Our answer to this question will not only determine how we view the Bible and its importance to our lives, but also it will ultimately have an eternal impact on us. If the Bible is truly God’s Word, then we should cherish it, study it, obey it, and fully trust it. If the Bible is the Word of God, then to dismiss it is to dismiss God Himself.
The fact that God gave us the Bible is an evidence and illustration of His love for us. The term “revelation” simply means that God communicated to mankind what He is like and how we can have a right relationship with Him. These are things that we could not have known had God not divinely revealed them to us in the Bible. Although God’s revelation of Himself in the Bible was given progressively over approximately 1500 years, it has always contained everything man needs to know about God in order to have a right relationship with Him. If the Bible is truly the Word of God, then it is the final authority for all matters of faith, religious practice, and morals.
The question we must ask ourselves is how can we know that the Bible is the Word of God and not just a good book? What is unique about the Bible that sets it apart from all other religious books ever written? Is there any evidence that the Bible is truly God’s Word? These types of questions must be seriously examined if we are to determine the validity of the Bible’s claim to be the very Word of God, divinely inspired, and totally sufficient for all matters of faith and practice. There can be no doubt that the Bible does claim to be the very Word of God. This is clearly seen in Paul’s commendation to Timothy: “… from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:15-17).
There are both internal and external evidences that the Bible is truly God’s Word. The internal evidences are those things within the Bible that testify of its divine origin. One of the first internal evidences that the Bible is truly God’s Word is seen in its unity. Even though it is really sixty-six individual books, written on three continents, in three different languages, over a period of approximately 1500 years, by more than 40 authors who came from many walks of life, the Bible remains one unified book from beginning to end without contradiction. This unity is unique from all other books and is evidence of the divine origin of the words which God moved men to record.
Another of the internal evidences that indicates the Bible is truly God’s Word is the prophecies contained within its pages. The Bible contains hundreds of detailed prophecies relating to the future of individual nations including Israel, certain cities, and mankind. Other prophecies concern the coming of One who would be the Messiah, the Savior of all who would believe in Him. Unlike the prophecies found in other religious books or those by men such as Nostradamus, biblical prophecies are extremely detailed. There are over three hundred prophecies concerning Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. Not only was it foretold where He would be born and His lineage, but also how He would die and that He would rise again. There simply is no logical way to explain the fulfilled prophecies in the Bible other than by divine origin. There is no other religious book with the extent or type of predictive prophecy that the Bible contains.
A third internal evidence of the divine origin of the Bible is its unique authority and power. While this evidence is more subjective than the first two, it is no less a powerful testimony of the divine origin of the Bible. The Bible’s authority is unlike any other book ever written. This authority and power are best seen in the way countless lives have been transformed by the supernatural power of God’s Word. Drug addicts have been cured by it, homosexuals set free by it, derelicts and deadbeats transformed by it, hardened criminals reformed by it, sinners rebuked by it, and hate turned to love by it. The Bible does possess a dynamic and transforming power that is only possible because it is truly God’s Word.
There are also external evidences that indicate the Bible is truly the Word of God. One is the historicity of the Bible. Because the Bible details historical events, its truthfulness and accuracy are subject to verification like any other historical document. Through both archaeological evidences and other writings, the historical accounts of the Bible have been proven time and time again to be accurate and true. In fact, all the archaeological and manuscript evidence supporting the Bible makes it the best-documented book from the ancient world. The fact that the Bible accurately and truthfully records historically verifiable events is a great indication of its truthfulness when dealing with religious subjects and doctrines and helps substantiate its claim to be the very Word of God.
Another external evidence that the Bible is truly God’s Word is the integrity of its human authors. As mentioned earlier, God used men from many walks of life to record His words. In studying the lives of these men, we find them to be honest and sincere. The fact that they were willing to die often excruciating deaths for what they believed testifies that these ordinary yet honest men truly believed God had spoken to them. The men who wrote the New Testament and many hundreds of other believers (1 Corinthians 15:6) knew the truth of their message because they had seen and spent time with Jesus Christ after He had risen from the dead. Seeing the risen Christ had a tremendous impact on them. They went from hiding in fear to being willing to die for the message God had revealed to them. Their lives and deaths testify to the fact that the Bible truly is God’s Word.
A final external evidence that the Bible is truly God’s Word is the indestructibility of the Bible. Because of its importance and its claim to be the very Word of God, the Bible has suffered more vicious attacks and attempts to destroy it than any other book in history. From early Roman Emperors like Diocletian, through communist dictators and on to modern-day atheists and agnostics, the Bible has withstood and outlasted all of its attackers and is still today the most widely published book in the world.
