How many on here are saved?
If you are saved you will not be ashamed to admit it, If you are not you may get upset, if you are thinking about it, I will help if I can, if you have any questions or would just like to communicate.
61-69, F
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Silverwings · 61-69, F
"Was the Apostle Paul actually a false prophet?"
Answer: The theory that the apostle Paul was a false prophet and not a true follower of Christ is usually put forth by those of the Hebrew roots movement persuasion, among others. They believe Christians should submit to the Old Testament Law, but Paul clearly disagrees with them, proclaiming that Christians are no longer under the Mosaic Law (Romans 10:4; Galatians 3:23-25; Ephesians 2:15), but the Law of Christ (Galatians 6:2), which is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…and to love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39). Rather than submitting to God’s Word, the Hebrew roots movement simply dismisses Paul altogether and claims that Paul was a false apostle and that his writings should not be in the Bible.
But Paul’s apostolic authority has been well documented in Scripture, beginning with his dramatic Damascus Road experience which changed him from a Christ-hating persecutor of Christians to the foremost spokesman for the faith. His astonishing change of heart is one of the clearest indications of his anointing by the Lord Jesus Himself.
Tom Tarrants, once labeled “the most dangerous man in Mississippi,” was one of the top men on the FBI’s most wanted list. Tarrants was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and despised African-Americans and Jews, a people he fully believed were God’s enemies and involved in a communist plot against America. Tarrants was responsible for bombing some 30 synagogues, churches and homes. He was so dangerous that the FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover, sent a special team of FBI agents that were used to infiltrate the Russian KGB down into the American South to locate and apprehend Tarrants. They were successful and took Tarrants into custody after a violent shootout. Tarrants received a 30-year sentence in the Mississippi State Penitentiary.
While in prison, Tarrants one day asked for a Bible and began reading it. He got as far as Matthew 16 and was confronted with Jesus’ words: “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” He couldn’t escape the impact of Christ’s statement and got down on his knees in his cell and asked God to deliver him from his sinful life.
Word of Tarrant’s conversion soon began to spread throughout the prison and ultimately made it all the way back to Hoover, who strongly doubted the story. How could such a true change in such a hardened, evil person be validated?
About 2,000 years ago, another man had nearly the identical problem. When the apostle Paul first came to Jerusalem after his conversion to Christianity, he tried to associate with the disciples, but they were all afraid of him and didn’t believe he was a true convert (Acts 9:26) because of his past persecution of Christians. Today, some people feel the same way about Paul. Occasionally, a charge is made that Paul was a Pharisee who tried to corrupt the teachings of Christ and that his writings should have no place in the Bible. This accusation can be put to rest by examining his conversion experience and his adherence to Christ and His teachings.
Paul’s Persecution of Christianity
Paul first appears in Scripture as a witness to the martyrdom of Stephen: “When they had driven him [Stephen] out of the city, they began stoning him; and the witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul" (Acts 7:58). “Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him to death” (Acts 8:1). The words “hearty agreement” indicate active approval, not just passive consent. Why would Paul agree with the murder of Stephen?
Paul the Pharisee would have immediately recognized the statement Stephen made right before his death: “Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56). Stephen’s words repeat the claim Christ made at His trial before the high priest (Mark 14:62). Just as Jesus’ claim resulted in Him being accused of blasphemy, so also these words would bring a murderous response from Saul the Pharisee toward Stephen.
In addition, the term “Son of Man” is filled with significance. It is the last time the term is used in the New Testament and it is the only time in the Gospels and Acts when it is not spoken by Jesus. It shows that Jesus is the Messiah, and it speaks of Christ’s position in the end times as the coming King. It also combines two great Messianic passages: Daniel 7:13-14 and Psalm 110:1. Daniel 7:13-14 emphasizes the universal aspect of Jesus’ rule; that He is not simply a Jewish ruler, but also the Savior of the world. Psalm 110:1 presents the Messiah as being at God’s right hand. Besides stressing power and position, it also shows acceptance.
All these things would have infuriated Saul the Pharisee, who at the time did not possess the true knowledge of Christ. But it would not be long before Saul the Pharisee would become Paul the evangelist for Christ.
The Conversion of Paul
In the three versions of Paul’s conversion (Acts 9:1-9, 22:6-11, 26:9-20), there are repeated elements which appear to be central to his mission and commissioning. First, it marked his conversion to Christianity; second, it constituted his call to be a prophet; and third, it served as his commission to be an apostle. These three points may be broken down into the following, more intimate considerations: (1) Paul was specifically chosen, set aside, and prepared by the Lord for the work that he would do; (2) Paul was sent as a witness to not just the Jews, but the Gentiles as well; (3) Paul’s evangelistic mission would encounter rejection and require suffering; (4) Paul would bring light to people who were born into and currently lived in darkness; (5) Paul would preach repentance was required prior to a person’s acceptance into the Christian faith; (6) Paul’s witness would be grounded in space-time history and be based on his Damascus Road experience—what he had personally seen and heard in a real location that would be known to all who lived in Damascus.
Before Gamaliel’s pupil came to a proper assessment of the ministry entrusted to him by God and the death of Jesus, a revolution had to take place in his life and thought. Paul would later say that he was “apprehended” by Jesus (Philippians 3:12) on the road to Damascus, a term that means to make something one’s own or gain control of someone through pursuit. In Acts 9, we clearly see miracles on display in Paul’s conversion, the point of which were to make clear that God is in control and directing all the events, so that Paul will undertake certain tasks God has in mind, something the former Saul would never have had any intention of doing.
Although there are many observations that can be made about Paul’s Damascus Road conversion, there are two key items of interest. First is the fact that Paul’s life would become centered on Christ after his experience. After his encounter with Jesus, Paul’s understanding of the Messiah had been revolutionized, and it was not long before he is proclaiming, “He [Jesus] is the Son of God” (Acts 9:20).
Second, we note that in Paul’s conversion there are no positive antecedents or precursory events that led him from being a zealous opponent to a fervent proponent of Christ. One minute Paul had been an enemy of Jesus, and the next he had become a captive to the Christ he had once persecuted. Paul says, “By the grace of God, I am what I am” (1 Corinthians 15:10), indicating he was transformed by God, became truly spiritual, and he was one whom Christ possessed and was now a Christ-bearer himself.
After the Damascus experience, Paul first went to Arabia, but whether he actually began his missionary work there is unknown. What is more likely is that he earnestly desired a time of quiet recollection. Then after a short stay in Jerusalem, he worked as a missionary in Syria and Cilicia (that is for the most part in Antioch on the Orontes and in his native city of Tarsus) and after that in company with Barnabas in Cyprus, in Pamphylia, Pisidia, and Lycaonia.
The Love of Paul
Paul, the former cold aggressor and legalist, had now become a person who could write of the key attribute that witnessed above everything else in 1 Corinthians 13 – love for God and those around him. The one who was supremely educated in knowledge had come to the point of saying that knowledge devoid of love only makes one arrogant, but love edifies (1 Corinthians 8:1).
The book of Acts and Paul’s letters testify to a tenderness that had come over the apostle for both the unbelieving world and those inside the Church. As to the latter, in his farewell address to the Ephesian believers in Acts 20, he tells them that “night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears” (Acts 20:31). He tells the Galatian believers they are his “little children” (Galatians 4:19). He reminds the Corinthians that whenever they experience pain, he is wounded as well (2 Corinthians 11:29). He speaks of believers in Philippi as “having them in his heart” (Philippians 1:7). He tells the Thessalonian church that he “abounds” in love for them (1 Thessalonians 3:12) and demonstrated that fact by living among them and helping build up a Christian community (cf. 1 Thessalonians 1–2). Repeatedly throughout his writings, Paul reminds his believing readers of his care and love for them.
Paul’s attitude toward unbelievers is one of caring and deep concern as well, with perhaps the clearest example of this being his articulation in the letter to the Romans of the sorrow he felt for his fellow Israelites who had not come to faith in Christ: "I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh” (Romans 9:1-3).
