Episode 123 – But What About … The Bible

Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.

Script:  

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 

2 Timothy, chapter 3, verses 16 and 17, New International Version

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VK: Hello. I’m Victoria K and today on Anchored by Truth we are starting a new study series brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In this series we’re going to think about a number of topics pertaining to the Christian faith that are sometimes not well understood. So, we’ve labeled this series “But what about” because a lot of time that’s how the question starts. People will ask questions like, “but what about angels and demons” or “but what about heaven and hell?” So, we want to do individual episodes on several of these subjects to see what the Bible actually says about them. I’m in the studio today with RD Fierro, author and Founder Crystal Sea Books. RD, why did you decide we should do this what about series?

RD: Well, hello to all the Anchored by Truth listeners. For those of you who may be new to our broadcast or podcast Anchored by Truth is the only show of its kind that we know about that focuses exclusively on demonstrating the infallibility, inerrancy, and inspiration of scripture. As a part of doing that we often have to answer questions that often create confusion among Christians and non-Christians. In part, this confusion arises from the fact that Christianity is a faith that is grounded in place and time but Christianity is also a faith that acknowledges the supernatural realm – a realm that can’t ordinarily be seen or perceived with the five senses. The fact that Christianity does proclaim the truth of this supernatural realm means people who only want to acknowledge perceivable reality often are going to reject this possibility entirely. But we also run into questions or problems from the other side.

VK: What do you mean by that? What is the other side?

RD: The other side is people who believe in the supernatural realm but who believe that information about it can be derived from multiple sources – sometimes including the Bible but sometimes excluding the Bible. In our day and time there’s no shortage of books, videos, podcasts, etc. that purport to reveal what’s going on in the supernatural realm. So, the question then obviously becomes what source is trustworthy? We believe that we can demonstrate that the Bible is a trustworthy source on matters that pertain to the supernatural and by exclusion, any source that doesn’t go straight back to the Bible is not.

VK: So, the other side of the coin from those who reject the idea of the supernatural entirely are those who think that they, or others, have extra-Biblical knowledge of the supernatural. You’re thinking of people who claim to have visited a supernatural realm, or possess the ability to tell the future, or have regular encounters with supernatural beings? And, quite often, have written books or given interviews about the knowledge they claim to possess.

RD: Yes. It becomes a question of competing truth claims. For instance, a particular person may claim that they have visited heaven or hell and come back to tell the rest of us about what goes on there. The question is whether their account is true and trustworthy. So, as Christians we have to be able to provide intelligent answers to both groups: the group that disbelieves in the supernatural entirely and the group that claims that there are multiple ways of acquiring supernatural knowledge. Fortunately, the Bible gives us a definitive standard for identifying and explaining the truth.

VK: So, we’ve entitled today’s episode of Anchored by Truth “But what about the Bible?” Obviously, we’ve done lots of episodes on demonstrating the fact that the Bible is true and trustworthy. For instance, we did an entire series we called “The Truth in Genesis” just to provide an overview of the scientific evidence that demonstrates the truth of the first 11 chapters of Genesis. We did that series because no part of the Bible is subject to more attacks and criticism than the first 11 chapters of Genesis. So, we’ve done lots of series to demonstrate the truth of various parts of the Bible. But today you want to just do a broad overview of various facts and elements that support the trustworthiness of the Bible as a whole.

RD: Yes. We’ve covered much of this information as elements of other shows but today we want to do a brief summary of many attributes of the Bible or its history that help demonstrate that it is what it claims to be – the inspired word of an eternal and almighty God. I would like to emphasize that is just a brief summary of many points that deserve entire shows or series for themselves. We would definitely encourage listeners to not only do their own investigation into these subjects but to do it at a depth that’s not possible for time we have available.

VK: So, where do you want to start? 

RD: Let’s start by remembering that the Bible was compiled and composed over a period of 1,500 years starting in the 15th century B.C. and ending around the end of the 1st century A.D. The Old Testament was completed sometime around 430 B.C. to 450 B.C. Then there was a gap of 400 to 450 years called the intertestamental period. 

VK: And we did a 8 episode series on the intertestamental period to show that even though new books of the Bible weren’t added, the history of redemption continued without a break. 

