"All
Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching,
rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the
man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." 2 Timothy
3:16-17
Is the
Bible Divinely Inspired?
Inspiration
can be defined as the mysterious process by which
God worked through human writers, employing their
individual personalities and styles to produce divinely
authoritative and inerrant writings. (Norman Geisler, A General
Introduction to the Bible)
Inspiration
inevitably leads to inerrancy. Inerrancy means that
when all the facts are known, the Scriptures in their
original autographs, properly interpreted, will be
shown to be wholly true in everything they affirm,
whether this has to do with doctrine or morality
or with the social, physical, or life sciences. The
Bible claims to be inspired by God, and is thus inerrant
in its original writing
"The
bottom line is that the Bible has been breathed by
God. He used men to write out exactly what he wanted
them to write. He kept them free from error but at
the same time used their unique personalities and
styles to convey exactly what he wanted."
Josh McDowell
and Don Stewart, Answers
The Claims
of Scripture
Scripture
itself claims to be inspired by God. Other sacred
writings also claim inspiration, but history and
prophesy bear out the truth of the Bible's claim.
Many
verses make this claim, including countless uses
of the phrases "Thus says the Lord," "This
is what the Lord says," and others. A few verses
follow:
"But
they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned
their backs and stopped up their ears. They made
their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen
to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty
had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets.
So the Lord Almighty was very angry.
Zechariah
7:12
(Prophets
continually referred to other writings as having
divine authority. This is only one example.)
"All
Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching,
rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped
for every good work."
2 Timothy
3:16-17
"For
the word of God is living and active. Sharper than
any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing
soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the
thoughts and attitudes of the heart."
Hebrews
4:12
"He
(Jesus) said to them, 'This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything
must be fulfilled that is written about me in the
Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.'"
Luke 24:44
"Your
word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.
I have taken an oath and confirmed it, that I will
follow your righteous laws."
Psalm
119:105
"And
we have the world of the prophets made more certain,
and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to
a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns
and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above
all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture
came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For
prophecy never had its origin in the will of man,
but men spoke from God as they were carried along
by the Holy Spirit."
2 Peter
1:19-21
"When
Moses went and told the people all
the Lord's words and laws, they responded
with one voice, 'Everything the Lord has said we
will do.' Moses then wrote down everything the Lord
and said."
Exodus
24:3-4
Many
times, as in the following verse, God commanded his
prophets to write his words. (See also Jeremiah 36:28;
Isaiah 8:1; Habakkuk 2:2; among others.)
"Go
now, write it on a tablet for them, inscribe it
on a scroll, that for the days to come it may be
an everlasting witness."
Isaiah
30:8
In
John 10:35, Jesus refers to the writers of Scripture, "to
whom the word of God came--and the Scripture cannot
be broken."
These
are only a few verses that show the Scriptures themselves
claim to be Scripture--inspired by God and written
at his request. This holds for the original writings,
not the inspiration of copyists, though we covered
the amazing accuracy with
which the Scriptures have been transcribed through
the centuries in the Bible, Old
Testament and New
Testament.
"Although
only the autographs (original writings) are inspired,
it may be said nevertheless that all good copies
or translations are adequate."
Josh McDowell, The New Evidence the Demands a Verdict
"The
Bibles we have today are accurate transmissions of
what existed two thousand years ago. We simply have
a translation in our current language of the God-breathed
Scriptures that were originally written in Aramaic,
Hebrew, and Greek.
Josh McDowell, The New Evidence the Demands a Verdict
What
we have is, for all practical purposes, the inspired
word of God.
Other
than the Bible's own claims, there are supports that
it is God's word.
Unity
The
unity of the Bible bears witness to its divine inspiration.
Despite the fact that it was written over a period
of about 1,500 years by more than 40 authors, there
is one unfolding story of God’s plan of salvation
for mankind. It is one astoundingly continuous work.
Testimony
of Early Christians
We
also have the testimony of early church. We know
from Scripture and from other sources that these
words were considered the Word of God from the time
they were first set down. In the case of the New
Testament writings, we have other writings of the
day referring to the letters of Paul and Peter, as
well as the Gospels, as Scripture.
