This weekend, I had the privilege of tackling a question in the series we’re doing at Journey Church called, Answers to Sticky Questions Christians Hope No One Will Ask.  Check out the message here by clicking the series title-> Answers To Sticky Questions Christians Hope No One Will Ask

The question: Is the Bible reliable? Can the Bible be trusted? (I realize that’s two questions, thankyouverymuch).

If you came here looking for dance moves, you too, won’t be disappointed (check out this video: dance moves at Church)… but let’s move to the heart of the matter!  What will follow is not just a summary of this weekend but also some sources, links, and “extra” bits of intrigue.

Simply stated, all of this information that follows is essentially irrelevant if we, as followers of Jesus, aren’t engaging in relationships that welcome AND allow “sticky questions” that often lead to challenging conversations.  We must create an atmosphere in which it is not only OK, but applauded, when we are asked difficult, intimidating, sticky questions.

And now I humbly step off my soap box…

I’ll make this simple (or as simple as I can).  We’ll only go in two directions (following chapter 3 of Mark Mittelberg’s book, The Questions Christians Hope No One Will Ask: (With Answers):

1.  Alleged Gospel Contradictions

2. Objections to the Bible

First up, alleged Gospel contradictions.  Here are some of the better known Gospel “contradictions” that people come across…

Case #1:  What was really written on the cross above Jesus’ head?  Every Gospel has something different:  Matthew 27:37, Mark 15:26, Luke 23:38, John 19:19

Case #2:  How many angels were at Jesus’ tomb after the Resurrection?  Matthew 28:2 mentions one angel, Mark 16:5 says there was “a young man” in the tomb, and Luke 24:4 mentions two men clothed in dazzling robes.

Case #3:  How many blind men greeted Jesus outside Jericho?  Matthew 20:30 says two, neither is named and Mark 10:46 mentions one, named Bartimaeus.

Case #4:  How many demon-possessed men did Jesus meet in the region of the Gadarenes?  Matthew 8:28 says Jesus met two while Mark 5:2 mentions one.

Case #5:  How many donkeys did Jesus ride on as He entered Jerusalem?  Matthew 21:7 mentions two, a donkey and a colt.  Mark 11:7 and Luke 19:35 only mention one, a colt.  And this raises another issue:  Is the prophecy in Zechariah 9:9 wrong because it mentions both a donkey and a colt, and therefore supports Matthew but seems to contradict Mark and Luke?

Case #6:  Did the centurion outside Capernaum ask Jesus to heal his servant, or was it someone else who came to Jesus?  Matthew 8:5 says it was the centurion and Luke 7:3-6 says the centurion sent two Jewish elders, then some friends, to speak to Jesus on his behalf.

Case #7:  How did Judas die?  Matthew 27:5 says he went out and hanged himself while Acts 1:18 tells us he fell, and “his body split open, spilling out all his intestines.”

All great questions which leads to the question, “How do we respond?”  If we remember the story of Mittelberg’s friends who died a tragic death from the weekend’s message, we’ll remember that eyewitness accounts can sometimes lack the “complete” story while still remaining true. In light of that understanding, let’s look at each case.

Case #1:  As Mittelberg states, if the sign on the cross over Jesus actually read in full, “This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews,” then the Gospels are all correct, just incomplete.  Each has part of the statement, and all of them have the primary element, “the King of the Jews.”  And get this!  John 19:20 adds the detail that the sign was written in 3 different languages.  Could some of the variation from Gospel to Gospel be on account of each recording only of the 3 translations?

Cases #2-5:  Here’s how Mittelberg explains it:

“I walk out of a room and say, ‘There’s a chair in there.’  You walk out of the same room and say, ‘There are ten chairs in there.’  Our statements don’t conflict with each other — you’re just giving more detail than I was.  Notice that i did not say, ‘There’s only one chair in the room,’ just that ‘There’s a chair in there.’  If there are one hundred chairs, we’re still both right; we’re both just telling part of the story.

Remember your first grade math:  ’one plus one equals two.’  In the story of the Resurrection, where two angels appear, there is obviously also one angel present; the text doesn’t say ‘one and only one angel.’  Matthew and Mark, who mention one angel speaking, are giving partial details; Luke adds a bit more by also mentioning another angel.  And when Mark says ‘a young man,’ he’s describing one angel’s appearance (Luke does this as well when he mentions ‘two men… clothed in dazzling robes’).  Although this kind of ‘math’ is not required to figure out the vast majority of the biblical accounts, it does help make sense of a few passages, like those mentioned in this chapter:  two blind me equals one plus one other, two demon-possessed men equals one plus one more, and so forth.  And a donkey and its colt are still two donkeys.”