This type of angst exhibited by Paul for unbelievers was also not restricted to his own nationality, but extended to non-Jews as well. As just one example, when he entered Athens, the text in Acts 17:16 makes clear that Paul was both repulsed and “greatly distressed” over the idolatrous situation the city was in. Yet he deeply cared about God’s rightful place as well as the people who were involved in false worship, and he immediately went about trying to engage the pagan unbelievers in discourse about the gospel which had been entrusted to him (Acts 17:17-34). And at the heart of his message was Jesus.
Paul on Jesus
Some try to argue that the picture Paul paints of Jesus in his Epistles does not match the Christ portrayed in the Gospels. Such a position could not be further from the truth. From Paul’s letters, we learn the following of Jesus:
• He had Jewish ancestry
• He was of Davidic descent
• He was born of a virgin
• He lived under the law
• He had brothers
• He had 12 disciples
• He had a brother named James
• He lived in poverty
• He was humble and meek
• He was abused by the Romans
• He was deity
• He taught on the subject of marriage
• He said to love one’s neighbor
• He spoke of His second coming
• He instituted the Lord’s Supper
• He lived a sinless life
• He died on the cross
• The Jews put Him to death
• He was buried
• He was resurrected
• He is now seated at right hand of God
Beyond these facts is Paul’s testimony that he left everything to follow Christ (the true test of a disciple as outlined by Jesus in Luke 14:26-33). Paul writes, “But whatever things [his Jewish background and benefits that he had just listed] were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead" (Philippians 3:7–11).
Paul’s Enemies
Paul’s teachings and proclamation of Jesus were not popular. If the success of an evangelistic mission were to be measured by the amount of opposition, his mission would be regarded as a catastrophic failure. This would be in keeping with Christ’s statement made to Ananias: "For I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake" (Acts 9:16). The book of Acts alone chronicles more than 20 different episodes of rejection and opposition to Paul’s message of salvation. We should also take seriously the litany of opposition and rejection that Paul lays out in 2 Corinthians 11:23-27. In truth, such hostility and dismissal is to be expected, given his audience. A crucified deliverer was to the Greeks an absurd contradiction in terms, just as to Jews a crucified Messiah was a piece of scandalous blasphemy.
Paul’s enemies comprised a trinity. First, there were the spiritual enemies indicated in his writings that he was acutely aware of (e.g. 1 Thessalonians 2:18). Next, there were his already mentioned initial target audience of both Jews and Gentiles, many of whom would mistreat and dismiss him. Lastly came the one that, it could be argued, perhaps caused him the most grief—the early Church itself.
The fact that Paul was seen as strange and questionable, not merely by fellow Jews but also by a number of fellow Jewish Christians, was no doubt hurtful to him. It would be one thing for Paul’s authority and authenticity to be challenged outside the Body of Christ, but inside was a different foe with which he had to wrestle. First Corinthians 9:1-3 is an example: Paul insists to the Church that he was commissioned by Christ (others include Romans 1:5; 1 Corinthians 1:1-2; 2 Corinthians 1:1; Galatians 1:1). Some even believe that 2 Corinthians 11:26 suggests that there was a plot to murder Paul; a plot formed by other Christians.
Such combined opposition—lost humanity, spiritual adversaries, and distrusting brethren—certainly must have caused the apostle to despair at times, with evidence in his writings that he carried out his missionary work with the prospect of martyrdom before his eyes (Philippians 2:17), which ultimately turned out to be true. Paul was beheaded, tradition asserts, under the persecution of Nero near the third milestone on the Ostian Way. Constantine built a small basilica in Paul’s honor by AD 324, which was discovered in 1835 during excavations preceding the erection of the present basilica. On one of the floors was found the inscription PAVLO APOSTOLO MART – “To Paul, apostle and martyr”.
Concluding Thoughts About Paul
So was Paul for real? The evidence from history and from his own writings declares that he was. Paul’s 180 degree turnaround from his Pharisaic life is not disputed by any learned scholar of history, both secular and Christian. The only question is: what caused his about-face? What would cause a very learned Jewish Pharisee to suddenly embrace the very movement he violently opposed and be so committed to it that he would die a martyr’s death?
The answer is contained within Paul’s writings and the book of Acts. In Galatians Paul summarizes his story in this way:
“For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it; and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions. But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus. Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and stayed with him fifteen days. But I did not see any other of the apostles except James, the Lord’s brother. (Now in what I am writing to you, I assure you before God that I am not lying.) Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea which were in Christ; but only, they kept hearing, ‘He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy.’ And they were glorifying God because of me" (Galatians 1:13–24).
Paul’s very life testifies to the truthfulness of what happened to him. In that respect, he was very much like Tom Tarrants. A dramatically changed life is hard to argue with. And what finally happened to Tom Tarrants? J. Edgar Hoover wouldn’t believe that Tarrants had actually become a Christian so he sent an FBI agent into the prison disguised as an inmate whose job it was to befriend Tarrants and find out the truth. About a week later, that FBI agent became a Christian and reported back to Hoover that Tarrants indeed was no longer the man he used to be.
A number of people petitioned that Tarrants be released, and eight years into his sentence, Tarrants was paroled and left prison. He went to seminary, earned a doctorate of ministry degree, and went on to serve as president of the C. S. Lewis Institute for 12 years. Currently, he serves as the Institute’s director of ministry.
“You will know them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:16) and the fruits of the apostle Paul leave no doubt that he was very real indeed.
Recommended Resources: Paul: A Man of Grace and Grit by Charles Swindoll and Logos Bible Software.
Got Questions.org
Answer: The theory that the apostle Paul was a false prophet and not a true follower of Christ is usually put forth by those of the Hebrew roots movement persuasion, among others. They believe Christians should submit to the Old Testament Law, but Paul clearly disagrees with them, proclaiming that Christians are no longer under the Mosaic Law (Romans 10:4; Galatians 3:23-25; Ephesians 2:15), but the Law of Christ (Galatians 6:2), which is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…and to love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39). Rather than submitting to God’s Word, the Hebrew roots movement simply dismisses Paul altogether and claims that Paul was a false apostle and that his writings should not be in the Bible.
But Paul’s apostolic authority has been well documented in Scripture, beginning with his dramatic Damascus Road experience which changed him from a Christ-hating persecutor of Christians to the foremost spokesman for the faith. His astonishing change of heart is one of the clearest indications of his anointing by the Lord Jesus Himself.
Tom Tarrants, once labeled “the most dangerous man in Mississippi,” was one of the top men on the FBI’s most wanted list. Tarrants was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and despised African-Americans and Jews, a people he fully believed were God’s enemies and involved in a communist plot against America. Tarrants was responsible for bombing some 30 synagogues, churches and homes. He was so dangerous that the FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover, sent a special team of FBI agents that were used to infiltrate the Russian KGB down into the American South to locate and apprehend Tarrants. They were successful and took Tarrants into custody after a violent shootout. Tarrants received a 30-year sentence in the Mississippi State Penitentiary.
While in prison, Tarrants one day asked for a Bible and began reading it. He got as far as Matthew 16 and was confronted with Jesus’ words: “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” He couldn’t escape the impact of Christ’s statement and got down on his knees in his cell and asked God to deliver him from his sinful life.
Word of Tarrant’s conversion soon began to spread throughout the prison and ultimately made it all the way back to Hoover, who strongly doubted the story. How could such a true change in such a hardened, evil person be validated?
About 2,000 years ago, another man had nearly the identical problem. When the apostle Paul first came to Jerusalem after his conversion to Christianity, he tried to associate with the disciples, but they were all afraid of him and didn’t believe he was a true convert (Acts 9:26) because of his past persecution of Christians. Today, some people feel the same way about Paul. Occasionally, a charge is made that Paul was a Pharisee who tried to corrupt the teachings of Christ and that his writings should have no place in the Bible. This accusation can be put to rest by examining his conversion experience and his adherence to Christ and His teachings.
