THEOS prōtos

Some religions claim parts of the bible is from God, some people claiming to be Christian also say that some parts are from God and other parts are not.  Some that claim the whole bible is from God only cherry pick bible verses to suit their needs, desires, and arguments.   The orthodox Christian faith believes that the whole bible is from God.  The Old testament is from God just as equally as the New testament and the apostolic epistles.  God used and spoke through the Prophets and Apostles.  But how do we know?

First we have to agree that there is a God who chose to communicate to his creation through language and writing.  Secondly we need to agree that it is through the Jews that God chose to communicate.  Debating The Jewish faith and the existence of God is prior to this article.   If you do not believe that God is real, or deny predictive prophecies than the rest of this article does not matter in your eyes.  But if you are willing to accept that God is real and spoke through the Jewish people than this article will help in your understanding.  The Bible as God’s Word is dependent your view of the possibilities of supernatural miracles and predictive prophecies. 

THE OLD TESTAMENT:

Miracles and Predictive Prophecies.

We can look at the manuscript evidences, and historical evidences but first lets look at the supernatural and miracle evidences.  Gen 12:7 God is recorded promising Abraham a geographical location to his decedents.  Despite slavery to Egypt, Persia, and Rome, the Jewish people is the only nation in human history to continually return unified through being enslaved and conquered and to return to the specific geographical location after thousands of years. Ezk 26 records in detail what Alexander The Great would do to the city of Tyre over 500 years before Alexander The Great was born.  Daniel even describes the future world powers and what region they will come from in their exact order.

Culture of Perfection

Looking at the manuscript evidences; the culture itself gives support.  To the scribes that would record and copy manuscripts; perfection was pride.  They would compete with each other over how perfect the manuscript was copied.  Imperfect copied manuscripts would get burned and the scribe would become an outcast.  They were so prideful in copying the manuscripts they would not even want to change them.  Because a change meant being shamed and losing all personal creditability as a scribe.  Competing schools in the Jewish community would critique each others and try to find errors in each others work.  Needless to say, since recording their stories and history and continuation of their faith through their writings is more reliable than any other philosophical work in human history.

Manuscripts

Looking at the manuscripts themselves that we have currently:  There are three kinds.  Masoratic texts, The Dead Sea scrolls, and the Septuagint. The Masoretic is considered the standard of Hebrew texts. There as not been any manuscripts before it that have contradicted it.  The Dead Sea scrolls are dated 150 to 100 BC.  The Septuagint is a greek copy of Hebrew texts.  It is dated between 250 and 100 BC.  When comparing the three; they are in essential agreement.  The only differences are spelling styles and spelling errors.  There are zero differences in teachings and doctrine.

Authorship

The traditional view of Moses being the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the told testament) is been attacked in recent history.  We must remember that the Jewish people were closer to the time of the writings than we are and that they use cultural language that is not completely familiar to us.  The people that would best knew the reliability of the wrings are those who were the closest to the time of the writings and who better understand the cultural language used in the writing.  The unity in teaching and doctrine of the Pentateuch support a single authorship.

Writings following the Pentateuch state who wrote the writings prior to theirs.  Joshua 8:31; 1 Kings 2:3; Daniel 9:11; Mark 12:26; Luke 20:28; John 5:46-47; 7:19; Acts 3:22; Romans 10:5). Even the Pentateuch itself declares Moses to be its author (Exodus 17:14; 24:4; 34:27; Numbers 33:1-2; Deuteronomy 31:9.

The author of the Pentateuch had personal knowledge of the geography and language of Egypt.

“He was familiar with Egyptian names and uses Egyptian figures of speech. There is a greater percentage of Egyptian words in the Pentateuch than in the rest of the Bible. This seems to indicate that the author had lived in Egypt and was most likely educated there as well. Moses was born, raised, and educated in Egypt. It is also interesting to note that the author does not attempt to explain these uniquely Egyptian factors. This probably indicates that his original readers were also familiar with the Egyptian culture, and, this is exactly the case with the Israelites that Moses led out of Egypt.”