Case #6:  Let me summarize… If the centurion sent delegates to speak on his behalf, then very simply, the centurion can be described as “saying” what his delegates said.  As we all know, this is common even today.

Case #7:  Up front, it’s important to know that the question of how Judas died is considered by some to be one of the greatest challenges of the Bible’s accuracy.  And this last case brings us back to the initial story of Mittelberg’s friend and the tragedy involving their mother and how seemingly “irreconcilable testimonies” can be harmonized once we learn the full story.  Mittleberg tells what could have happened like this:

Realizing that he had betrayed the very Son of God and refusing to come to God for grace and forgiveness, Judas decided to do the unthinkable. He went out to a field and found a tree at the top of a rocky cliff, hastily threw a rope over a branch, secured one end of the rope to the tree, and tied the other end around his neck.  As his final destructive act, he swung himself over the precipice.  [This squares with the account in Matthew 27:5.]  But then, whether before or after dying of strangulation, either the rope or the branch broke, and his body went tumbling down onto the rocks below, disemboweling him in the process and ensuring his demise if he hadn’t passed away already [thus explaining the record in Acts 1:18].

In all of this we find that many of the so-called contradictions could be reconciled with a fair reading of the text.  Hmmmm.  A couple sources to continue your study if you so desire:  The Big Book of Bible Difficulties and New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties.

Objections: Here’s a look at the four objections from this weekend.  Obviously, there are more objections but you’ll have to read Mittelberg’s book to get a grasp on those.  Let’s go!

#1: Up first, The Bible is very old and was written by gullible, illiterate people; therefore we can’t trust it. Here’s what Mittelberg had to say because I couldn’t say it any better myself:

“Yes, they were simpletons all right – that’s why people of that age memorized huge portions of every conceivable kind of literature; rabbis formed schools to train young men in theology, who would then pass on that learning verbatim to successive generations; ancients had detailed calendars that kept track of the movement of the planets, the changing of the seasons, and the timing of upcoming solar and lunar eclipses; the circumference of the earth had already been calculated (despite a spherical earth being a topic of debate); and people navigated land and sea without detailed maps or GPS systems – while we, in all our modern wisdom, can’t find our car keys, figure out what day of the week it is, or remember how to get to the doctor’s office!”

Also consider this:  In the years when the New Testament was being written, the church was NOT widely accepted. Many people were losing their lives for supporting Christianity for boldly professing “Jesus is Lord” while refusing to confess the state-mandated “Caesar is Lord.” Obviously, it’s true that people die believing in errors, these early Christ Followers were close enough to the events to know that what they believed was actually true.

Almost all of Jesus’ companions lived lives of deprivation and suffering, dying martyrs’ deaths, because they believed Jesus had really risen from the dead and appeared to them after the resurrection. Which begs the question – Who dies for something they KNOW is false? Nobody. Yet these early followers of Jesus kept proclaiming these truths, even as they were being fed to lions or burned at the stake or crucified upside down.

#2:  The Bible was written too far after the events actually happened to be considered reliable. I’m about to use some Scripture.  But remember, it’s not exactly going to fly to use Scripture when stating the the reliability of Scripture unless you already profess to trust in the Scripture.  However, this is worth sharing:  Let’s look at 1 Corinthians, widely accepted as as being written by the apostle Paul no later than AD 56 and he died about AD 64, so all of his writings were penned during the lifetimes of those who had walked and talked and associated with Jesus. Here’s what he says in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 3-9,

3 I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. 4 He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. 5 He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve. 6 After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7 Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him. 9 For I am the least of all the apostles. In fact, I’m not even worthy to be called an apostle after the way I persecuted God’s church.

How does this support the Bible’s reliability?  Well Paul is quoting formal creedal teaching that he had received. He didn’t make up the story of the Resurrection; it was so well known that a formalized statement of it had been developed and taught to him – a primitive catechism, if you will. Many scholars believe Paul received this creed, in verses 3-7, from Peter and James while visiting them in Jerusalem three years after his conversion. That would be within in 5 years of the Jesus’ crucifixion!