Paul’s Persecution of Christianity
Paul first appears in Scripture as a witness to the martyrdom of Stephen: “When they had driven him [Stephen] out of the city, they began stoning him; and the witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul" (Acts 7:58). “Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him to death” (Acts 8:1). The words “hearty agreement” indicate active approval, not just passive consent. Why would Paul agree with the murder of Stephen?
Paul the Pharisee would have immediately recognized the statement Stephen made right before his death: “Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56). Stephen’s words repeat the claim Christ made at His trial before the high priest (Mark 14:62). Just as Jesus’ claim resulted in Him being accused of blasphemy, so also these words would bring a murderous response from Saul the Pharisee toward Stephen.
In addition, the term “Son of Man” is filled with significance. It is the last time the term is used in the New Testament and it is the only time in the Gospels and Acts when it is not spoken by Jesus. It shows that Jesus is the Messiah, and it speaks of Christ’s position in the end times as the coming King. It also combines two great Messianic passages: Daniel 7:13-14 and Psalm 110:1. Daniel 7:13-14 emphasizes the universal aspect of Jesus’ rule; that He is not simply a Jewish ruler, but also the Savior of the world. Psalm 110:1 presents the Messiah as being at God’s right hand. Besides stressing power and position, it also shows acceptance.
All these things would have infuriated Saul the Pharisee, who at the time did not possess the true knowledge of Christ. But it would not be long before Saul the Pharisee would become Paul the evangelist for Christ.
The Conversion of Paul
In the three versions of Paul’s conversion (Acts 9:1-9, 22:6-11, 26:9-20), there are repeated elements which appear to be central to his mission and commissioning. First, it marked his conversion to Christianity; second, it constituted his call to be a prophet; and third, it served as his commission to be an apostle. These three points may be broken down into the following, more intimate considerations: (1) Paul was specifically chosen, set aside, and prepared by the Lord for the work that he would do; (2) Paul was sent as a witness to not just the Jews, but the Gentiles as well; (3) Paul’s evangelistic mission would encounter rejection and require suffering; (4) Paul would bring light to people who were born into and currently lived in darkness; (5) Paul would preach repentance was required prior to a person’s acceptance into the Christian faith; (6) Paul’s witness would be grounded in space-time history and be based on his Damascus Road experience—what he had personally seen and heard in a real location that would be known to all who lived in Damascus.
Before Gamaliel’s pupil came to a proper assessment of the ministry entrusted to him by God and the death of Jesus, a revolution had to take place in his life and thought. Paul would later say that he was “apprehended” by Jesus (Philippians 3:12) on the road to Damascus, a term that means to make something one’s own or gain control of someone through pursuit. In Acts 9, we clearly see miracles on display in Paul’s conversion, the point of which were to make clear that God is in control and directing all the events, so that Paul will undertake certain tasks God has in mind, something the former Saul would never have had any intention of doing.
Although there are many observations that can be made about Paul’s Damascus Road conversion, there are two key items of interest. First is the fact that Paul’s life would become centered on Christ after his experience. After his encounter with Jesus, Paul’s understanding of the Messiah had been revolutionized, and it was not long before he is proclaiming, “He [Jesus] is the Son of God” (Acts 9:20).
Second, we note that in Paul’s conversion there are no positive antecedents or precursory events that led him from being a zealous opponent to a fervent proponent of Christ. One minute Paul had been an enemy of Jesus, and the next he had become a captive to the Christ he had once persecuted. Paul says, “By the grace of God, I am what I am” (1 Corinthians 15:10), indicating he was transformed by God, became truly spiritual, and he was one whom Christ possessed and was now a Christ-bearer himself.
After the Damascus experience, Paul first went to Arabia, but whether he actually began his missionary work there is unknown. What is more likely is that he earnestly desired a time of quiet recollection. Then after a short stay in Jerusalem, he worked as a missionary in Syria and Cilicia (that is for the most part in Antioch on the Orontes and in his native city of Tarsus) and after that in company with Barnabas in Cyprus, in Pamphylia, Pisidia, and Lycaonia.
The Love of Paul
Paul, the former cold aggressor and legalist, had now become a person who could write of the key attribute that witnessed above everything else in 1 Corinthians 13 – love for God and those around him. The one who was supremely educated in knowledge had come to the point of saying that knowledge devoid of love only makes one arrogant, but love edifies (1 Corinthians 8:1).
The book of Acts and Paul’s letters testify to a tenderness that had come over the apostle for both the unbelieving world and those inside the Church. As to the latter, in his farewell address to the Ephesian believers in Acts 20, he tells them that “night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears” (Acts 20:31). He tells the Galatian believers they are his “little children” (Galatians 4:19). He reminds the Corinthians that whenever they experience pain, he is wounded as well (2 Corinthians 11:29). He speaks of believers in Philippi as “having them in his heart” (Philippians 1:7). He tells the Thessalonian church that he “abounds” in love for them (1 Thessalonians 3:12) and demonstrated that fact by living among them and helping build up a Christian community (cf. 1 Thessalonians 1–2). Repeatedly throughout his writings, Paul reminds his believing readers of his care and love for them.
Paul’s attitude toward unbelievers is one of caring and deep concern as well, with perhaps the clearest example of this being his articulation in the letter to the Romans of the sorrow he felt for his fellow Israelites who had not come to faith in Christ: "I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh” (Romans 9:1-3).
This type of angst exhibited by Paul for unbelievers was also not restricted to his own nationality, but extended to non-Jews as well. As just one example, when he entered Athens, the text in Acts 17:16 makes clear that Paul was both repulsed and “greatly distressed” over the idolatrous situation the city was in. Yet he deeply cared about God’s rightful place as well as the people who were involved in false worship, and he immediately went about trying to engage the pagan unbelievers in discourse about the gospel which had been entrusted to him (Acts 17:17-34). And at the heart of his message was Jesus.
Paul on Jesus
Some try to argue that the picture Paul paints of Jesus in his Epistles does not match the Christ portrayed in the Gospels. Such a position could not be further from the truth. From Paul’s letters, we learn the following of Jesus:
• He had Jewish ancestry
• He was of Davidic descent
• He was born of a virgin
• He lived under the law
• He had brothers
• He had 12 disciples
• He had a brother named James
• He lived in poverty
• He was humble and meek
• He was abused by the Romans
• He was deity
• He taught on the subject of marriage
• He said to love one’s neighbor
• He spoke of His second coming
• He instituted the Lord’s Supper
• He lived a sinless life
• He died on the cross
• The Jews put Him to death
• He was buried
• He was resurrected
• He is now seated at right hand of God
Beyond these facts is Paul’s testimony that he left everything to follow Christ (the true test of a disciple as outlined by Jesus in Luke 14:26-33). Paul writes, “But whatever things [his Jewish background and benefits that he had just listed] were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead" (Philippians 3:7–11).
Paul’s Enemies
Paul’s teachings and proclamation of Jesus were not popular. If the success of an evangelistic mission were to be measured by the amount of opposition, his mission would be regarded as a catastrophic failure. This would be in keeping with Christ’s statement made to Ananias: "For I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake" (Acts 9:16). The book of Acts alone chronicles more than 20 different episodes of rejection and opposition to Paul’s message of salvation. We should also take seriously the litany of opposition and rejection that Paul lays out in 2 Corinthians 11:23-27. In truth, such hostility and dismissal is to be expected, given his audience. A crucified deliverer was to the Greeks an absurd contradiction in terms, just as to Jews a crucified Messiah was a piece of scandalous blasphemy.
Paul’s enemies comprised a trinity. First, there were the spiritual enemies indicated in his writings that he was acutely aware of (e.g. 1 Thessalonians 2:18). Next, there were his already mentioned initial target audience of both Jews and Gentiles, many of whom would mistreat and dismiss him. Lastly came the one that, it could be argued, perhaps caused him the most grief—the early Church itself.