RD:  Right. So, after the intertestamental period the New Testament was completed in a matter of several decades. Most scholars date the first book of the New Testament around the middle of the 1st century A.D. and the last book, Revelation, around the end of the century. So, both the Old and New Testaments are books that come to us from antiquity. One relevant question, then, is can we be sure that we have a text today that is consistent with the documents as they were originally written?

VK: This question pertains to the adequacy and fidelity of our manuscript support for the content of the Bible. And, here the Bible stacks up very well when it comes to books that come from antiquity. For instance, let’s take a quick look at how careful the Jews were in preserving the accuracy of their scriptures as copyists transmitted them from one generation to another. Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls many scholars considered the Masoretic Text of the Old Testament to be one of the most reliable of the texts that had been preserved. But the earliest Masoretic text dated from around 900 A.D. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, however, investigators found an intact scroll that contained the entire book of Isaiah but it dated from 1,000 years earlier. So, investigators wondered how many differences they would discover when they had a 1,000 year earlier manuscript to work with. The result of their investigations proved the Jews had done an amazing job of accurately transmitting the text. 

RD:  Right. Just as one example of that accuracy of the 166 Hebrew words in Isaiah chapter 53 there were only 17 Hebrew letters that differed between the Masoretic text and the Isaiah Dead Sea Scroll. 10 of the 17 were just variations in spelling of the same word and 4 were stylistic changes. And the other 3 variations in letters pertained to a single word and they had no effect on the meaning of the passages. Overall, there was a 95% word-for-word identity between various Old Testament texts discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the vast majority of the 5% was slips of the pen and spelling. That shows an amazing degree of fidelity present in Masoretic text with documents prepared 1,000 years earlier.

VK: And another element of judging the quality of manuscript support for a current text is the number of complete or partial manuscripts that are currently in existence. And here again the Bible stands head and shoulders above other documents that come to us from antiquity. Right?

RD:  Right. For instance, when it comes to the New Testament we have more and better copies of manuscripts available than for any other ancient book that comes from the same time period. According to F.F. Bruce who wrote the book The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?,  there are only 9 or 10 copies of Julius Caesar’s Gallic War that survive. There are only about 20 copies of the Roman historian Livy’s Roman History and only 2 copies of Tacitus’ Annals. The most documented ancient book is Homer’s Illiad which has about 643 manuscript copies. Despite this relative scarcity no secular historians seriously challenge the texts of these books. But, by way of comparison, the New Testament is preserved in 5,686 partial and complete manuscripts. What’s more, if you compile the quotations that were made by the early church fathers of the 2nd through the 4th century there are 36,289 quotations. This means that you could assemble the entire New Testament from the quotations alone except for 11 verses.

VK: And the New Testament documents are excellent when it comes to the events recorded and the time the record was produced. Some scholars believe the earliest Gospel, Mark, might have been produced as early as the early 50’s A.D. This means it was written only 2 decades after Jesus’ life and death. This is far too short a time period for legendary embellishments to be created and added. If someone had tried to do that, there would have been plenty of hostile witnesses who would quickly have shut down such an attempt.

RD:  Yes. The fact that the New Testament documents were prepared so close to the events they describe means that there would have been many people still around who could have challenged the accounts if they had been inaccurate. And, as you indicated, many of those people would have been glad to stop the stories about Jesus from circulating if had been possible to do so. At a minimum, the Jewish authorities tried to stop the Apostles from preaching about Jesus.

VK: We have their attempt to stop the Apostles from proclaiming that Jesus rose from the dead described in Acts, chapter 4, verse 18. “So [the Council members] called them back in and told them that under no condition were they to speak or to teach in the name of Jesus.” The council being referred to here was the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council comprised of Sadducees and Pharisees. They tried to stop the disciples from telling the Jews that Jesus had risen from the dead and it makes sense they would. They were the ones who had begged Pontius Pilate to put Jesus to death after conducting a sham trial that didn’t conform to Jewish law. They certainly didn’t want the people being reminded of their part in the crime. They also didn’t want widespread dissension among the people because they knew that would bring a severe Roman crackdown.