Throughout time, skeptics have regarded the Bible as mythological, but archeology has confirmed it as historical. Opponents have attacked its teaching as primitive and outdated, but its moral and legal concepts and teachings have had a positive influence on societies and cultures throughout the world. It continues to be attacked by pseudo-science, psychology, and political movements, yet it remains just as true and relevant today as it was when it was first written. It is a book that has transformed countless lives and cultures throughout the last 2000 years. No matter how its opponents try to attack, destroy, or discredit it, the Bible remains; its veracity and impact on lives is unmistakable. The accuracy which has been preserved despite every attempt to corrupt, attack, or destroy it is clear testimony to the fact that the Bible is truly God’s Word and is supernaturally protected by Him. It should not surprise us that, no matter how the Bible is attacked, it always comes out unchanged and unscathed. After all, Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Mark 13:31). After looking at the evidence, one can say without a doubt that, yes, the Bible is truly God’s Word.
You claim the Bible is historical, but it doesn’t even agree with itself on something like the resurrection, on whether the tomb was open when the women arrived, on who Jesus appeared to first, on where Jesus first met the disciples, even on how long Jesus lingered after the resurrection. If this really is the word of God, then God seems to be quite confused.
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Sorry, but they are about the weakest excuses as to the ‘agreement’ of scripture. EVERY one of your points raised, EVERY one, can easily be answered by an honest look into the differences and WHY the accounts are different. But first:
The word of God is not an almanac or Time magazine where anybody can glean truth at a whim. Truth is valuable, and only revealed to hearts that are soft. Are you a sinner? Have you seen yourself as unholy and undone before the Creator of all?
If you do not believe God is, if you do not believe ‘in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth………..’ then you are in no position to understand the objections you raised. It kinda makes sense doncha think?
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The events surrounding Jesus’ resurrection can be difficult to piece together. We must remember two things: first, the news of Jesus’ resurrection produced much excitement in Jerusalem, and in the ensuing chaos many people were going many different directions. Groups were separated, and several different groups paid visits to the tomb, possibly more than once. Second, the writers of the Gospels did not attempt an exhaustive narrative; in other words, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John had no intention of telling us every detail of the resurrection or every event in the order that it happened.
However, even if the resurrection accounts cannot be perfectly harmonized, that does not make them untrustworthy. By any reasonable evaluation, the resurrection accounts from the four Gospels are superbly consistent eyewitness testimonies. The central truths – that Jesus was resurrected from the dead and that the resurrected Jesus appeared to many people – are clearly taught in each of the four Gospels. The apparent inconsistencies are in “side issues.” How many angels did they see in the tomb, one or two? (Perhaps one person only saw one angel, while the other person saw two angels.) To how many women did Jesus appear, and to whom did He appear first? (While each Gospel has a slightly different sequence to the appearances, none of them claims to be giving the precise chronological order.) So, while the resurrection accounts may seem to be inconsistent, it cannot be proven that the accounts are contradictory.
The Gospels (aka good news of Christ) were written at different times and different places by different people. I recommend reading “A Case for Christ” because it’s written by a man (a reporter) who was an athiest who wanted to put the Gospels on trial.
The differences between them were different because they each focussed on different aspects of who they knew as Jesus.
The four gospel accounts were written to four separate audiences. Further, each gospel narrative answers a different question about Jesus Christ. Because the four gospels were written to different audiences and have differing purposes, we expect each of them to differ in detail, customs, and order. The fact that the gospel accounts differ slightly is not a sign of contradiction. If anything, the differences augment our understanding of the life and ministry of Jesus and, taken together as a whole, provide a remarkably clear portrait of Christ.
The Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel of Matthew was written for the Jews. It answers the question “What did Jesus say?” because it tends to present a portrait of Jesus as the promised Messiah-King of Israel. Being a former government official (i.e., a tax collector), Matthew was particularly interested in what Jesus had to say, which is why if you want to find the fullest account of the sayings of Jesus, such as the Sermon of the Mount, you will look to Matthew’s gospel. Also, because it was written primarily for the Jews at the time it was written, Matthew’s gospel typically reflects the Jewish reluctance to use the name of God in discourse. That’s why you read “the kingdom of heaven” in the accounts of the sayings of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel, instead of “the kingdom of God” in the parallel passages of the other writers. Matthew organized his book not in chronological order, but by themes.
The Gospel of Mark
The Gospel of Mark was written for the Romans. It answers the question “What did Jesus do?” Because it was written for the Romans, it concentrates on the power of Jesus. Romans understood power. They would not have understood or cared about Jewish genealogies, so Mark avoids them. And because his audience did not understand Jewish customs, Mark goes out of his way to augment his text with comments about various Jewish customs in order to educate his Roman readers who might be unacquainted with the Roman eastern frontier. Further, the Gospel of Mark is a very compact book. It would fit easily on one scroll and would be very inexpensive to copy. It would have made an excellent “popular” work that could easily have been distributed to the Greek-speaking Romans who occupied Palestine in the first century A.D.
