02. the Cross in the Torah – Is the Bible reliable?

project poster tCitT (download here)

Christians who go out to share the gospel on the streets regularly have certainly encounter this question before: “Hasn‘t the Bible been corrupted?” Especially Atheists and Muslims often rephrase this question into a bold claim: “The Bible has been corrupted!” Spoken with so much confidence Christians who do not know the evidence will not only have no answer to this objection towards the Christian faith which is built on the word of God; sometimes they will even take a step back in their claims about the Bible looking defeated. The question is: Is this claim of the Bible being corrupted – either by manipulation or by bad preservation/translation – reasonable and can it be substantiated? If it was true that the Bible has been corrupted Christians would have no foundation to build their faith upon, not to mention to argue from. This is the topic of the first part of tCitT. Before we look into four different categories undergirding the reliability of the Bible, let us look briefly into the overall structure of the Bible so we have a common ground to start from.

the Structur of the Bible

The word Bible comes from the Greek word biblía and simply means “books”. It is a collection of scriptures which Christians claim to be the inspired word of God. In a total of 66 books, the Christian Bible was written by 40 different authors over a period of approximately 1,500 years. It is divided into the Old Testament (39 books) and the New Testament (27 books).

The Old Testament starts with the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). Genesis 1-11 describes God‘s history with all of mankind. It contains the following main stories:

• Creation (how God created the universe)
• Fall of Mankind (how sin entered the world)
• the Flood (how God restarted a wicked and rebellious world with only one family)
• the Tower of Babel (how God dispersed mankind across the globe)

The rest of Genesis and the Old Testament focuses on one particular family and its descendants: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob would later be renamed by God to Israel and his 12 sons would become the fathers to the 12 tribes of the nation of Israel.

The New Testament starts with four accounts of the gospel (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). The writers describe the life of Jesus from Nazareth (also referred to as the Christ or the Messiah) from different perspectives: What he said, what he did, and what ultimately happened to him at the hands of the Roman Empire (crucifixion). The gospels are followed by the book of Acts which describes the early church and puts a special focus on the apostle Paul. After that a collection of letters from the apostles to individuals or entire churches sheds light on what the first disciples taught and the problems they had to face in the first decades after Christ’s death and resurrection. The final book of the Bible and the New Testament is the book of Revelation.

the New Testament (NT)

People who claim that the Bible has been corrupted – either by intentional manipulation or by bad preservation/translation – overlook one, two or even all three of the following facts: The amount of manuscripts, the multitude of authors, and the time gaps between originals and first available copies.

When we contrast the amount of manuscripts available for the validation of the New Testament with manuscripts for other ancient writings it becomes abundantly clear that the Bible is by far the world’s best preserved book from ancient times. Together

• over 5,500 Greek manuscripts,
• over 18,000 translations,
• over 86,000 quotations in letters and sermons from the early church leaders

build a solid foundation for scholars to validate and refine the message of the New Testament in the discipline of textual criticism ^[1]. As time moves on the number of manuscripts even increases through new discoveries in archeology.

Furthermore it is important to notice that the New Testament was written by multiple authors spread across different countries over a period of decades in the first century. This makes the claim that the New Testament message has been changed by deliberate manipulation highly unlikely considering the nature of multiplication. The manuscripts of the New Testament were not written for the drawer or a collection: They were written for practical use, to preserve the pure message of the gospel, and to address crises at hand. As the disciples of Christ were making new disciples – thus spreading Christianity throughout the then known world – they would copy those manuscripts for teaching and edification of new local churches. If somebody wanted to intentionally change the message preached by the early church they would have had to intercept the copying process right at the beginning in different locations in order to have a chance to change the message on a broad scale.

However even if a coordinated effort to manipulate the message of the gospel on a broad scale had been undertaken yet another hurtle would have been necessary to overcome: Eye witnesses and apostles who took their responsibility to preserve what they believed to be true very seriously. We read in 1. Corinthians 15 that over 500 people had witnessed the risen Christ and in many documented cases those witnesses were willing to die horrific deaths for their beliefs ^[2].

Even though it is highly unlikely that the message of the New Testament has been changed, there is no doubt about the fact that there have been scattered attempts to do so. We actually read about the apostle Paul warning believers against people preaching a different gospel (Galatians 1) and there were accounts of the gospel – supposedly written by apostles – which were excluded from the canon of the Bible: The gospel of Thomas is a popular example worth mentioning. Paul and the other apostles openly opposed and warned against people who were trying to distort the truth: Doctrines about justification by faith, about whether or not rituals like circumcision were still necessary, etc. So it was a fight and they kept on fighting until the very end. Today we have in our possession the New Testament as a collection of books of whom we can be sure that they were written by the apostles or at least by their associates and personal helpers. With the closing of the canon we can also be sure that heresies emerging over the course of history were excluded from the New Testament.

The suggestion that the biblical message might have been changed by bad translation is not a valid one either considering that fact that we still have copies dating all the way back to only decades after the emerging of the originals in their original language. Furthermore the translation from one language into another through a bilingual person is an absolutely normal process today as it has been in the past: The author of this very project is bilingual and has English not as his native language. It is safe to assume that the early church living in a multilingual environment had members who were capable of translating parts of the New Testament into another language without losing the fullness of its meaning. Small differences called textual variants are mostly insignificant and don’t even effect the meaning of a sentence.

