THE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES and CHURCHES OF CHRIST
Christian Military Fellowship
Fred's Facts 1 |
 Fred & Grandson Noah |
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THE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES and CHURCHES OF CHRISTChristian Military Fellowship
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The Bible is different things to different people. To some it is merely a book of great literature---the greatest prose and poetry ever written. To others it is a book of spiritual messages sent by a great God to the people whom He created. To still others, it is a book written by men seeking to create a god that would give meaning to their lives. The Bible IS enormously great literature. And it IS a book of spiritual messages sent by a great God to men and women He created. And it is certainly NOT a book written by men to create a god because they needed a sense of purpose! However, I prefer to think of the Bible as a Book of Facts from God---Life-Saving Facts! Some of the most obvious Facts contained in the Bible are that (1) God created the universe and mankind, (2) God loves the men and women He created, (3) men and women sinned against God, (4) God hates sin, (5) God sent His Son, Jesus, to die on the cross to atone for mankind's sins and effect a reconciliation for mankind with God, and (6) God gave us His Holy Word---the Bible---to give us the guidance we need to be reconciled to Him. |
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Fred's Facts is intended to be a page of discussion of the Bible's Life-Saving Facts. It will be a fact-based discussion and not idle speculation of what may or may not be implied by passages of Scripture. It is my contention that a perfect God would choose to communicate to us in a simple manner so that we could understand His message by careful study of the Bible text, without our needing to "read between the lines" and resort to highly speculative theories. Fred's Facts will include Bible studies, Christian history studies, and hopefully provocative discussion of Bible-based subjects of interest to servicemen and women. This page will also include offers of free Bible study materials and many other features, as we develop them in the months ahead. Suggestions from readers on subjects to be included in these studies and discusssions are welcome and should be sent to Fred at cmf@cncnet.com! Following is our first study: |
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The starting point for anyone seeking God is the Holy Bible. By observing God's universe, we can come to the realization that a powerful God created it, but we will not learn much beyond that. So we will come to have faith in God, for the most part, to the extent that we accept the Bible as God's inspired, infallible Word. But how can we know that the Bible is from God and not from men? What is the evidence that proves it so? Must we just choose to believe it based on blind faith? Or is there real, objective evidence to base our faith on? The answer to the last question is a resounding, "Yes!" We do accept the Bible on faith, of course---but it's NOT blind faith. Our faith in the Bible is REASONED faith, based on the substantial evidence that exists as to its validity. The evidence for its validity is both INTERNAL (contained within its text) and EXTERNAL (verified by ancient Bible manuscripts, archaeological discoveries, early Christian and non-Christian writers, etc.) |
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The strongest internal evidence for the Bible's validity is the fact that the Bible was written over a period of about 1500 years (1400 B.C. to 100 A.D.) by several dozen different human writers. If God had NOT been involved in the Bible's creation, and it had been an entirely human document, it would be a chaotic hodge-podge of ideas and full of doctrinal contradictions. And if the books of the Bible were really written hundreds of years after the historical periods that they cover (as many critics claim), they would be full of historical, geographical, and other factual errors concerning people and places. But, instead, the Bible is a document containing a CONSISTENT THEME from cover to cover (God's effort to reconcile sinful man to Himself) and NO DOCTRINAL CONTRADICTIONS that critics have ever been able to establish. Moreover, the extensive findings of archaeology over the past two centuries have PROVEN countless Bible facts, rather than identifying any historical, geographical, or other factual errors. Let's look at just one example. 1 Kings 22:39 says, "Now the rest of the acts of Ahab, and all that he did, and the IVORY HOUSE THAT HE MADE, and all the cities that he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?" For many years Bible critics made fun of this passage, saying no palace made of ivory existed. But in the 1930s archaeologists excavating Ahab's capitol of Samaria found incredible quantities of ivory splinters at one location. Additional digging made it clear that the walls of the palace's rooms had been completely decorated in CARVED IVORY RELIEFS and that it was filled with IVORY FURNITURE. No one writing several hundred years later could possibly have known that! |
