HOLDING ON TO TRUTH - THE RELIABILITY OF THE BIBLE
We trust today’s message encouraged and guided you in your journey of following Jesus. These notes are meant to help you remember and reflect on the message, help you go deeper into study on the subject, or be used for a sermon group discussion.
Sermon Title: THE RELIABILITY OF THE BIBLE - PART 1
Main Scripture: 2 PETER 1:16-21; PSALM 119:160; ISAIAH 40:8
If you’re going through this discussion with a community group this week consider taking the time to read the provided scripture to catch everyone up!
Summary:
In light of last weeks alarming statistics that Christians are abandoning a Biblical worldview, the truth about the Bible’s reliability is even more important. Today, Pastor Ryan began a journey of bringing forth evidence of why we can trust the Bible to be our source of absolute truth and the framework for our Biblical worldview. As we can see from just the few examples of evidence below, we have a very reliable Bible verified by historical testing and criticism.
Notes:
Scripture: 2 Peter 1:16-21 NIV
Last week we learned from Psalm 19 that there is the written and living Word of God. Here, Peter makes the same claim.
Peter makes a truth claim here that the Apostles weren’t following cleverly devised stories about the coming of Jesus Christ in power. Peter says they were first-hand eye-witnesses to the life and authority of Jesus Christ (living Word of God).
Peter qualifies what he means by referring to the mount of transfiguration experience where he, James, and John saw Jesus being glorified and acknowledged by God as His Son (Matthew 17).
Peter says that we also have the prophets and their messages are completely reliable (written Word of God).
Peter closes with, “Above all,” to heighten their attention to make this point: those prophets and their message did not come from their own interpretation or words, but they were the very words of God.
Prophets were spokesmen for God. They were instruments, mouthpieces for God, conveying a message He gave them under the inspiration and direction of the Holy Spirit.
Last week we read that Paul claimed All Scripture is God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16), implying the Word of God. Peter claims the same in these verses. Paul and Peter, claim Jesus is the living Word and scripture is the written word…both as truth and completely reliable.
Psalm 119:160 The entirety of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.
Truth Claim: The Bible is the reliable and infallible Word of God we can trust and obey.
The Burden of Proof: We believe God is justified in making truth claims like this without having to corroborate or defend Himself. But we do have the burden to prove what we believe to be true. If the Bible is in fact from God who does not lie and is Truth himself, then it shouldn’t be difficult to find credible evidence to come to a conclusion.
Historical Testing: The Bible is a historical book so in order to verify and corroborate the evidence and reliability of the Bible we must examine its historicity. Three tests:
Biographical Test: The Biographical test analyzes the textual tradition by which a document reaches us. Since we don’t have the original documents, are our present manuscripts and scripture based on reliable copies? This is determined by the dates, the number of copies, and the accuracy of writings in comparison to other copies.
External Test: Do other historical materials confirm or deny the content of the Bible? Are the archeological discoveries and geography in real life historically consistent with the Bible? Are there outer Biblical sources like historians Tacitus or Josephus that verify Biblical history?
Internal Test: This means testing the claims of the writers themselves. Do they claim to be eyewitnesses to the events recorded or at least receive their information from credible sources? Are they consistent with one another or make contradictions? Do their claims coincide with verified history? (John 19:35; Luke 1:3-4; 1 Corinthians 15:6 See Lutzer page 68)
Does the Bible pass these tests of historical and textual criticism?
The Biographical test of Biblical Manuscripts. There are no original manuscripts of the Bible. They either faded, were destroyed, or were lost. But we do have thousands of copies of manuscripts that verify one another in what has given us our modern-day Bible. The process of copying and preserving the integrity of Biblical manuscripts is worthy of being mentioned. Jewish and non-Jewish scribes were tasked with the sacred job of making copies of the OT (This practice continued in the NT).
The meticulous and reverent process scribes used to copy OT manuscripts:
Only parchments made from clean animals were allowed; these were to be joined together with thread from clean animals.
Each written column of the scroll was to have no fewer than forty-eight and no more than sixty lines whose breadth must consist of thirty letters.
The page was first to be lined, from which the letters were to be suspended.
The ink was to be black, and prepared according to a specific recipe.
No word or letter was to be written from memory.
There was to be the space of a hair between each consonant and the space of a small consonant between each word, as well as several other spacing rules.
The scribe must wash himself entirely and be in full Jewish dress before beginning to copy the scroll.
He could not write the name Yahweh with a newly dipped brush, nor take notice of anyone, even a king, while writing this sacred name.