RD:  Yes. But it wasn’t just the Sadducees and Pharisees who didn’t want the news of the resurrection being preached. The Romans didn’t either. It’s well known that the Romans actively persecuted the earliest Christians though the persecution was not consistent throughout the empire. The Roman historian we mentioned earlier, Tacitus, when writing about the great fire of Rome noted that the Emperor Nero had been blamed for the fire. So, “Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures of a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a most mischievous superstition broke out …”

VK: Many scholars believe that the “mischievous superstition” Tacitus was referring to was the belief in the resurrection. But notice that this quote from Tacitus, who is considered to be one of the most accurate of the ancient historians, is also helpful in authenticating the accuracy of the New Testament text. Tacitus lived between 56 A.D. and 120 A.D. So, his lifetime coincides with the formation of the early church. In this quote Tacitus validates the fact that there was a man named Christus who had been executed by Pontius Pilate. This is, of course, what all four of the gospels report. Tacitus’ quote also validates that by the time he wrote in the late 1st century Christianity was so widespread in the Roman empire that Nero could use Christians as scapegoats for his own evil purposes. It’s remarkable that a historian like Tacitus would write about Jesus at all. Jesus was just an itinerant preacher in a far, distant corner of the vast Roman Empire. He had led no armies, had no official position, not even written any books. His public ministry lasted only 3 years. Yet, only decades after his death a Roman historian had to take note of his existence when writing about matters in the capital of the empire.

RD: Right. And the quote from Tacitus provides additional verification of the accuracy of the New Testament text in a remarkable, though unexpected, way.

VK: How so?

RD: For many years there were questions about the existence and the actual title of Pontius Pilate—the Roman governor who presided over the trial of Jesus. Later Roman writers, such as Tacitus in the quote we just heard, as well as almost all Bible reference works, referred to Pilate as the “procurator” of Judea. But Luke and the other gospel writers called Pilate a “governor;” not a procurator. The fact that “governor” was the correct title was confirmed in 1961, when a two by three foot stone was discovered that had a Latin inscription. The translation of the inscription reads as follows: 

Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea, has presented the Tiberieum to the Caesareans. 

This was not only archaeological confirmation for the existence of Pilate but it was also confirmation that Pilate was the Prefect, or governor, of Judea. We now know that the title “Procurator” was not used at the time of Jesus’ trial for the Roman governors. This title only came into usage at a later time, during the reign of the emperor Claudius, which was A.D. 41-54. During Claudius’ reign the title of the Roman governors changed from Prefect to Procurator. Although the later Roman writers used a different title for Pilate, the Luke and the other gospel writers did not. They called him a governor—not a procurator. 

VK: But it’s possible that Tacitus knew about the change in titles and just wanted to convey the information to his readers using the title they would be most familiar with. Isn’t that a possibility? Tacitus’ use of the term procurator doesn’t automatically mean he was being sloppy.

RD: I agree. Again, most scholars consider Tacitus to be one of the more accurate of the ancient historians. It’s possible Tacitus knew the precise title for Pilate was “prefect” not “procurator” – but he thought his readers might not – so he went with the title that would make the most sense to them. But this doesn’t take anything away from the impeccable accuracy the use of the correct title imparts to the gospel writers. Plus, this not only shows that the gospel writers paid attention to details that may seem insignificant to us but that they were writing very close in time to the events they were reporting. If the gospel writers had written decades later and were just sort of reporting what had become a popular legend, they sure wouldn’t have cared about the difference between Pilate being a “prefect” or “procurator.”

VK: So, all this goes back to support for our basic point about the Bible. Our current Bibles contain a text that is well supported by an abundance of manuscript evidence. And our current Bibles contain accurate details of the historical events they reported. This body of evidence gives us a high degree of confidence in the basic reliability of the Bible. But does the basic confidence in the Bible translate into giving us confidence in the supernatural elements that the Bible describes? After all, it’s possible that a writer who is ordinarily very reliable may have occasional instances where they make things up or just get things wrong.