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The manuscript evidence that supports Bible accuracy is OVERWHELMING. Looking at just the New Testament, there are over 5500 early Greek manuscripts of all or part of the New Testament. And there are more than 10,000 New Testament Latin manuscripts and more than 9300 manuscripts in other languages. The earliest of these manuscripts is a fragment of the Gospel of John dated by scholars as being produced about 120 A.D., less than 25 years after the accepted date of the apostle's death. About 50 other fragments of New Testament books have been dated at less than 200 years from the date of their original writing. By comparison, manuscript evidence for other ancient writings is minimal and not near as old. Caesar's Gallic War, written about 50 B.C. exists in only ten copies, the oldest made 900 years later. The Roman History by Livy (59 B.C.-17 A.D.) has only 35 of its 142 volumes still in existence in a total of 20 copies, the oldest from the 4th century A.D. The Histories of Tacitus (100 A.D.) has only four and a half of its 14 volumes in existence today, and 10 of the 16 volumes of Tacitus' Annals still exist. But these two books exist in only one copy each, one from the 9th century A.D. and the other from the 11th century A.D.---700 and 900 years after they were written. And the History of Thucydides (460-400 B.C.) exists in eight manuscripts, the oldest copied 1300 years after it was written! Yet today's historians base their own books on this information without giving it a second thought! Also, comparison of the oldest manuscripts of the Old and New Testament to much younger manuscripts demonstrates that very little variation exists in the text, and most of it consists of spelling variations and minor copying errors. The Dead Sea Scrolls, found in 1947, included scrolls of every book of the Old Testament except Esther, all copied prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., many dating from the first and second centuries B.C. The most important of the scrolls was a leather scroll of the complete book of Isaiah which has been dated 100 to 200 B.C., hundreds of years older than any copy of Isaiah previously found. This copy varied from the text of Isaiah used today only INSIGNIFICANTLY! In other words, the BOOK OF ISAIAH REMAINS ESSENTIALLY UNCHANGED AFTER 2100 YEARS! |
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Manuscripts of the writing of church leaders in the early centuries of the church (often referred to incorrectly as "the Apostolic Fathers") contain enormous numbers of quotations from the New Testament. They are so numerous that if all manuscripts of the New Testament had been lost, WE COULD REASSEMBLE IT IN ALMOST ITS ENTIRETY FROM JUST THEIR QUOTATIONS! Some of the earliest of these writing were from Clement of Rome (about 96 A.D.); Ignatius (died 107 A.D.); Polycarp, a disciple of John the Apostle (died 155 A.D.); Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp (died 200 A.D.); Clement of Alexandria (died 220 A.D.); Tertullian (died 220 A.D.); Origen (died 254 A.D.); and Eusebius (died 339 A.D.). The New Testament quotations from just these seven early church leaders actually total more than 36,000 quotations! |
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The above information is hardly more than a quick overview of the evidence which exists for the authenticity and accuracy of the Bible. But it should suffice to convince the reader that there IS a very large amount of evidence in support of the Bible as the inspired, infallible word of God! Anyone wishing to explore this subject further will be able to find a mountain of information in the following books by the late English scholar F. F. Bruce: "The New Testament Documents: Are they Reliable?," William B. Erdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI, and "The Canon of Scripture," InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. Other good sources are "The Origin of the Bible," edited by Philip W. Comfort, Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton, IL, and "How We Got the Bible," by Neil Lightfoot, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI. The CMF also offers a FREE 40-page study, "The Origin and History of the Bible," which we would be happy to send you for the packaging and mailing fee of $2.00. Just mail a check in that amount to: CMF, PO Box 2408, Oroville, CA 95965. Comments and questions concerning the above article are invited and may also be sent to that address or E-mailed to Fred, cmf@cncnet.com. |