Biblical manuscripts in comparison to classical literature
Chart 1 Summary chart of selected surviving MSS of Major Classical Works on PG 56 in Evidence That Demands A Verdict by Josh and Sean McDowell
Chart 2 & 3 Number of Biblical Manuscripts page 52 found in Evidence That Demands A Verdict by Josh and Sean McDowell
Chart 4 Skyscraper-Visualizing the number of Biblical Manuscripts
Chart 5 Comparing Classical with Biblical Manuscripts
“These manuscript numbers raise challenging issues for skeptics because if they reject the transmissional reliability of the New Testament, then they must also consider all other manuscripts of antiquity unreliable. As celebrated scholar, John Warwick Montgomery has often related: "Some years ago, when I debated philosophy professor Avrum Stroll of the University of British Columbia on this point, he responded: 'All right. I'll throw out my knowledge of the classical world. At which the chairman of the classics department cried: 'Good Lord, Avrum, not that!’" (Montgomery, HRHD, 139)
PhD and Professor of NT studies, Edward Glenny notes, "No one questions the authenticity of the historical books of antiquity because we do not possess the original copies. Yet we have far fewer manuscripts of these works than we possess of the NT." (Glenny, PS, 96) He concludes, "If we have doubts about what the autographic NT said, those doubts would have to be multiplied a hundredfold for the average classical author." (Wallace, HBDSC, 29)
New Testament scholars and biblical linguistic experts Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts observed, “When compared with other works of antiquity, the NT has far greater (numerical) and earlier documentation than any other book. Most of the available works of antiquity have only a few manuscripts that attest to their existence, and these are typically much later than their original date of composition, so it is not uncommon for the earliest manuscript to be dated over nine hundred years after the original composition.” (Porter and Pitts, FNTTC, 50)
Dead Sea Scrolls (Show picture of Dead Sea scrolls and Qumran caves as I speak)
An archeological discovery as external evidence verifying the reliability of the Bible.
“In 1947, a young Bedouin shepherd boy was throwing rocks near the Dead Sea, trying to rouse his flock of goats. He threw a rock into one of the caves, and he heard a tumultuous crashing of clay pots. After he investigated, he found a number of clay pots filled with scrolls and manuscripts. This eventually turned out to be the greatest manuscript discovery to date. The Qumran community was a group of Jewish Essenes, who fled to the Dead Sea to separate themselves from the rest of the Jews. The environment is dry and arid around the Dead Sea. When the Romans came to destroy the city of Jerusalem and the Temple, the Essenes could see them coming! They packed all of the Scriptures into these clay pots inside the caves. The caves around the Dead Sea provided perfect conditions for preserving these scrolls for millennia—being dry, arid, and dark.” www.evidenceunseen.com
The DSS dates from the 3rd century BC to the 2nd century AD. This provided OT manuscripts that date earlier in time than the Masoretic Manuscripts dating 100 A.D.
Significance: The entire book of Isaiah was found. The scroll was 24 feet long and ten inches wide. Before this discovery, the earliest Masoretic manuscript of Isaiah was the Cairo Codex (A.D. 895). Therefore, there was a 1,000-year gap between the earliest known OT manuscript and the DSS. And yet, the two documents—separated by over a millennium—were almost identical. Walter Kaiser writes, These caves have yielded some eight hundred scrolls, with parts or, in some cases, the entirety of the text of all thirty-nine books of the Old Testament except the book of Esther. -Evidenceunseen.com
“For Bible scholars, it adds more manuscript evidence for the text of Scripture from ancient times. It largely confirms the reading and the wording of Scripture that we knew already.” Dr. John Bergsma, professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville
The famed archeologist William F. Albright confirmed the antiquity of the scrolls, praising them as, “The greatest archeological find of the twentieth century.”
(See more on this in McDowell’s book Evidence that Demands a Verdict)
Conclusion
These are just a few examples of the veracity of evidence that history holds.
The implications of the Bible being historically reliable are:
We can trust the Bible to be the Word of God and live according to its theological and spiritual teachings.
The Bible is a credible source of absolute truth to frame our Biblical worldview.
Erwin Lutzer, in his book, Seven Reasons You Can Trust the Bible said,
Time (Magazine) was quite right when it said, "Atheists can't wait to prove the whole thing is a fairy tale." But this is one fairy tale that cannot be explained away. Let us hear the words of Bernard Ramm (Theologian and Apologist): “A thousand times over, the death knell of the Bible has been sounded (funeral bell), the funeral procession formed, the inscription cut on the tombstone, and the committal read. But somehow the corpse never stays put. No other book has been so chopped, sliced, sifted, scrutinized and vilified. What book on philosophy or religion or psychology or belles letters of classical or modern times has been subject to such a mass attack as the Bible? with such venom and skepticism? with such thoroughness and erudition? upon every chapter, line and tenet? The Bible is still loved and studied by millions." -Bernard Ramm (Theologian and Apologist)
“Perhaps the reason for the Bible’s longevity can be found not in the men who wrote it, but in the God who inspired it.” Erwin Lutzer, Seven Reasons You Can Trust the Bible, pg. 69
Isaiah 40:8 “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.”
For further research:
Can we trust copies of Biblical manuscripts that are not original manuscripts?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NikVdhp0YFs
Discussion:
What stuck out to you from our scriptures?
Which piece of evidence impacted you the most?
What does hearing about evidence for the reliability of the Bible do for your faith?
What stuck out to you overall from this message?
How do we live and apply this message to our lives?
The most important decision you will ever make!
Are you ready to experience salvation and be transformed? We encourage you to process this decision with a strong believer and when you’re ready say a simple prayer like this from your heart: Dear God, I acknowledge and admit I have sinned. I see my need for Jesus Christ. I believe in Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I believe I am forgiven and cleansed of my sin by His death. I also believe I have eternal life because of His resurrection from the dead. I repent, I turn away from my old ways and I choose to live my life to worship you and follow Jesus, amen!
We would love to know if you made the decision to accept this wonderful gift from God. Let us know here.
Pray Together
We hoped you found this AFTER THE SERMON discussion helpful for your walk with Jesus. We pray you can find ways to apply it this week!
The manuscript charts are from Evidence That Demands A Verdict by Josh and Sean McDowell. The Graphic charts are from https://www.evidenceunseen.com/theology/scripture/historicity-of-the-nt/1-bibliographical-test/
