Rochester Institute of Technology
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The Bible
Is the Bible true, and how can it be validated? How has it been preserved over thousands of years?
January 23rd, 2008 at 12:23 am
There are a couple of ways to validate the Bible and its accuracy among the most interesting is the way in which it was written, especially the gospels. For example in the story of Jesus when he calms the storm when on the sea of Galilee there is a verse which says something to the effect of Jesus laid down on a pillow [Mark 4:38]. There are countless other accounts of seemingly pointless details strewn throughout the gospels. Some people point out that the gospels could have been written as legends or stories and that Jesus did not really do the things that the Bible says he did. The point is that these details, such as the fact that Jesus laid down on a pillow are exactly what validates the stories as history. The modern novel which uses details to paint the picture of the stories being told was not invented until much much later, around the 18th century.
On top of this there are parts in the stories themselves that would not make sense for people trying to get a religion off of the ground shortly after Jesus’s death. For example in an age when women’s testimony was not even admissible in court, it is women who are the first to arrive at the empty tomb on Easter morning. Also the disciples consistently fail and look like complete jerks throughout the gospels. Not a smart way to spread your religion.
Lastly there is the simple fact that you cannot read the words of Jesus objectively. Jesus says “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but through me.” Either he said it or he didn’t and if he did, people cannot simply read that without having some sort of feeling either way on it.
Last lastly (I added another last sorry) The Bible may seem like it is a collection of these books that are sort of haphazardly put together, but this is not the case. Basically the entire Bible is about Jesus, all its stories point to it. Abraham and Issac, the Passover, Naomi and Ruth, Job, all these stories are stories of God redeeming his people through sacrifice. Taken as an entire story the entire Bible is consistent with it reoccurring theme of God redeeming his people through others culminating in the sacrifice of God himself.
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:46 am
Another way to look at the validity of the Bible is to look at manuscript and authorship evidence.
The Bible as we know it today is a collection of 66 books written by 40 authors over a period of aproximately 1500 years. There are thousands of ancient copies of the manuscripts that match per character to within tolerances of less than 1% for texts that are thousands of words long. The Bible has a consistent message about sin, how it separates man from God, and what man has to do in order for that sin to be covered so that mankind enjoy fellowship with its creator.
One example of these manuscripts is the text of the book of Isaiah. We have modern hebrew copies of the text of Isaiah. In the late 1940’s/early 1950’s (the date escapes me) a set of scrolls was found hidden in some caves in Isreal. These scrolls, called the Dead Sea Scrolls, have several different ancient hebrew texts of what Christian’s refer to as the Old Testament. These ancient manuscripts, are statistically the same as our modern copies. This is one of the ways we know that the bible we read today is the same bible that was read by the ancients and hasn’t been corrupted by “the church” or any other organization.
I hope this has been informative. I can provide some research links, but I hope I have included enough detail that the curious can further venture into the internet with google as their guide.
-Ed