“the customs recorded in the Pentateuch were genuine second millennium BC customs. This would not be expected if the Pentateuch was written much later. This point is even stronger when it is realized that many of these customs were not continued on into the first millennium BC. Some of these ancient customs were the legal bearing of children through maidservants, the legality of oral deathbed wills, the possessing of household idols in order to claim inheritence rights, and the way real estate transactions were practiced”

{http://instituteofbiblicaldefense.com/1997/05/old-testament-reliability/}

For more evidences of the reliability of the Old Testament please visit The Institute of Biblical Defense.

A majority of the rejection of the Old Testament requires the denial of the supernatural.  Denying what the Old Testament is focused on blocks the true understanding of what is being said and what is recorded.  Of course it will be rejected if you deny what it is saying before you even read it.  You can’t be open to The Bible being God’s Word if you deny God before even reading the Bible.  BUT if you research The Bible with a truly open mind and with the understanding that miracles and predictive prophecies are possible than you are better able to understand and see what The Bible has been saying for thousands of years.

The Next logical question is How did the books of the Old Testament get chosen? 

The Old Testament as a divine and authoritative set of writings has been recognized and validated all through out the Jewish history.  The formation of the Old Testament is nothing new either.  A simple look at all the historical clues reveal that The Old Testament has been declared all along.

90 AD

Some Scholars will point to the Jewish Council of Jamina around 90AD as a defining matter in Jewish Cannon.  This is half true.  The ruling Jewish religious body, The Sanhedrin, made up of 70 rabbis got together to discuss scriptures.  They specifically discussed the divine influence of Songs of Solomon and Ecclesiastes.  It is however ignorant to think that other books would not have been discussed as well.  The Rabbis must have had a standard to help determine the divine source of these two writings that would also have to apply to all the other books as well.

With all the events and changes that were going on in the Jewish community sadly, they chose to define some books by what language it was written in.  This was to combat the influence of the Christ following sect from within the Jewish community.  They did not want to authenticate the New Testament writings so they rejected all greek written documents.  But at this point, the Church already had a authenticated greek copy of the Old Testament.

65 AD

Paul, in Romans 3:2, stated that God entrusted sacred scripture to the Jews.  Even though they did not understand the spiritual matters in their writings, they were still very much concerned about perfectly recording the document for their own pride and cultural image. It is this sin that God used to guard the reliable transmission of his word.

32 AD

When Jesus would quote scripture, he would say “It is written…” and what he quoted was found in both the Septuagint and the Masoritic texts. By this time Luke 24:44 records the writings divined up into three groups, The Law of Moses, The prophets, and Psalms.  Josephus around 40 AD also validated this.

200 BC

In the Prologue to Ecclesiasticus a noncanonical book refers to a threefold division of the recognized books (namely, the Law, the Prophets, and hymns and precepts for human conduct) was known by the writer’s grandfather which would be around 200 B.C

(1) The Law or The Pentateuch (5 books)—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy

(2) The Prophets (originally 8 books, then 21)

• The Former Prophets (originally 4 books, then 6)—Joshua, Judges, Samuel (1 & 2), Kings (1 & 2)
• The Latter Prophets (originally 4 books, then 15)
  Major: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel (3 books)
  Minor: The 12 (originally 1 book, then 12)

(3) The Writings (originally 11 books, then 13)

• Poetical (3 books) —Psalms, Proverbs, Job
• The Rolls (5 books) —Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther
• Historical (originally 3 books, then 5) —Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah (2), Chronicles (1 & 2)

300 BC

70 Rabbis traveled to Alexanderia to authorize greek copies of old testament scriptures (The Septuagint).  This authorized greek copy even sat in the temple next to the Hebrew scrolls during the time of Jesus.  The greek copy was made by Jewish scribes and completed around 275 BC under no bias in an attempt to reach Jews that did not know Hebrew.  It was kept in The Library of Alexandria and the Temple according to the Talmud 

1400 – 400 BC

Joshua recognized the writings of Moses as coming from God and having the authority of God.  (Ex. 17:14; 34:27; cf. Josh. 8:31; 23:6).  The office of Prophet was also established (cf. Deut. 18:15-19; Jer. 26:8-15) that was given the authority of God because God spoke through them.  And then they recorded what God revealed to them (cf. Josh. 24:26; 1 Sam. 10:25; Isa. 8:1; Ezek. 43:11).