The Gospel of Luke
The Gospel of Luke was written for the gentiles, the Greeks of Luke’s day. It answers the question “Who followed Jesus?” The Gospel of Luke and its companion work, the Book of Acts, were the result of a careful and personal “first hand” investigation of the events by Luke, the Beloved Physician. In it you will find marvelous details and the results of what clearly were personal interviews undertaken by Luke in the course of his research. For example, Luke alone records Mary’s feelings about the annunciation by Gabriel of the conception of Jesus, doubtlessly receiving this information from the personal memoirs of Mary, which he would have obtained by oral interview.
The Gospel of John
The Gospel of John was written for the believers. It answers the question “Who Is Jesus?” That’s why John’s gospel starts with the words “In the beginning”—just like Genesis 1:1. And lest the reader be confused about the real meaning of the term “the word” in John 1:1, we must remember that John was not a student of Greek philosophy. He could have cared less about Philo’s Greek concept of “logos.” He would only have cared about the Hebrew or Aramaic concepts of “HaDavar”—“the word” —which in Hebrew thinking was God. Because the Gospel of John deals with the question of who Jesus was, it is here that you must go to find statements such as “I am the bread of life” and “Before Abraham was, I am” and “I am the resurrection and the life.”
It is important to remember that the Bible is the Divinely Inspired Word of God. This does not mean that every word in the Bible was directly written by God or else there would be no difference in the story, nor would there be four versions. There would only be one version if God himself wrote the Bible, but through his Glory and Power (Holy Ghost), he inspired men to write their accounts and made sure that the TRUTH was told and their words conveyed the message he intended. These differences don’t disprove the story of Jesus’ Resurrection, but instead they support the case that different authors wrote the words, much like different witnesses would give slightly different versions of any event they saw. Frankly, there were many other witnesses and only these four versions of the story make it into the Bible as being inspired.
Here is a possible harmony of the narratives of the resurrection of Christ and His post-resurrection appearances, in chronological order:
Jesus is buried, as several women watch (Matthew 27:57-61; Mark 15:42-47; Luke 23:50-56; John 19:38-42).
The tomb is sealed and a guard is set (Matthew 27:62-66).
At least 3 women, including Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, prepare spices to go to the tomb (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:1).
An angel descends from heaven, rolls the stone away, and sits on it. There is an earthquake, and the guards faint (Matthew 28:2-4).
The women arrive at the tomb and find it empty. Mary Magdalene leaves the other women there and runs to tell the disciples (John 20:1-2).
The women still at the tomb see two angels who tell them that Jesus is risen and who instruct them to tell the disciples to go to Galilee (Matthew 28:5-7; Mark 16:2-8; Luke 24:1-8).
The women leave to bring the news to the disciples (Matthew 28:8).
The guards, having roused themselves, report the empty tomb to the authorities, who bribe the guards to say the body was stolen (Matthew 28:11-15).
Mary the mother of James and the other women, on their way to find the disciples, see Jesus (Matthew 28:9-10).
The women relate what they have seen and heard to the disciples (Luke 24:9-11).
Peter and John run to the tomb, see that it is empty, and find the grave clothes (Luke 24:12; John 20:2-10).
Mary Magdalene returns to the tomb. She sees the angels, and then she sees Jesus (John 20:11-18).
Later the same day, Jesus appears to Peter (Luke 24:34; 1 Corinthians 15:5).
Still on the same day, Jesus appears to Cleopas and another disciple on their way to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-32).
That evening, the two disciples report the event to the Eleven in Jerusalem (Luke 24:32-35).
Jesus appears to ten disciples—Thomas is missing (Luke 24:36-43; John 20:19-25).
Jesus appears to all eleven disciples—Thomas included (John 20:26-31).
Jesus appears to seven disciples by the Sea of Galilee (John 21:1-25).
Jesus appears to about 500 disciples in Galilee (1 Corinthians 15:6).
Jesus appears to His half-brother James (1 Corinthians 15:7).
Jesus commissions His disciples (Matthew 28:16-20).
Jesus teaches His disciples the Scriptures and promises to send the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:44-49; Acts 1:4-5).
Jesus ascends into heaven (Luke 24:50-53; Acts 1:6-12).
I trust that this will assist you in your research and enquiry.
May the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob bless and keep you and yours.
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There were different accounts from different viewpoints. The fact that there were small discrepancies in the minor details shows that these were true accounts, they weren’t altered or streamlined later.
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So true…… Amen!
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Michael, I completely agree with you 100%. We need to know what you believe. “Let God be true, and every human being a liar.” Romans 3:4 The Bible has completely changed my life. There is power in reading, believing and acting on it.
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