The fact that Paul was seen as strange and questionable, not merely by fellow Jews but also by a number of fellow Jewish Christians, was no doubt hurtful to him. It would be one thing for Paul’s authority and authenticity to be challenged outside the Body of Christ, but inside was a different foe with which he had to wrestle. First Corinthians 9:1-3 is an example: Paul insists to the Church that he was commissioned by Christ (others include Romans 1:5; 1 Corinthians 1:1-2; 2 Corinthians 1:1; Galatians 1:1). Some even believe that 2 Corinthians 11:26 suggests that there was a plot to murder Paul; a plot formed by other Christians.
Such combined opposition—lost humanity, spiritual adversaries, and distrusting brethren—certainly must have caused the apostle to despair at times, with evidence in his writings that he carried out his missionary work with the prospect of martyrdom before his eyes (Philippians 2:17), which ultimately turned out to be true. Paul was beheaded, tradition asserts, under the persecution of Nero near the third milestone on the Ostian Way. Constantine built a small basilica in Paul’s honor by AD 324, which was discovered in 1835 during excavations preceding the erection of the present basilica. On one of the floors was found the inscription PAVLO APOSTOLO MART – “To Paul, apostle and martyr”.
Concluding Thoughts About Paul
So was Paul for real? The evidence from history and from his own writings declares that he was. Paul’s 180 degree turnaround from his Pharisaic life is not disputed by any learned scholar of history, both secular and Christian. The only question is: what caused his about-face? What would cause a very learned Jewish Pharisee to suddenly embrace the very movement he violently opposed and be so committed to it that he would die a martyr’s death?
The answer is contained within Paul’s writings and the book of Acts. In Galatians Paul summarizes his story in this way:
“For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it; and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions. But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus. Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and stayed with him fifteen days. But I did not see any other of the apostles except James, the Lord’s brother. (Now in what I am writing to you, I assure you before God that I am not lying.) Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea which were in Christ; but only, they kept hearing, ‘He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy.’ And they were glorifying God because of me" (Galatians 1:13–24).
Paul’s very life testifies to the truthfulness of what happened to him. In that respect, he was very much like Tom Tarrants. A dramatically changed life is hard to argue with. And what finally happened to Tom Tarrants? J. Edgar Hoover wouldn’t believe that Tarrants had actually become a Christian so he sent an FBI agent into the prison disguised as an inmate whose job it was to befriend Tarrants and find out the truth. About a week later, that FBI agent became a Christian and reported back to Hoover that Tarrants indeed was no longer the man he used to be.
A number of people petitioned that Tarrants be released, and eight years into his sentence, Tarrants was paroled and left prison. He went to seminary, earned a doctorate of ministry degree, and went on to serve as president of the C. S. Lewis Institute for 12 years. Currently, he serves as the Institute’s director of ministry.
“You will know them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:16) and the fruits of the apostle Paul leave no doubt that he was very real indeed.
Recommended Resources: Paul: A Man of Grace and Grit by Charles Swindoll and Logos Bible Software.
Got Questions.org
Silverwings · 61-69, F
The trustworthiness of Scripture is essential to a well-grounded Christian worldview, since it provides a foundation for authority that transcends the limitations of human reason and experience.
How can you base your life on a book that's so full of contradictions and errors? Historians and scientists have long since proven that the Bible is inaccurate and unreliable.
Many people are of the opinion that the teachings of the Bible are outdated, contradictory, and full of scientific and historical errors. With few exceptions, they have reached these conclusions through second- and third-hand sources rather than their own study of the Bible.
Consider the following statements:
The Bible says that God helps those who help themselves.
The books of the New Testament were written centuries after the events they describe.
Cleanliness is next to godliness is in the Bible.
According to the Bible, the earth is flat.
The earliest New Testament manuscripts go back only to the fourth or fifth centuries A.D.
The Bible teaches that the earth is the center of the universe.
The English Bible is a translation of a translation of a translation (etc.) of the original, and fresh errors were introduced in each stage of the process.
How many of these statements do you think are true? The answer is that all of them are false. Yet these false impressions persist in the minds of many, and misinformation like this produces a skeptical attitude toward the Bible.
In this booklet, we will consider a number of objections to the accuracy and reliability of the Bible to help you make a more informed decision as to whether or not it is authoritative.
How can you be sure that the Bible is the same now as when it was written? The Bible has been copied and translated so many times! Haven't you ever played the game where people sit in a circle and pass a sentence from one person to the next until it comes back around in a completely distorted version? If that could happen in a room in just a few minutes, think of all the errors and changes that must have filled the Bible in the centuries since it was first written!
There are three lines of evidence that support the claim that the biblical documents are reliable: these are the bibliographic test, the internal test, and the external test. The first test examines the biblical manuscripts, the second test deals with the claims made by the biblical authors, and the third test looks to outside confirmation of the biblical content.
I. The Bibliographic Test
A. THE QUANTITY OF MANUSCRIPTS
In the case of the Old Testament, there are a small number of Hebrew manuscripts, because the Jewish scribes ceremonially buried imperfect and worn manuscripts. Many ancient manuscripts were also lost or destroyed during Israel's turbulent history. Also, the Old Testament text was standardized by the Masoretic Jews by the sixth century A.D., and all manuscripts that deviated from the Masoretic Text were evidently eliminated. But the existing Hebrew manuscripts are supplemented by the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Septuagint (a third-century B.C. Greek translation of the Old Testament), the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Targums (ancient paraphrases of the Old Testament), as well as the Talmud (teachings and commentaries related to the Hebrew Scriptures).
The quantity of New Testament manuscripts is unparalleled in ancient literature. There are over 5,000 Greek manuscripts, about 8,000 Latin manuscripts, and another 1,000 manuscripts in other languages (Syriac, Coptic, etc.). In addition to this extraordinary number, there are tens of thousands of citations of New Testament passages by the early church fathers. In contrast, the typical number of existing manuscript copies for any of the works of the Greek and Latin authors, such as Plato, Aristotle, Caesar, or Tacitus, ranges from one to 20.
B. THE QUALITY OF MANUSCRIPTS
Because of the great reverence the Jewish scribes held toward the Scriptures, they exercised extreme care in making new copies of the Hebrew Bible. The entire scribal process was specified in meticulous detail to minimize the possibility of even the slightest error. The number of letters, words, and lines were counted, and the middle letters of the Pentateuch and the Old Testament were determined. If a single mistake was discovered, the entire manuscript would be destroyed.
As a result of this extreme care, the quality of the manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible surpasses all other ancient manuscripts. The 1947 discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls provided a significant check on this, because these Hebrew scrolls antedate the earliest Masoretic Old Testament manuscripts by about 1,000 years. But in spite of this time span, the number of variant readings between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic Text is quite small, and most of these are variations in spelling and style.
While the quality of the Old Testament manuscripts is excellent, that of the New Testament is very good--considerably better than the manuscript quality of other ancient documents. Because of the thousands of New Testament manuscripts, there are many variant readings, but these variants are actually used by scholars to reconstruct the original readings by determining which variant best explains the others in any given passage. Some of these variant readings crept into the manuscripts because of visual errors in copying or because of auditory errors when a group of scribes copied manuscripts that were read aloud. Other errors resulted from faulty writing, memory, and judgment, and still others from well-meaning scribes who thought they were correcting the text. Nevertheless, only a small number of these differences affect the sense of the passages, and only a fraction of these have any real consequences. Furthermore, no variant readings are significant enough to call into question any of the doctrines of the New Testament. The New Testament can be regarded as 99.5 percent pure, and the correct readings for the remaining 0.5 percent can often be ascertained with a fair degree of probability by the practice of textual criticism.
C. THE TIME SPAN OF MANUSCRIPTS
Apart from some fragments, the earliest Masoretic manuscript of the Old Testament is dated at A.D. 895. This is due to the systematic destruction of worn manuscripts by the Masoretic scribes. However, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls dating from 200 B.C. to A.D. 68 drastically reduced the time span from the writing of the Old Testament books to our earliest copies of them.
