What is so great about the Bible?
The Bible is the foundation for Christianity. It is God’s divine revelation to us letting us know how much He loves us and His intense desire to have a personal relationship with us. The Bible is an accurate historical record and it can be trusted. The modern-day Bible has existed for nearly 2,000 years. Nations have banned it and burned it, yet it is still the best-selling book of all time.
The entire Bible has been translated into 698 languages and the New Testament portion of the Bible has been translated into 1548 different languages. No other book even comes remotely close to that. It is the most influential book that has ever been written.
The Bible is inspired by God, not dictated word by word. He is the one behind it, even though it was written by men. It reveals who God is, what God has done, that God wants a relationship with us, and what God has promised us. It answers the big questions of life. Who created the cosmos and why? What is God like, what is His character? What is the purpose or meaning of life? How should we live and treat others? What happens after we die? The Bible has been called “The instruction book for living a life of excellence” and it is.
Where did the Bible come from? Who wrote it and why?
The Bible is a library of 66 books written by 40 different authors in the languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, over 1,500 years, yet it conveys a unified message. It is factual with names, dates and places. It has been “fact checked” over many, many centuries. Archeological digs validate the people, places, and times of the Bible. Even historians that oppose Christianity validate the Bible. Titus Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian in the first century wrote of Jews that referred to Jesus as the Messiah, although he himself opposed this. Cornelius Tacitus, a noted Roman historian in the first Century, wrote about Jesus and His crucifixion at the hands of Pontius Pilot, and about Christians in Rome. Tacitus also mentions James the brother of Jesus, a key leader in the early church.
The Old Testament is composed of 39 books, written between 1400 BC and 400 BC. It describes covenants or contracts between God and men, especially the nation of Israel. The first 5 books of Moses cover the period of history from the creation of the Earth through the life of Moses. The Old Testament points to a new covenant that begins with Jews and extends to all nations.
The New Testament is composed of 27 books written by 9 authors between 50 and 100 AD. Most of them met Jesus personally, Mark and Luke based their accounts on research and information gathered by eyewitnesses. All but the book of Revelation were written within 30 years of Christ’s death and resurrection. Which books were to be included in the New Testament was formally decided at church councils in the 4th century, but these books, which were written as letters, were already in wide circulation within a few years of being written. They often included greetings to specific people (see Romans 16) or mention names of people that their readers would know. “And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross.” (Mark 15:21)
Has the Bible been changed?
Some people say that the miracles in the Bible were added later by the Church to impress people with Jesus’ life and teaching and to make Him more supernatural. A little research and logic is enough to find this an unreasonable position. There were other gnostic gospels about the life of Jesus that were circulated during the Middle Ages that added stories about Jesus. But these are clearly unreliable and have been rejected for centuries by scholars.
The Bible we have today is virtually identical to the Bible as written. The Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1948 contain most of the Old Testament and date back to the 3rd Century BC! There are over 5,000 early manuscript copies of the New Testament books in existence today. These 5,000 can be compared to each other to see how accurate the copies are. We can be more confident of the books of the Bible than any other recorded history of the Romans, or Greeks or other civilizations.
The historical evidence for the Bible far surpasses any ancient document and the gap between the original writers of the New Testament and our earliest copies is negligible. Copies of the scriptures were made by hand until the invention of the Gutenberg press in 1440. Due to the importance of the Bible much care was taken in its preservation. Researchers have identified a few places where the earliest handwritten manuscripts differ from later manuscripts. Most of these changes are just a word or two, but there are two larger sections. One is found at the end of the Gospel of Mark (16:9-20). The other is in the Gospel of John (7:53-8:11). Many Bibles will footnote these discrepancies between the earliest manuscripts and the later ones. No essential Christian doctrine depends on these sections.
If you think the Bible has been sanitized or edited, just read it and you will see that cannot be the case. The Bible records people and events with total honesty: the good, the bad and the ugly. Some of the main characters like King David or the Apostle Peter are shown with all their flaws and bad decisions.
Which parts of the Bible are authentic?
There are some people that want to pick and choose what parts of the Bible to follow. What a mistake! One commentator observed, “those who believe the entire Bible is not divinely inspired, believe they are divinely inspired to determine what is divinely inspired”.
The Apostle Paul wrote: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
The Apostle Peter wrote: “And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.” (2 Peter 3:15-16) This indicates that Peter viewed Paul’s letters (his contemporary) as sacred scripture.
Why are there so many different versions of the Bible?
The Bible has been translated by different people at different times with different audience reading levels. Our current versions use the earliest original texts available, just as translators Martin Luther (1483-1546 German), William Tyndale (1494-1536 English) and others used the best texts available to them. Some versions try to use a word for word translation even if it sounds more foreign and difficult to read. Other versions try to translate using a thought for thought approach, which makes them sound more natural. Many try to balance these two priorities. Regardless, they are virtually identical in their core message to us.
How can an ancient book like the Bible help me in this modern age?
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Psalm 119:105
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
Hebrews 4:12-13
God uses His word to do surgery on our hearts! And we certainly need it. Read the Bible itself, not just books about the Bible. Find a Bible at the bookstore or download a Bible app for Android or iPhone or Kindle from Bible.com/app or biblegateway.com/app. Many languages and translations are available. Start with the Gospel of John in the New Testament. Gospel means “good news” and this news is the person of Jesus Christ. To follow Jesus, we need to know Him. To know Him we read His word. Following Jesus will transform your life, guaranteed!
3 Popular Misconceptions About – What happens at death?
In our journey to life we really need to consider death. Ask those around you, and most assume they are going to heaven, if it exists. Let’s be clear about the importance of this topic. Whenever you talk about living forever somewhere, it would help to know for sure where …
Born of the Spirit, the Ultimate Secret
We don’t think much about the spiritual world in our post-modern age. Perhaps there are parts of the world where people worship spirits, but that does not concern us here in Europe. We believe in science. Actually, we have been deceived into thinking there is a contradiction between science and …
How to download the Bible (3026 versions)
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17