RD: That’s a fair question. So, let’s think about this. As a whole the Bible was recorded by over 3 dozen human authors who wrote over a period of 1,500 years. And literally from the first book to the last there are numerous descriptions of supernatural occurrences. In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, there are angels. In Revelation, the last book of the Bible, there are angels. And there are angelic appearances in many of the books in between. Yet, despite the large time gaps separating these many varied reports there is a remarkable degree of consistency in the recorded descriptions. This is true even when there is variety among the descriptions themselves. For instance, there are times in the Bible when the angels are clearly being sent to accomplish a fairly mundane task – leading Lot and his family out of Sodom and Gomorrah or leading Peter out of a jail (Acts 12:5 – 10). When they’re doing mundane things the angels don’t appear to have a remarkable appearance. In fact, their appearances can be so unremarkable at times that people don’t recognize them as being angels. In Hebrews 13:2 we are commanded to “show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”

VK: But sometimes angels are reported doing remarkable things such as carrying messages directly from God to specific individuals. Quite often on these remarkable occasions the angels have an appearance which reflects the remarkable nature of their visitation. For instance, when Daniel received an important revelation from God that he reported in chapter 10 of his book this is how he described the angel’s appearance. “I looked up and there before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz around his waist. His body was like topaz, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude.”

RD: Exactly. And when the angels appeared to the shepherds when Jesus was born it says the “glory of the Lord” accompanied them. It was certainly startling enough to cause the shepherds to be frightened and shepherds were tough men. They were used to hardship and danger. 

VK: And there is the well-known appearance of the angels at Jesus’ tomb. Here is the description from Matthew 28: 2 through 4: “Suddenly there was a great earthquake! For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled aside the stone, and sat on it. His face shone like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow. The guards shook with fear when they saw him, and they fell into a dead faint.”

RD: And of course there are some truly amazing descriptions of angelic beings such as the cherubim in Ezekiel chapter 1 and the angels around the throne of God in Revelation, chapter 4. The descriptions of these angels are truly strange – multiple faces, multiple wings, multiple eyes, etc. But the one thing to notice is that despite the variety of different descriptions given to angels, the angelic appearance always is suited to the moment and situation. The most extraordinary appearances match the most sublime moments of revelation. And remember that these descriptions don’t come from a single human author. They come from many different authors often separated by hundreds of years. Yet the consistency is so remarkable as to lend support to the authenticity of the report.

VK: So, your point is that even though we can’t achieve the same degree of external verification about the supernatural reports in the Bible, these reports do display attributes that mark them as being true. All the human authors describe angels in very consistent ways when you consider the different settings in which the angels appear. The angels appear as ordinary men when their task is more ordinary but when God really wants to get someone’s attention the angelic appearance immediately helps achieve that goal. And that pattern is consistent across a period of 1,500 years no matter which writer is doing the recording.

RD: Right. So, unless there was some form of Bible-writer “style guide” even the supernatural reports contain the hallmarks of being true reports. Same thing is true of other supernatural elements described by the Bible. For instance, no Bible writer ever, including Jesus, ever tries to give a detailed description of God the Father. God the Father is simply beyond the ability of the human mind to hold a firm conception of his grandeur and magnificence. This is entirely consistent with the 2nd commandment. God doesn’t want us developing any false concept that we can turn into idols. So, even God’s prohibitions when it comes to the supernatural are consistent.

VK: And this is one of the reasons we want to do this “But what about” series. We want to focus on what the Bible says about these subjects which are outside our normal experiences. Because they are outside our normal scope of experience they are easily subject to being sensationalized or distorted.

RD: Exactly. The Bible’s historical accounts are trustworthy and we’ve demonstrated that today with just a few examples – there are so many more that could be used but we just don’t have the time in a single show. Because we know that the things we can verify in the Bible are trustworthy that gives us a solid basis from which to invest our confidence in the parts of the Bible that are beyond our normal experience. The important thing is to be sure that we base our understanding of these supernatural elements on the Bible. When we do so we can be confident that we are using the best source of truth in a world where confusion swirls around us like the winds that rotate around tropical storms. If we don’t want to be blown away we have to be sure we are always firmly anchored to the truth – and that source of truth is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God.

VK: Sounds to me like a good time for a prayer. Today's prayer comes from another one of Crystal Seas’ offerings, the book Purposeful Prayers and is a prayer of adoration for the Creator who made and sustains the entire universe and each of us:

---- PRAYER OF ADORATION OF THE CREATOR (GWEN).

We hope you’ll be with us next time and we hope you’ll take some time to encourage some friends to tune in too, or listen to the podcast version of this show.

If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!”

 (Bible Quote from the New International Version)

2 Timothy, chapter 3, verses 16 and 17, New International Version