The time span of the New Testament manuscripts is exceptional. The manuscripts written on papyrus came from the second and third centuries A.D. The John Rylands Fragment (P52) of the Gospel of John is dated at A.D. 117-38, only a few decades after the Gospel was written. The Bodmer Papyri are dated from A.D. 175-225, and the Chester Beatty Papyri date from about A.D. 250. The time span for most of the New Testament is less than 200 years (and some books are within 100 years) from the date of authorship to the date of our earliest manuscripts. This can be sharply contrasted with the average gap of over 1,000 years between the composition and the earliest copy of the writings of other ancient authors.
To summarize the bibliographic test, the Old and New Testaments enjoy far greater manuscript attestation in terms of quantity, quality, and time span than any other ancient documents.
II. The Internal Test
The second test of the reliability of the biblical documents asks, What claims does the Bible make about itself? This may appear to be circular reasoning. It sounds like we are using the testimony of the Bible to prove that the Bible is true. But we are really examining the truth claims of the various authors of the Bible and allowing them to speak for themselves. (Remember that the Bible is not one book but many books woven together.) This provides significant evidence that must not be ignored.
A number of biblical authors claim that their accounts are primary, not secondary. That is, the bulk of the Bible was written by people who were eyewitnesses of the events they recorded. John wrote in his Gospel, And he who has seen has borne witness, and his witness is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe (John 19:35; see 21:24). In his first epistle, John wrote, What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled concerning the Word of life . . . what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also (1 John 1:1, 3). Peter makes the same point abundantly clear: For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty (2 Peter 1:16; also see Acts 2:22; 1 Peter 5:1).
The independent eyewitness accounts in the New Testament of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ were written by people who were intimately acquainted with Jesus Christ. Their gospels and epistles reveal their integrity and complete commitment to the truth, and they maintained their testimony even through persecution and martyrdom. All the evidence inside and outside the New Testament runs contrary to the claim made by form criticism that the early church distorted the life and teachings of Christ. Most of the New Testament was written between A.D. 47 and 70, and all of it was complete before the end of the first century. There simply was not enough time for myths about Christ to be created and propagated. And the multitudes of eyewitnesses who were alive when the New Testament books began to be circulated would have challenged blatant historical fabrications about the life of Christ. The Bible places great stress on accurate historical details, and this is especially obvious in the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, Luke's two-part masterpiece (see his prologue in Luke 1:1-4).
III. The External Test
Because the Scriptures continually refer to historical events, they are verifiable; their accuracy can be checked by external evidence. The chronological details in the prologue to Jeremiah (1:1-3) and in Luke 3:1-2 illustrate this. Ezekiel 1:2 allows us to date Ezekiel's first vision of God to the day (July 31, 592 B.C.).
The historicity of Jesus Christ is well-established by early Roman, Greek, and Jewish sources, and these extrabiblical writings affirm the major details of the New Testament portrait of the Lord. The first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus made specific references to John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, and James in his Antiquities of the Jews. In this work, Josephus gives us many background details about the Herods, the Sadducees and Pharisees, the high priests like Annas and Caiaphas, and the Roman emperors mentioned in the gospels and Acts.
We find another early secular reference to Jesus in a letter written a little after A.D. 73 by an imprisoned Syrian named Mara Bar-Serapion. This letter to his son compares the deaths of Socrates, Pythagoras, and Christ. Other first- and second-century writers who mention Christ include the Roman historians Cornelius Tacitus (Annals) and Suetonius (Life of Claudius, Lives of the Caesars), the Roman governor Pliny the Younger (Epistles), and the Greek satirist Lucian (On the Death of Peregrine). Jesus is also mentioned a number of times in the Jewish Talmud.
The Old and New Testaments make abundant references to nations, kings, battles, cities, mountains, rivers, buildings, treaties, customs, economics, politics, dates, etc. Because the historical narratives of the Bible are so specific, many of its details are open to archaeological investigation. While we cannot say that archaeology proves the authority of the Bible, it is fair to say that archaeological evidence has provided external confirmation of hundreds of biblical statements. Higher criticism in the 19th century made many damaging claims that would completely overthrow the integrity of the Bible, but the explosion of archaeological knowledge in the 20th century reversed almost all of these claims. Noted archaeologists such as William F. Albright, Nelson Glueck, and G. Ernest Wright developed a great respect for the historical accuracy of the Scriptures as a result of their work.
Out of the multitude of archaeological discoveries related to the Bible, consider a few examples to illustrate the remarkable external substantiation of biblical claims. Excavations at Nuzi (1925-41), Mari (discovered in 1933), and Alalakh (1937-39; 1946-49) provide helpful background information that fits well with the Genesis stories of the patriarchal period. The Nuzi tablets and Mari letters illustrate the patriarchal customs in great detail, and the Ras Shamra tablets discovered in ancient Ugarit in Syria shed much light on Hebrew prose and poetry and Canaanite culture. The Ebla tablets discovered recently in northern Syria also affirm the antiquity and accuracy of the Book of Genesis.
Some scholars once claimed that the Mosaic Law could not have been written by Moses, because writing was largely unknown at that time and because the law code of the Pentateuch was too sophisticated for that period. But the codified Laws of Hammurabi (ca. 1700 B.C.), the Lipit-Ishtar code (ca. 1860 B.C.), the Laws of Eshnunna (ca. 1950 B.C.), and the even earlier Ur-Nammu code have refuted these claims.
Related Topics: Bibliology (The Written Word), Apologetics
How can you base your life on a book that's so full of contradictions and errors? Historians and scientists have long since proven that the Bible is inaccurate and unreliable.
Many people are of the opinion that the teachings of the Bible are outdated, contradictory, and full of scientific and historical errors. With few exceptions, they have reached these conclusions through second- and third-hand sources rather than their own study of the Bible.
Consider the following statements:
The Bible says that God helps those who help themselves.
The books of the New Testament were written centuries after the events they describe.
Cleanliness is next to godliness is in the Bible.
According to the Bible, the earth is flat.
The earliest New Testament manuscripts go back only to the fourth or fifth centuries A.D.
The Bible teaches that the earth is the center of the universe.
The English Bible is a translation of a translation of a translation (etc.) of the original, and fresh errors were introduced in each stage of the process.
How many of these statements do you think are true? The answer is that all of them are false. Yet these false impressions persist in the minds of many, and misinformation like this produces a skeptical attitude toward the Bible.
In this booklet, we will consider a number of objections to the accuracy and reliability of the Bible to help you make a more informed decision as to whether or not it is authoritative.
How can you be sure that the Bible is the same now as when it was written? The Bible has been copied and translated so many times! Haven't you ever played the game where people sit in a circle and pass a sentence from one person to the next until it comes back around in a completely distorted version? If that could happen in a room in just a few minutes, think of all the errors and changes that must have filled the Bible in the centuries since it was first written!
There are three lines of evidence that support the claim that the biblical documents are reliable: these are the bibliographic test, the internal test, and the external test. The first test examines the biblical manuscripts, the second test deals with the claims made by the biblical authors, and the third test looks to outside confirmation of the biblical content.
I. The Bibliographic Test
A. THE QUANTITY OF MANUSCRIPTS
In the case of the Old Testament, there are a small number of Hebrew manuscripts, because the Jewish scribes ceremonially buried imperfect and worn manuscripts. Many ancient manuscripts were also lost or destroyed during Israel's turbulent history. Also, the Old Testament text was standardized by the Masoretic Jews by the sixth century A.D., and all manuscripts that deviated from the Masoretic Text were evidently eliminated. But the existing Hebrew manuscripts are supplemented by the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Septuagint (a third-century B.C. Greek translation of the Old Testament), the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Targums (ancient paraphrases of the Old Testament), as well as the Talmud (teachings and commentaries related to the Hebrew Scriptures).
The quantity of New Testament manuscripts is unparalleled in ancient literature. There are over 5,000 Greek manuscripts, about 8,000 Latin manuscripts, and another 1,000 manuscripts in other languages (Syriac, Coptic, etc.). In addition to this extraordinary number, there are tens of thousands of citations of New Testament passages by the early church fathers. In contrast, the typical number of existing manuscript copies for any of the works of the Greek and Latin authors, such as Plato, Aristotle, Caesar, or Tacitus, ranges from one to 20.