The Jewish
People
One
of the strongest arguments for the existence of God
and proof of his Word is the existence of the Jewish
people.
About
4,000 years ago, God promised Abram, "I will
make you a great nation, and I will bless you and
make your name great; so you shall be a blessing:
And I will bless those that bless you and the one
who curses you I will curse: and in you all the families
of the earth will be blessed." (Gen. 12: 2,
3)
"And
the Lord said to Abram, Now lift up your eyes, and
look from the place where you are northward and southward
and eastward and westward; for all the land which
you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants
forever." (Gen. 12: 14, 15)
In
other words, God promised to Abram:
● 1. A great nation
● 2. A great name
● 3. Being a blessing to all nations
● 4. A land which shall forever belong to his
descendants
Several hundred years later, the nation numbered in the millions. They
were about to enter the land of promise when God
gave them some promises and warnings. He warned (Deuteronomy)
against disobedience. He promised he would use other
nations to remove them from that land if they were
unfaithful to him. He predicted that they would be
scattered across the whole earth as strangers in
unfamiliar lands and that they would find no rest
from their wanderings. God also promised he would
bring them back into their own land.
What
has been the verdict of history? The children of Israel fell into idolatry and were removed from
their homeland. In 606 BC King Nebuchadnezzar took
the people captive to Babylon and returned in 588-586 BC to burn the city
and temple.
God
allowed his people to return to their land in 537-536
BC, or after 70 years (Ezra 1). The removal from
their homeland occurred a second time in AD 70 when
Titus the Roman destroyed the city of Jerusalem and scattered the people.
For
almost 1900 years, the Jews wandered about the earth
as strangers who were persecuted from every side,
until World War II, when six million Jews were put
to death in concentration camps. In 1948, Israel was re-established as a nation, and Jews
began returning to their homeland from all ends of
the earth. Since then, they have survived the 1967
Six-Day War and the 1973 Holy Day War.
Through
all that time, the nation neither perished nor lost
its national identity. History has demonstrated that
any people who leave their homeland will, after about
five generations, lose their national identity by
being absorbed into the new culture, but the Jews
remained a distinct entity. They have survived, while
the nations that persecuted them (Moab, Ammon, Edon, Philistia, and many others) have either been completely
destroyed or completely lost their identity.
"Have
you ever heard of a Swedish Moabite? A
Russian Philistine? A German Edomite? An American Ammonite? No! These people have been totally absorbed
into other cultures and races. However, have you
ever heard of a Swedish Jew? A Russian Jew? A German Jew? An American Jew? Yes! As prophesied, they have not lost their
identity."
Josh McDowell
and Don Stewart, Answers
Prophecy
Confirms Divine Inspiration
Fulfilled
prophecy serves as some of the most convincing proof
that the Bible is the inspired Word of God.
"The
purpose of prophecy is to let us know that God exists
and that he has a plan for this world. But the foretelling
of people, places, and events hundreds of years before
their occurrence, the Bible demonstrates a
knowledge of the future that is too specific
to be labeled a good guess. By giving examples of
fulfilled prophecy, the Scriptures give a strong
testimony to their own inspiration."
Josh McDowell
and Don Stewart, Answers
"I foretold
the former things long ago, my mouth announced them
and I made them known; then suddenly I acted, and
they came to pass. For I knew how stubborn you were;
the sinews of your neck were iron, your forehead
was bronze. Therefore I told you these things long
ago; before they happened I announced them to you
so that you could not say, 'My idols did them; my
wooden image and metal god ordained them.' You have
heard these things; look at them all. Will you not
admit them ?
"From
now on I will tell you of new things, of hidden things
unknown to you. They are created now, and not long ago; you have not heard of them before today. So
you cannot say, 'Yes, I knew of them.' You
have neither heard not understood; from of
old your ear has not been open."
Isaiah
48:3, 5
"Paul,
a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle
and set apart for the gospel of God--the gospel he
promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy
Scriptures regarding his Son ...'
