actually represent different degrees of emphasis. And even more so they lend credibility to different eye-witnesses remembering their encounters with the actual experience. If all of the accounts were in lock-step it would lend less credibility b/c it would seem as if only one person saw things and the others merely parroted him.

Bottom line:
The Bible is the word of God because the Holy Spirit testifies that it is. When a believer, or even a non-believer sometimes, reads the text he or she can feel the weight and reality of the text. If God is truly the God of the universe and capable of all things, then He's also capable of making sure the words that He wants communicated about Himself are actually communicated in an authentic way.