B. THE QUALITY OF MANUSCRIPTS
Because of the great reverence the Jewish scribes held toward the Scriptures, they exercised extreme care in making new copies of the Hebrew Bible. The entire scribal process was specified in meticulous detail to minimize the possibility of even the slightest error. The number of letters, words, and lines were counted, and the middle letters of the Pentateuch and the Old Testament were determined. If a single mistake was discovered, the entire manuscript would be destroyed.
As a result of this extreme care, the quality of the manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible surpasses all other ancient manuscripts. The 1947 discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls provided a significant check on this, because these Hebrew scrolls antedate the earliest Masoretic Old Testament manuscripts by about 1,000 years. But in spite of this time span, the number of variant readings between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic Text is quite small, and most of these are variations in spelling and style.
While the quality of the Old Testament manuscripts is excellent, that of the New Testament is very good--considerably better than the manuscript quality of other ancient documents. Because of the thousands of New Testament manuscripts, there are many variant readings, but these variants are actually used by scholars to reconstruct the original readings by determining which variant best explains the others in any given passage. Some of these variant readings crept into the manuscripts because of visual errors in copying or because of auditory errors when a group of scribes copied manuscripts that were read aloud. Other errors resulted from faulty writing, memory, and judgment, and still others from well-meaning scribes who thought they were correcting the text. Nevertheless, only a small number of these differences affect the sense of the passages, and only a fraction of these have any real consequences. Furthermore, no variant readings are significant enough to call into question any of the doctrines of the New Testament. The New Testament can be regarded as 99.5 percent pure, and the correct readings for the remaining 0.5 percent can often be ascertained with a fair degree of probability by the practice of textual criticism.
C. THE TIME SPAN OF MANUSCRIPTS
Apart from some fragments, the earliest Masoretic manuscript of the Old Testament is dated at A.D. 895. This is due to the systematic destruction of worn manuscripts by the Masoretic scribes. However, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls dating from 200 B.C. to A.D. 68 drastically reduced the time span from the writing of the Old Testament books to our earliest copies of them.
The time span of the New Testament manuscripts is exceptional. The manuscripts written on papyrus came from the second and third centuries A.D. The John Rylands Fragment (P52) of the Gospel of John is dated at A.D. 117-38, only a few decades after the Gospel was written. The Bodmer Papyri are dated from A.D. 175-225, and the Chester Beatty Papyri date from about A.D. 250. The time span for most of the New Testament is less than 200 years (and some books are within 100 years) from the date of authorship to the date of our earliest manuscripts. This can be sharply contrasted with the average gap of over 1,000 years between the composition and the earliest copy of the writings of other ancient authors.
To summarize the bibliographic test, the Old and New Testaments enjoy far greater manuscript attestation in terms of quantity, quality, and time span than any other ancient documents.
II. The Internal Test
The second test of the reliability of the biblical documents asks, What claims does the Bible make about itself? This may appear to be circular reasoning. It sounds like we are using the testimony of the Bible to prove that the Bible is true. But we are really examining the truth claims of the various authors of the Bible and allowing them to speak for themselves. (Remember that the Bible is not one book but many books woven together.) This provides significant evidence that must not be ignored.
A number of biblical authors claim that their accounts are primary, not secondary. That is, the bulk of the Bible was written by people who were eyewitnesses of the events they recorded. John wrote in his Gospel, And he who has seen has borne witness, and his witness is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe (John 19:35; see 21:24). In his first epistle, John wrote, What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled concerning the Word of life . . . what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also (1 John 1:1, 3). Peter makes the same point abundantly clear: For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty (2 Peter 1:16; also see Acts 2:22; 1 Peter 5:1).
The independent eyewitness accounts in the New Testament of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ were written by people who were intimately acquainted with Jesus Christ. Their gospels and epistles reveal their integrity and complete commitment to the truth, and they maintained their testimony even through persecution and martyrdom. All the evidence inside and outside the New Testament runs contrary to the claim made by form criticism that the early church distorted the life and teachings of Christ. Most of the New Testament was written between A.D. 47 and 70, and all of it was complete before the end of the first century. There simply was not enough time for myths about Christ to be created and propagated. And the multitudes of eyewitnesses who were alive when the New Testament books began to be circulated would have challenged blatant historical fabrications about the life of Christ. The Bible places great stress on accurate historical details, and this is especially obvious in the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, Luke's two-part masterpiece (see his prologue in Luke 1:1-4).
III. The External Test
Because the Scriptures continually refer to historical events, they are verifiable; their accuracy can be checked by external evidence. The chronological details in the prologue to Jeremiah (1:1-3) and in Luke 3:1-2 illustrate this. Ezekiel 1:2 allows us to date Ezekiel's first vision of God to the day (July 31, 592 B.C.).
The historicity of Jesus Christ is well-established by early Roman, Greek, and Jewish sources, and these extrabiblical writings affirm the major details of the New Testament portrait of the Lord. The first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus made specific references to John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, and James in his Antiquities of the Jews. In this work, Josephus gives us many background details about the Herods, the Sadducees and Pharisees, the high priests like Annas and Caiaphas, and the Roman emperors mentioned in the gospels and Acts.
We find another early secular reference to Jesus in a letter written a little after A.D. 73 by an imprisoned Syrian named Mara Bar-Serapion. This letter to his son compares the deaths of Socrates, Pythagoras, and Christ. Other first- and second-century writers who mention Christ include the Roman historians Cornelius Tacitus (Annals) and Suetonius (Life of Claudius, Lives of the Caesars), the Roman governor Pliny the Younger (Epistles), and the Greek satirist Lucian (On the Death of Peregrine). Jesus is also mentioned a number of times in the Jewish Talmud.
The Old and New Testaments make abundant references to nations, kings, battles, cities, mountains, rivers, buildings, treaties, customs, economics, politics, dates, etc. Because the historical narratives of the Bible are so specific, many of its details are open to archaeological investigation. While we cannot say that archaeology proves the authority of the Bible, it is fair to say that archaeological evidence has provided external confirmation of hundreds of biblical statements. Higher criticism in the 19th century made many damaging claims that would completely overthrow the integrity of the Bible, but the explosion of archaeological knowledge in the 20th century reversed almost all of these claims. Noted archaeologists such as William F. Albright, Nelson Glueck, and G. Ernest Wright developed a great respect for the historical accuracy of the Scriptures as a result of their work.
Out of the multitude of archaeological discoveries related to the Bible, consider a few examples to illustrate the remarkable external substantiation of biblical claims. Excavations at Nuzi (1925-41), Mari (discovered in 1933), and Alalakh (1937-39; 1946-49) provide helpful background information that fits well with the Genesis stories of the patriarchal period. The Nuzi tablets and Mari letters illustrate the patriarchal customs in great detail, and the Ras Shamra tablets discovered in ancient Ugarit in Syria shed much light on Hebrew prose and poetry and Canaanite culture. The Ebla tablets discovered recently in northern Syria also affirm the antiquity and accuracy of the Book of Genesis.
Some scholars once claimed that the Mosaic Law could not have been written by Moses, because writing was largely unknown at that time and because the law code of the Pentateuch was too sophisticated for that period. But the codified Laws of Hammurabi (ca. 1700 B.C.), the Lipit-Ishtar code (ca. 1860 B.C.), the Laws of Eshnunna (ca. 1950 B.C.), and the even earlier Ur-Nammu code have refuted these claims.
Related Topics: Bibliology (The Written Word), Apologetics
Silverwings · 61-69, F
"Who wrote the Bible?"
Answer: It is accurate to say that God wrote the Bible. According to 2 Timothy 3:16, Scripture is “breathed out” by God. Throughout the Bible, it is obvious that God is being quoted: over 400 times in the Bible, we find the words “thus says the Lord” (NKJV). The Bible refers to itself as the Word of God dozens of times (e.g., Psalm 119; Proverbs 30:5; Isaiah 40:8; 55:11; Jeremiah 23:29; John 17:17; Romans 10:17; Ephesians 6:17; Hebrews 4:12). The Bible is said to proceed from the mouth of God (Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4).