All throughout Jewish history, specific writings were understood to be divine and authoritative.  (Joshua 1:7-8; 23:6; 1 Kings 2:3; 2 Kings 14:6; 21:8; 23:25; Ezra 6:18; Nehemiah 13:1; Daniel 9:11; Malachi 4:4.).

History, Archeology, quotations, and manuscripts all overwhelmingly show the reliability of the Old Testament. 

The next question is where does the New Testament come in? 

The timeline of the events leading up to the New Testament and during are vital to understanding the writings themselves.

Before Jesus:

There was a time period of 400 years where there were no prophets or anyone who is hearing the voice of God.  Malachi was the last prophet but Israel did not listen; then, 400 years of silence from God.  Suddenly around 25-29 AD a man that was not like the rest of his culture appears calling for everyone to repent and make way for the Lord.  He proclaims that coming of someone great directly from God, and his coming is soon.  Next thing he knows, that someone, is here; Jesus of Nazareth.

During Jesus:

Jesus not only claim to speak the words of God like all the prophets of the past, but he claimed to be directly related to God because he was God.  A teaching that is still hard for some people to understand.  For around 3 years, he taught and did miracles.  He expanded on the old testament teachings and revealed what the Jewish authorities had wrong.  The more people who listened to him the more the Jewish religious authorities grew less tolerant.  Jesus started mentioning that he was going to be put to death in the last year of his ministry.  Finally around 32AD the Jewish authorities appealed to Rome to put Jesus to death for violation of their sacred religious laws.  He was crucified by Rome to appease the Jewish people and keep the peace.

After Jesus:

The followers of Jesus were then targeted by Jewish authorities.  His followers claimed to have seen him after he was killed and buried.  The Jewish authorities hired people like Saul of Tyrus to investigate and arrest Jews who continued to proclaim Jesus as God.  Around 36 AD, Saul was suddenly converted after claiming to see Jesus.  A few years later, he began his ministry proclaiming the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus along side the other followers of Jesus.  But his mission was not just to convince Jews, Jesus was God, but he went also to the non-jews.  In fighting in the Jewish culture between the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and now a new small sect who follow and believe in Jesus caused a lot of disturbances.  There were riots and violence to the point where Rome decided in 70 AD to destroy the temple and Jerusalem.

The Writings:

The issue is not the existence of Jesus of the events surrounding him.  Those are validated by people of his time who did not even believe in him or like him; yet they still wrote something about him in their writings.  The issue is the reliability of knowing what Jesus taught and what the apostles were told.

A good analogy that helps illustrate this issue comes from the Stand to Reason site.

“Let me illustrate how such a test can be made. It will help you to see how scholars can confidently reconstruct the text from existing manuscript copies even though the copies themselves have differences and are much older than the autograph (i.e., the original).

Pretend your Aunt Sally has a dream in which she learns the recipe for an elixir that would continuously maintain her youth. When she wakes up, she scribbles the directions on a scrap of paper, then runs into the kitchen to make up her first glass. In a few days her appearance is transformed. Sally is a picture of radiant youth because of her daily dose of what comes to be known as “Aunt Sally’s Secret Sauce.”

Sally is so excited she sends hand-written instructions to her three bridge partners (Aunt Sally is still in the technological dark ages–no photocopier) giving detailed instructions on how to make the sauce. They, in turn, make copies which each sends to ten of her own friends.

All is going well until one day Aunt Sally’s pet schnauzer eats the original copy of the recipe. Sally is beside herself. In a panic she contacts her three friends who have mysteriously suffered similar mishaps. Their copies are gone, too, so the alarm goes out to their friends in attempt to recover the original wording.

They finally round up all the surviving hand-written copies, twenty-six in all. When they spread them out on the kitchen table, they immediately notice some differences. Twenty-three of the copies are exactly the same. One has a misspelled word, though, one has two phrases inverted (“mix then chop” instead of “chop then mix”) and one includes an ingredient that none of the others has on its list.

Here is the critical question: Do you think Aunt Sally can accurately reconstruct her original recipe? Of course she could. The misspelled words can easily be corrected, the single inverted phrase can be repaired, and the extra ingredient can be ignored.”