Romans
1:1-4
Fulfilled
prophecy as proof of the Bible's inspiration/accuracy
"And
we have the world of the prophets made more certain,
and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to
a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns
and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above
all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture
came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For
prophecy never had its origin in the will of man,
but men spoke from God as they were carried along
by the Holy Spirit."
2 Peter
1:19-21
"According
to Deut. 18, a prophet was false if he made predictions
that were never fulfilled. No unconditional prophecy
of the Bible about events to the present day has
gone unfilled. Hundreds of predictions, some of them
given hundreds of years in advance, have been literally
fulfilled. The time (Dan. 9), city (Mic. 5:2) and nature (Is. 7:14) of Christ's birth were foretold
in the Old Testament, as were dozens of other things
about his life, death, and resurrection (see Is.
53). Numerous other prophecies have been fulfilled,
including the destruction of Edom (Obadiah 1), the
curse on Babylon (Isaiah 13), the destruction of Tyre (Ezekiel
26) and Nineveh (Nahum 1-3), and the return of Israel
to the land (Isaiah 11:11). Other books claim divine
inspiration, such as the Koran, the Book of Mormon,
and parts of the [Hindu] Veda. But none of those
books contains predictive prophesy. As a result,
fulfilled prophecy is a strong indication of the
unique, divine authority of the Bible."
Norman Geisler,
William Nix,
A General
Introduction to the Bible
Micah
predicted that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem. Zechariah predicted that the Messiah would
ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, that he would be betrayed by
a friend for thirty pieces of silver, that his hands
and feet would be pierced, that his bones would not
be broken. Specific details, not
vague generalizations that could be interpreted to
fit many situations. And they all came true
with 100 percent accuracy.
"Even
a casual awareness of the prophecies concerning the
Messiah must convince all but the most biased reader
of the truth of the Bible."
Josh McDowell, Don't Check Your Brains at the Door
The
chances of that happening by coincidence, according
to Peter Stoner in Science Speaks, are 1 in 10 to
the power of 157, or the number 10 followed by 157
zeros. You can't imagine a number that big or a probability
that small.
"For
prophecy never had its origin in the will of man,
but men spoke from God as they were carried along
by the Holy Spirit."
2 Peter
1:21
Prophecy |
Where prophesied |
Fulfillment |
Jesus would be born of a virgin |
Isaiah 7:14 |
Matthew 1:28-25 |
Of the tribe of Judah |
Genesis 49:10 |
Luke 3:23, 33 |
Descended from Jesse |
Isaiah 11:1 |
Luke 3:32 |
Of the house of David |
Jeremiah 23:5 |
Luke 3:31 |
Born in Bethlehem |
Micah 5:2 |
Matthew 2:1 |
Preceded by a messenger |
Isaiah 40:3 |
Matthew 3:1-2 |
Enter Jerusalem on a donkey |
Zechariah 9:9 |
Luke 19:35-37 |
Betrayed by a friend |
Psalm 41:9 |
Matthew 26:48-50 |
Betrayed
for thirty pieces of silver |
Zechariah 11:12 |
Matthew 26:15 |
Silent before his accusers |
Isaiah 53:7 |
Matthew 27:12 |
Hands and feet pierced |
Psalm 22:16 |
Luke 23:33;John
20:25 |
Crucified with thieves |
Isaiah 53:12 |
Matthew 27:38 |
Interceded for his persecutors |
Isaiah 53:12 |
Luke 23:34 |
Garments parted |
Psalm 22:18 |
John 19:23 |
Lots cast for garments |
Psalm 22:18 |
John
19:24 |
Gall and vinegar offered to him |
Psalm 69:21 |
Matthew 27:34 |
His bones not broken |
Psalm 34:20 |
John 19:33 |
His side pierced |
Zechariah 12:10 |
John 19:34 |
He was buried with the rich |
Isaiah 53:9 |
Matthew 27:57-60 |
His resurrection |
Psalm 16:10 |
Acts 2:31 |
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