However, saying that God wrote the Bible does not mean He took pen in hand, grabbed some parchment, and physically wrote the text of Scripture. His “writing” of Scripture was not a physical action on His part. Rather, God’s authorship was accomplished through the process of inspiration, as human writers wrote God’s message.
So, it is also accurate to say that inspired men of God wrote the Bible. The doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture essentially teaches that God “superintended” the human authors of the Bible so that their individual styles were preserved but the end result was precisely what God wanted. When Matthew, for example, sat down to write an account of Jesus’ ministry, he relied on his memory (he was an eyewitness to the events he recorded) with help from the Holy Spirit (John 14:26), keeping his intended readership in mind (Matthew wrote for a Jewish audience). The result was the Gospel of Matthew—a narrative full of Matthew’s vocabulary, Matthew’s grammar, Matthew’s syntax, and Matthew’s style. Yet it was God’s Word. The Spirit had so guided Matthew’s writing that everything God wanted to say was said, and nothing was included that God did not intend to say.
Peter described the process of inspiration this way: “Prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). The prophet Jeremiah spoke of inspiration almost as a compulsion to write God’s message: “His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot” (Jeremiah 20:9). There was no escaping it; God wanted to communicate, and so Jeremiah had to write.
Not every book of the Bible specifies who wrote it. For example, the author of the book of Hebrews is unknown. For many books of the Bible, there is simply no way to be certain who the human author is. But that doesn’t change what we are certain about, namely, who the Divine Author is.
Famous writers through history have used amanuenses, or secretaries, to produce their literature. The poet John Milton was blind by the age of 44. His entire Paradise Lost was dictated to friends and relatives—anyone who would write for him—and that’s how the entire epic was recorded (a total of 10,550 lines of poetry). Even though Milton himself did not put pen to paper, no one questions that Paradise Lost is his work. We understand the function of an amanuensis. While God did not “dictate” His Word to the human authors, the principle is similar. God, the Ultimate Author of the Bible, used human agents as His “amanuenses,” and the result was the divinely inspired Word of God.
Answer: It is accurate to say that God wrote the Bible. According to 2 Timothy 3:16, Scripture is “breathed out” by God. Throughout the Bible, it is obvious that God is being quoted: over 400 times in the Bible, we find the words “thus says the Lord” (NKJV). The Bible refers to itself as the Word of God dozens of times (e.g., Psalm 119; Proverbs 30:5; Isaiah 40:8; 55:11; Jeremiah 23:29; John 17:17; Romans 10:17; Ephesians 6:17; Hebrews 4:12). The Bible is said to proceed from the mouth of God (Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4).
However, saying that God wrote the Bible does not mean He took pen in hand, grabbed some parchment, and physically wrote the text of Scripture. His “writing” of Scripture was not a physical action on His part. Rather, God’s authorship was accomplished through the process of inspiration, as human writers wrote God’s message.
So, it is also accurate to say that inspired men of God wrote the Bible. The doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture essentially teaches that God “superintended” the human authors of the Bible so that their individual styles were preserved but the end result was precisely what God wanted. When Matthew, for example, sat down to write an account of Jesus’ ministry, he relied on his memory (he was an eyewitness to the events he recorded) with help from the Holy Spirit (John 14:26), keeping his intended readership in mind (Matthew wrote for a Jewish audience). The result was the Gospel of Matthew—a narrative full of Matthew’s vocabulary, Matthew’s grammar, Matthew’s syntax, and Matthew’s style. Yet it was God’s Word. The Spirit had so guided Matthew’s writing that everything God wanted to say was said, and nothing was included that God did not intend to say.
Peter described the process of inspiration this way: “Prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). The prophet Jeremiah spoke of inspiration almost as a compulsion to write God’s message: “His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot” (Jeremiah 20:9). There was no escaping it; God wanted to communicate, and so Jeremiah had to write.
Not every book of the Bible specifies who wrote it. For example, the author of the book of Hebrews is unknown. For many books of the Bible, there is simply no way to be certain who the human author is. But that doesn’t change what we are certain about, namely, who the Divine Author is.
Famous writers through history have used amanuenses, or secretaries, to produce their literature. The poet John Milton was blind by the age of 44. His entire Paradise Lost was dictated to friends and relatives—anyone who would write for him—and that’s how the entire epic was recorded (a total of 10,550 lines of poetry). Even though Milton himself did not put pen to paper, no one questions that Paradise Lost is his work. We understand the function of an amanuensis. While God did not “dictate” His Word to the human authors, the principle is similar. God, the Ultimate Author of the Bible, used human agents as His “amanuenses,” and the result was the divinely inspired Word of God.
Silverwings · 61-69, F
The first way to know that we are saved: the Bible says so
Here’s what 1 John 5:13 says, “I have written these things to you that you may know that you have eternal life, to you who believe into the name of the Son of God.”
This verse indicates that God wants us to know—not wish, hope, or feel—that we’re saved. How can we know? By the written words of the Bible we can know we’re really saved.
For example, Romans 10:13 says, “For whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” If we’ve called upon the Lord by praying a prayer such as, “Lord Jesus, I believe You died for my sins and that You rose from the dead,” then according to God’s unchanging word in the Bible, we are definitely saved.
By relying on the facts in God’s Word and not on our feelings, we can be assured that we’re really saved.
The second way: the Holy Spirit witnesses with our spirit
Despite our believing what the Bible says, the question may bother us again: “Am I really saved?” The Bible in our hands outside of us tells us we are. But the second way we know is by something inside us telling us we’re saved—the Spirit.
Romans 8:16 tells us that “the Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God.” Although we might have doubts, the Holy Spirit witnesses deep within us that we are truly saved. Even if we were to say, “I don’t think I’m a child of God,” the Spirit within us confirms that we are.
Perhaps one reason we question our salvation is because we don’t experience a strong witnessing of the Holy Spirit within our spirit. A verse that can help us with this is 1 Corinthians 12:3: “No one can say, Jesus is Lord! except in the Holy Spirit.”
Whenever we doubt our salvation, we can say aloud, “Jesus is Lord!” As we do, we’ll have the assurance from within by the Spirit that we undoubtedly are children of God.
The third way: love for our brothers in the Lord
The third way of knowing with certainty that we’re saved is by the genuine love we have for our fellow Christians. We have a sweet feeling within towards other believers, even ones very different from ourselves.
This feeling is something we didn’t have before we were saved. The apostle John in 1 John 3:14 said, “We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers.” The love in us for our brothers in the Lord is a way we can know we are genuinely saved.
Here’s what 1 John 5:13 says, “I have written these things to you that you may know that you have eternal life, to you who believe into the name of the Son of God.”
This verse indicates that God wants us to know—not wish, hope, or feel—that we’re saved. How can we know? By the written words of the Bible we can know we’re really saved.
For example, Romans 10:13 says, “For whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” If we’ve called upon the Lord by praying a prayer such as, “Lord Jesus, I believe You died for my sins and that You rose from the dead,” then according to God’s unchanging word in the Bible, we are definitely saved.
By relying on the facts in God’s Word and not on our feelings, we can be assured that we’re really saved.
The second way: the Holy Spirit witnesses with our spirit
Despite our believing what the Bible says, the question may bother us again: “Am I really saved?” The Bible in our hands outside of us tells us we are. But the second way we know is by something inside us telling us we’re saved—the Spirit.
Romans 8:16 tells us that “the Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God.” Although we might have doubts, the Holy Spirit witnesses deep within us that we are truly saved. Even if we were to say, “I don’t think I’m a child of God,” the Spirit within us confirms that we are.
Perhaps one reason we question our salvation is because we don’t experience a strong witnessing of the Holy Spirit within our spirit. A verse that can help us with this is 1 Corinthians 12:3: “No one can say, Jesus is Lord! except in the Holy Spirit.”