In fact, historian Gary Habermas (click Gary’s name to find access to his work and don’t judge him based on his website), lists 39 ancient sources OUTSIDE OF THE BIBLE that provide over one hundred facts about Jesus’ life, teachings, death, and resurrection.  Wow!

The conclusion in all of this, is that the CENTRAL message of the Bible stands strong:   Jesus lived, His activities and teachings were written down within the lifetime of those who knew Him, and the claim of the resurrection, incredible as the event seems, was made from the very beginning of the spread of Christianity. And Jesus, born a Jew, was worshiped as God.

#3:  Even if it was accurate at first, the Bible was copied and translated so many times that it surely has been corrupted. I found that the this objection was repeated so often that people don’t really think about what they’re saying.  The case they make in objection to the Bible often plays out like a game of “Telephone.” You know, where you get in a line of people, usually children and whisper a word in the first persons’ ear.  Some people have the misconception that the Bible was produced the same way… first written in Greek, translated to Latin, and then German, and then Old English and so on, until we end up with the Bible we’re reading today.  That’s not true.  All reputable versions begin with the oldest and best Greek manuscripts for the New Testament and Hebrew manuscripts for the Old Testament.  Or consider this:

Dramatically, when the Bible manuscripts are compared to other ancient writings, they stand alone as the best-preserved literary works of all antiquity. Remarkably, there are thousands of existing Old Testament manuscripts and fragments copied throughout the Middle East, Mediterranean and European regions that agree phenomenally with each other.  In addition, these texts substantially agree with the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, which was translated from Hebrew to Greek some time during the 3rd century BC.  The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in Israel in the 1940′s and 50′s, also provide astounding evidence for the reliability of the ancient transmission of the Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament) in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd centuries BC.

The manuscript evidence for the “New Testament” is also dramatic, with nearly 25,000 ancient manuscripts discovered and archived so far, at least 5,600 of which are copies and fragments in the original Greek. Some manuscript texts date to the early second and third centuries, with the time between the original autographs and our earliest existing fragment being a remarkably short 40-60 years.

Interestingly, this manuscript evidence far surpasses the manuscript reliability of other ancient writings that we trust as authentic every day. Look at these comparisons: Julius Caesar’s The Gallic Wars (10 manuscripts remain, with the earliest one dating to 1,000 years after the original autograph); Pliny the Younger’s Natural History (7 manuscripts; 750 years elapsed); Thucydides’ History (8 manuscripts; 1,300 years elapsed); Herodotus’ History (8 manuscripts; 1,350 years elapsed); Plato (7 manuscripts; 1,300 years); and Tacitus’ Annals (20 manuscripts; 1,000 years).

#4:  How can one religious book be right and all the others wrong? Isn’t it more likely all contain some truth, and all contain some error? Here’s what’s different about the Bible… it goes beyond giving good advice. It teaches about a Savior, about the need to rely on His righteousness instead of our own. It breaks down our pride and reminds us that we are no better than any other person on the planet. We are all sinners, we are all in need of a Savior. It tells us we cannot save ourselves, no matter how hard we try, and so we must accept God’s plan for redemption instead of constructing our own.

The Bible also has predictive prophecy, which was later fulfilled… to the letter. For instance, Isaiah 53 is clearly an amazing prophecy of the suffering of the Messiah but it was written more than 700 years beforehand. It describes in advance how Jesus “was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.” However, that’s not the only thing that blows me away. What really shows the divine insights of prophets like Isaiah or Zechariah is that these words were written not only hundreds of years before the life and death of Christ but also centuries before the Roman practice of crucifixion, with its horrific piercing of the hands and feet with nails that were pounded into the wood of the cross, have even been invented! Gasp, right?!

Suffice it to say, no other religion has this kind of prophetic fulfillment.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with David’s (my friend) response:

“There’s no other book like the Bible in existence. Consider that it was written on 3 continents (Africa/Asia/Europe) over a period of 1,500 years, by 40+ authors in all walks of life. For a little context, the United States is barely over 200 years old. Despite that, it still has a central theme and unfolds into a real story. Predictions have been fulfilled within it, and archeology continues to confirm it’s historical facts. There has been no book put under more scrutiny throughout the centuries, and yet it is still holding its own and changing lives for the better.”

Boom, fist pump!

And there you have it!  If you have any questions that need further exploring, feel free to contact me:  http://www.facebook.com/christownley

However, as I mentioned during the weekend service, I believe that in the end we will all find what we’re looking for.

Here’s to looking…