The Divine Origin of the Bible
By Kevin Moore
The Bible claims to have come from God and to be all-sufficient to meet man’s spiritual needs (2 Timothy 3:14-17). The writers of the Bible allege to have received their information from God’s Spirit (2 Peter 1:16-21). The apostle Paul affirmed that the Holy Spirit revealed God’s message to specially chosen men, and when we read what was written we can then understand this divinely inspired revelation (Ephesians 3:1-5). While these statements, in and of themselves, are not absolute proof that the Bible is in fact what it contends to be, the absence of any such claims would be a strong argument against it. But how can one know for sure whether or not these claims are genuine? Is there any proof?
The Bible’s Remarkable Unity
The 66 books of the Bible were written over a period of about 1600 years by at least 40 different writers. The writers of the Bible were separated by time, geography, language, and culture, yet they participated in writing a book that is perfectly united in theme and in purpose. If the Bible were merely the product of 40 different human minds, we would expect it to be a disjointed compilation of contradictory ideas and themes. The unity of the Bible is convincing proof that it is the product of a single, superior Mind (2 Timothy 3:16).
The Impeccable Accuracy of the Bible
Archaeology has confirmed the Bible’s credibility time and time again. For example, there are over 40 references in the Bible to the Hittites (Genesis 23:10; 26:34; etc.), and the Bible was the only historical document that mentioned these people until 1906 when the ancient capital of the Hittite nation was discovered in central Turkey. The Assyrian king Sargon is mentioned in the Bible only in Isaiah 20:1, but he was never mentioned in any other extant historical records until 1843 when his temple, palace and numerous records were discovered near Nineveh. In the late 1800s Sir William Ramsay set out on an archaeological expedition in Asia Minor to disprove the historical accuracy of the book of Acts, but after years of exploration he was forced to conclude that Acts is accurate in every detail. Time magazine reported: “… an inscription unearthed in 1961 at Caesarea confirmed for the first time that Pilate was a first century Roman governor, as the Bible reports” (15 August 1988, p. 51). Unlike the writings of men throughout history, the Bible is not filled with mistakes and inaccurate information.
Fulfilled Predictive Prophecy
There are over 800 prophecies in the Old Testament, many relating to the rise and fall of various governments or individuals, each one fulfilled in every detail. Over 300 Old Testament prophecies relate to the initial coming of the Messiah (cf. Luke 24:27, 44; John 5:39). Mathematician Peter W. Stoner has estimated that if only eight of these prophecies were considered, the chances of one person fulfilling all of them is one in 100,000,000,000,000,000. It is statistically, mathematically, and humanly impossible that the fulfilled Bible prophecies happened by accident!
Indestructibility of the Bible
There has never been a book that has been under more attacks and attempted destruction than the Bible. Around 100 BC Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes burned all copies of Scriptures that could be found and made it a capital crime (punishable by death) to possess a copy. In AD 303 Roman emperor Diocletian ordered all Bibles destroyed, set out to exterminate Christianity, and had a medal engraved which stated: “The Christian religion is destroyed and the worship of the gods restored.” In the 1700s Voltaire said, “In less than a hundred years the Bible will be discarded and Christianity swept from the earth.” But despite all these attacks and more, the Bible is still thriving. All along it has affirmed that “the word of the LORD endures forever” (1 Peter 1:23-25).
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