Whenever we doubt our salvation, we can say aloud, “Jesus is Lord!” As we do, we’ll have the assurance from within by the Spirit that we undoubtedly are children of God.
The third way: love for our brothers in the Lord
The third way of knowing with certainty that we’re saved is by the genuine love we have for our fellow Christians. We have a sweet feeling within towards other believers, even ones very different from ourselves.
This feeling is something we didn’t have before we were saved. The apostle John in 1 John 3:14 said, “We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers.” The love in us for our brothers in the Lord is a way we can know we are genuinely saved.
Persephone · 51-55, F
@Silverwings I am constantly rethinking, but I'm not sure what it is that you think I need to re-think! Do you really believe that we have to believe the 'right' thing in order to be 'saved'?
I find that idea very troubling.
I am a Jewish Christian and have always been.
I grew up in a fundamentalist group who believed all the 'right doctrine' and had no love, and treated people very badly. Clanging cymbals come to mind.
LOVE is the heart of the Bible, to my mind.
btw, I suspect that 'Devildagger' is pulling your leg.
xx
I find that idea very troubling.
I am a Jewish Christian and have always been.
I grew up in a fundamentalist group who believed all the 'right doctrine' and had no love, and treated people very badly. Clanging cymbals come to mind.
LOVE is the heart of the Bible, to my mind.
btw, I suspect that 'Devildagger' is pulling your leg.
xx
Persephone · 51-55, F
Honestly I find this whole way of thinking unhelpful to say the least. Anybody can say they are saved. Anybody can think they're 'saved' and then at the judgement they will be surprised, according to Jesus. But what does 'saved' even mean? You think you are 'saved' from 'hell' because you believe the right thing? That sounds like easy-believe-ism to me. We could argue til the end of time and we probably wouldn't see eye to eye, so I will leave it there. Shalom.
Persephone · 51-55, F
Very interesting @oqouoq about the scribal errors. "Beware the scribes"!!
I love the traditional beliefs and interpretations because I know them so well, they are part of my cultural identity; but my understanding has changed so that I now see Bible stories mostly as useful allegories with a kernel of historical truth, but my faith does not rest or fall on the accuracy or lack thereof of the text (I know plenty of people whose faith rests on the truth of creationism, and so cannot possibly entertain the idea that their understanding could possibly be flawed). I would not blindly accept the dissenters' facts either but I try to keep an open mind. Is "the Revision Revised" worth finding and reading?
I love the traditional beliefs and interpretations because I know them so well, they are part of my cultural identity; but my understanding has changed so that I now see Bible stories mostly as useful allegories with a kernel of historical truth, but my faith does not rest or fall on the accuracy or lack thereof of the text (I know plenty of people whose faith rests on the truth of creationism, and so cannot possibly entertain the idea that their understanding could possibly be flawed). I would not blindly accept the dissenters' facts either but I try to keep an open mind. Is "the Revision Revised" worth finding and reading?
Silverwings · 61-69, F
Darlingrose · 80-89, F
Darlingrose · 80-89, F
Dear oqouq, well put, the main thing is to live with the intention of doing good works for others and the universe, and always treating others like they deserve to be treated,,as brothers, I have lived this philosophy most of my life, and have found it to be very rewarding and valuable to me and others!
I respect others ways and beliefs, but do not like to be coerced into something that does not fit with my values and thoughts. Discussion is good, coercing is not!
Darlingrose
I respect others ways and beliefs, but do not like to be coerced into something that does not fit with my values and thoughts. Discussion is good, coercing is not!
Darlingrose
Silverwings · 61-69, F
Oqouoq ~ you are absolutely right that it is by grace alone that we are saved, and is that not what Paul preached?And you mentioned that you did not want to anger Him, yet you refuse to believe one of His greatest messengers of all time, one that was plucked right from the devils hand, personally trained by the Spirit of the Living God, and who wrote 2/3rds of the New Testament alone, yet you have the audacity to reject this mighty man of God? I really believe you need to recheck your information.
DreamCandy · 26-30, F
Silverwings · 61-69, F
Praise God, the numbers are rising they are now up to 15 yes, 16 No & 2 thinking about it. Glory to God!! Lord I pray for those two who are still on the fence, Lord, I ask you to gently nudge them into a place of belief, so that they too can answer YES!!! to the greatest question of all time and eternity, and also for those who answered no, that they may come to truly know you as the Savior & Lord.
Amen & Amen
Amen & Amen
JenxTurner · 18-21, F
Persephone · 51-55, F
Shalom Silverwings,
I recognise you :) We are connected on AnswerMug. (I'm Madeleine)
I have to say that, despite a lifetime of involvement in Christianity, I find this type of question and way of thinking quite difficult.
I have moved away from the fundamentalist/ evangelical way of thinking.
I recognise you :) We are connected on AnswerMug. (I'm Madeleine)
I have to say that, despite a lifetime of involvement in Christianity, I find this type of question and way of thinking quite difficult.
I have moved away from the fundamentalist/ evangelical way of thinking.
Silverwings · 61-69, F
@Persephone NIce to run into you again!!
Silverwings · 61-69, F
Peresphone ~ I simply asked a question, if you are saved you will not be ashamed to say so. I did not ask anyone to rethink anything. You are either saved ~ yes or no. How do we know that we are saved? We know by the word of God. Whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord, shall be saved.
Darlingrose · 80-89, F
I do not believe in the Christian Religion, and it's stories, I prefer the Buddhist way of thinking and living, it is so much simpler, with a lot less rules and regulations, but a much more peaceful and loving message!
Darlingrose
Darlingrose
Silverwings · 61-69, F
@Darlingrose The two main commandments are #! to Love the Lord with all your heart, and #2 to love your neighbor as yourself. I do not know who much more peaceful and loving you could get beyond that.
Darlingrose · 80-89, F
Dear oqouq, I hear you, and your beliefs and accept that they are true for you, and you have a good strong conviction of what you believe, I admire that! That is your right and privilege to believe what is right for you!
Darlingrose
Darlingrose
Silverwings · 61-69, F
oquoqu ~ Your views are dangerous to the Body of Christ, you are a wolf in sheeps clothing, that has come to destroy and kill that which Christ died for. More than likely you will die in obscurity just like your mentor Thomas Paine.
Silverwings · 61-69, F
Devildagger~ why did you renounce your faith in Christ and sell your sold to the devil? Don't you realize that he is the loser in the cosmic struggle that is going on? And he will take you farther than you want to go and keep you longer than you want to stay?
Silverwings · 61-69, F
Praise God our numbers are still climbing!! 18 ~ Yes, 16 ~No, 3~ thinking about it. Father I pray for all the no's, and the ones thinking about it, that they can all turn into Yes's, for their good and for your glory. Amen & Amen
I was baptized when I was a kid, if that's what you mean. I've been trying to find a way to reverse it, but I can't find anyone who will dip me into a vat of blood.
Silverwings · 61-69, F
@labyrinthinemind You do not have to worry about reversing it, your unbelief takes care of that, hope you come to your senses.
Silverwings · 61-69, F
Praise God for the 3 who are thinking about salvation, and for the 16 who said no, I pray that you will all find the truth, that is found in Jesus Christ.
Silverwings · 61-69, F
opouaq~ A Christian is follower of Christ. What do you have against Paul, He was a very extraordinary man of God intervened with by God himself?
Ah, notifications are working now. :)
Silverwings: I was actually joking. I don't take any of it seriously.
Silverwings: I was actually joking. I don't take any of it seriously.
Silverwings · 61-69, F
Perspone ~ Salvation is the very heart of the Bible, I hope you rethink your new views?
Silverwings · 61-69, F
Peresphone~ What do you think you must do to be saved?
SW-User
Saved from what? Eternal damnation. I guess no, but thanks anyway.
Silverwings · 61-69, F
oqouoq~ so how do you plan to get to heaven?
Silverwings · 61-69, F
Hello Madeliene~ Are you into Judaism now?
Silverwings · 61-69, F