Manuscript Quantity:

The number of copies helps determine what the original contained.  It allows for more comparisons and testing and what later copies changed compared to the older copies.

Manuscript Age:

The age also helps determine what the original contained.  Being closer to the recorded event and closer to the original provide for a higher probability of accuracy of that copy.

Manuscript Quotations:

What also helps date and determine the original document are the quotations of it by other authors in their writings. The date of their writings help determine what was and was not in the copies before and after the quotation.

Other Ancient Documents:

Are you sure you know what Plato wrote?  He supposedly wrote around 420 to 350 BC.  The earliest manuscript of his is from 900 AD.  and we only have 7 total variant copies.  That is a gap of 1,250 years from Him and the earliest copy of his writings we currently have!  Yet, this is deemed ‘reliable’ due to the agreeing portions of the copies.   We can reliably construct what Plato wrote and taught by what others have quoted from him and comparing that to the few copies remaining.

The Illiad.  We have over 600 manuscripts and the earliest is 400 BC.  Sounds good right?  The original was written around 900 BC.  That means there is a gap from the original to the earliest known copy of 500 years!  Yet, this is deemed reliable.  We can construct what was in The Illiad by comparing all the quotations and copies and finding the agreeing elements.

Biblical Documents:

The New Testament has over 5,800 fragments and manuscripts dating from 120 AD to 400 AD.  From early church writings dating 90 AD to 400 AD we read over 8,000 quotations.  The earliest was written less than 100 years after the event! not even talking about the original, the event!  The synoptic gospels can be nearly reconstructed by the quotes alone.  Comparing all the quotes and copies, 13,800 elements to compare and test we can determine the original documents far better than the Illiad and Plato’s writings combined.

The of the Gospel of John was written late 90 AD.  The John Rynalds Fragment of The Gospel of John is dated around 110-130AD.  That is only 20 to 30 years after John himself penned it and only 70 to 90 years after Jesus!  Children and grand children of eye witnesses of Jesus could read it.  Disciples of the Apostles would be reading it.

To dismiss the New Testament as unreliable is to dismiss Plato’s writings and The Illiad.

But the next question that is raised is: Has The New Testament Changed over time? 

First we need to understand that we have 1st and 2nd century quotes, copies, and manuscripts.  Clement I was written around 96 AD to 100 AD and it quotes a lot of different portions of the Bible.  The John fragment mentioned in part 3 is from the 2nd century along with many others. 

We can use those and compare them to later copies. 3rd and 4th century manuscripts and quotations.  Much like comparing the Masoric Text, Dead Sea scrolls, and The Septuagint.  When we do this, we see that the only changes and variations are things like spelling and punctuation.  Do we speak and write like English speaking people 200 years before us?  Not exactly.  Is the constitution of the United States of America reliably copied?  Yes.

The claim that The Bible has changed and morphed into what it is now is sad ignorance.  A bible that gets published 10 years from now can still be tested against a copies written and quoted in the 2nd century.  If the bible 10 years from now does change, it will conflict with copies written and quoted in the 2nd century and be obvious that it is not close to the original.

 How was the Books of The New Testament Chosen?

As the small Christ following sect of the Jewish community grew, their teachings came under attack and even some from the sect started teaching their own ideas.  To remain unified and know what Christ taught and did not teach the sect had to bring together the writings that were genuine and reject the ones that were not.

Around 150 AD an early church leader named Justin Marytr stated this:

“On the day called the Day of the Sun all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then all rise together and pray.”

In other writings Justin quotes  Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians, and possible ones to Philippians, Titus, and 1 Timothy.

Here we see that the church already regarded the Old Testament (“writings of the prophets”) and “the memoirs of the apostles” as something that should be read “as long as time permits”.  The Prophets and the Apostles were understood to be both authors of God’s Word.

How did they know what “memoir” was from an Apostle?

Clement 1: 96 AD

Clement, the church leader in Rome quoted from the Old Testament and from 3 of the 4 gospels and most of Paul’s letters as authoritative.  He clearly understood them to be authentic and genuine.  He is extremely important due to the fact he knew the apostles personally.

Marcion Canon: 144 AD

An early church apostate, Marcion, compiled a list of writings that he felt was from God in 144 AD.  This is known as the Marcion Canon.  He rejected the entire Old Testament, only accepted The Gospel of Luke, and accepted all the known writings from Paul.  Even though he left the church to start is own, we see which documents were around, available, and circulated in the 2nd century, and in many ways, viewed as divinely inspired.  This then motivated the church to find and bring together all the documents from those who walked with Jesus and were his direct apostles.

Montanus: 150-170 AD

“Between A.D. 156 and 172, a second provocateur appeared on the scene. His name was Montanus. Montanus was accompanied by two prophetesses, Prisca and Maximilla. “The Three” spoke in ecstatic visions and encouraged their followers to fast and pray, calling the church to a higher standard of righteousness and zeal. If that was as far as their teaching went, they would have been an asset. But their message included what they called “new prophecy,” which pushed Christ and the apostolic message into the background. The age of Jesus was being superseded by the age of the Holy Spirit, and Montanus was its spokesman. Was Montanus truly bringing a new prophecy with new authority? Prophecy more authoritative than Jesus and the apostles? This question prompted the church to respond a second time.” {http://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/who-decided-what-went-into-the-bible.html}

Ireaneus 180 AD

Irenaeus quotes from 21 of the New Testament books and names the author he thought wrote the text. He mentions the four gospels, Acts, the Pauline epistles with the exception of Hebrews and Philemon, as well as the first epistle of Peter, and the first and second epistles of John, and the book of Revelation. He may refer to Hebrews (Book 2, Chapter 30) and James (Book 4, Chapter 16) and maybe even 2 Peter (Book 5, Chapter 28) but does not cite Philemon, 3 John or Jude.

The Muratorian Fragment: 190 AD

In A.D. 96, Clement of Rome wrote “The apostles were made evangelists to us by the Lord Christ; Jesus Christ was sent by God. Thus Christ is from God and the apostles from Christ. . . . The Church is built on them as a foundation” (1 Clement 42).  The Muratorian Fragment lists writings that a group in the church accepted as “scripture”.  It was written around 190 AD.

Eusebius: 330 AD

After 150 years of debating and circulating documents, Eusebius makes a list of which documents the church as a whole accepts, which ones are debated, and which ones are rejected. (http://www.bible-researcher.com/eusebius.html).

Constintine The Great: 331 AD

The Emperor of Rome wanted the church to formulate and print 50 bibles for the empire.  Eusebius was commissioned to this task.  He most likely recommended the list he formulated.

Cyrl of Jerusalem: 350 AD

He listed the Gospels (4), Acts, James, 1–2 Peter, 1–3 John, Jude?, Paul’s epistles (14) as scripture.

Athanasius: 367 AD

In a Easter letter to another church, he lists books of the new testament.  The exact ones that were canonized today.

Gregory of Naziazus: 380 AD

He compiled a list of scripture that agreed with Athanasius’ list.

The Test:

Because of these two major incidents in the early church; the church asked five very important questions to help discover and determine genuine writings from the apostles and prophets.

1. Was the book written by a prophet of God?

2. Was the writer confirmed by acts of God?

3. Does the message tell the truth about God?

4. Did it come with the power of God?

5. Was it accepted by God’s people?

Conclusion:

After 400 AD it was clear that the church as a whole accepted what we have now as the divine word of God for the New and Old Testament.  All these books were scrutinized by the Jews for hundreds of years, then tested by Christians for hundreds of more years.  After all the research and testing, The books that we have now passed the test of time and debate.

The continuous rejection of The Bible will always be.  The Sanhedrin did not understand the Old Testament  nor did they believe Jesus.  Millions of self proclaimed ‘Christians’ have left the church over the hundreds of years due to their rejection of the tested and accepted books of the Bible.

No matter what anyone says about The Bible.  It has been tested and debated.  It has proven to be reliable and unchanged.  It has changed millions of lives and forever changed history.  In Pauls letter Romans, he even makes the point that no matter the rejection of man, God’s Word is always true and stands the test of time.

Man did not decide for themselves what The Bible is; they were merely led by the Spirit of God to discover it.