Much more could be said about this subject, the reliability of the New Testament. A reasonable closure of this chapter should be a quote by one of the leading New Testament text critics who is not a Christian:

“Essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.”

Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus [New York: HarperCollins, 2009], p. 252 ^[3]

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References and further resources

1. Rob Shiflet, Hasn’t the New Testament Changed? (Josh McDowell Ministry, 2018) [article]
2. John Foxe, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (1563) [book]
3. the Ark Encounter, Manuscript Evidence [article] [video] ^04min.

• Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World, rev. ed. (2017) [book] [video] ^51min.
• Sheri Bell, 8 Ancient Manuscripts That Validate the Bible’s New Testament (Josh McDowell Ministry, 2018) [article]
• Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ (1998) [book]
• Mike Winger, How We Got the New Testament: Evidence for the Bible pt12 [video] ^Series
  • Note: In general this series by Mike Winger is recommended regarding this subject ‘Reliability of the Bible’.

the Old Testament (OT)

In 1947 the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in caves near Qumran was a sensation which rocked the archaeological world. In the following years hundreds of fragments from ancient manuscripts were retrieved and examined. For 38 out of the 39 books of the Old Testament fragments were found. The biggest sensation however was a well preserved scroll of the prophet Isaiah which contained all of the 66 chapters. The scroll was dated back to 200 to 100 BC (before Christ) which made the discovery even more sensational: Up to that point only a Masoretic copy of Isaiah was available which meant that the copy found at Qumran was over 1,000 years older. Jews and Christians around the world were curious to hear what differences might have accumulated over the copying process of such a long period. Amazingly the comparison of the two texts revealed that besides small differences concerning spelling and grammar the overall message of the book Isaiah was not affected ^[1]. A great testimony to the care and accuracy the scribes put into the efforts of copying scriptures.

On top of that: Jesus frequently quoted passages from the Old Testament in the gospels (e.g. Matthew 4:4). The apostles continued to do so in the book of Acts (e.g. cha. 7) and in the epistles (letters of the New Testament). Not only does this underline the point that God does not change: It also reinforces the confidence which we can have in the accuracy of the Old Testament.

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References and further resources

1. Ellis R. Brotzman, Old Testament Textual Criticism: A practical introduction (1993), [book] ^{p. 87-96}

• Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World, rev. ed. (2017) [book] [video] ^51min.
• Sheri Bell, Ancient Manuscripts That Validate the Bible’s Old Testament (Josh McDowell Ministry, 2018) [article]
• Mike Winger, How we got the OT Canon: Evidence for the Bible pt11 [video]

Language

The historical records of the Chinese cultural go back over 4,500 years which means that their recording of history started around 2,500 BC. About the same time the Chinese language developed. Unlike many other languages in the world, the Chinese language does not utilize an alphabet which defines words and subsequent their meaning through differences in letter sequencing. Instead words in the Chinese language are represented by unique pictographs. Pictographs which are supposed to express more complex meanings are comprised out of a number of other pictographs. In combination those pictographs not only make up the desired meaning but in some cases they even tell a story. The following example will illustrate this pattern: The pictograph for ship ( 船 ) is comprised out of 3 parts: 1) boat/vessel, 2) eight, and 3) mouth/person. Combining all three elements the pictograph for a ship equates to

ship = “8-person-vessel”.

Why would the people who established the pictographs of the Chinese language use this combination? The answer becomes quite obvious when we compare dozens and dozens of pictographs with the first book of the Torah: The people who established the Chinese language apparently knew cha. 1-11 from Genesis, God‘s history with mankind, and they worked those stories into their language. In the case of the pictograph for “ship” the reflected story can be read in Genesis 6-8. Those chapters describe how God had had enough of mankind’s wickedness and decided to make a fresh start with only one righteous family. He told a man called Noah that he should build a big ship (called the ark) in which he, his family, and the animals each after their kind would survive. After Noah had finished the construction of the big ship, he, his family, and the animals entered the ark just in time before God flooded the earth to cleanse it from its wickedness. How many people were specifically mentioned in Genesis 7:7 to enter the ship? Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives … which equals 8 persons. Looking deeper into this subject reveals that details about Creation, the Fall of Mankind, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel are worked into the Chinese language.

The God of the Bible reveals himself time and time again. Not only in his creation (Romans 1:18-20), not only in his word (the Bible), but even in something as simple, detailed, and fundamental as language itself. Attributing dozens and dozens of these pictographs to coincidence and pure chance takes more faith than to believe that God preserved not only stories but even characteristic attributes about himself through the Chinese language. For the sake of brevity no further examples are given. However the reference section below as well as the video at the top of this page provide further information.

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References and further resources

• Kong Hee, God in ancient China [video] ^59min.
• google translate ^{(engl. – trad. Chinese)}
• www.bibleserver.com

Science & Reasoning

The chain on the upper part of the project poster is supposed to represent strength and continuity. Leading from the question on the left “Is it reasonable to believe that the Bible is reliable and truthfully preserved?” to the answer on the right “YES!”, the chain is supposed to symbolize that the evidence for the reliability of the Bible is strong and unbroken. However you will notice that there are marks on the chain links as if somebody had attempted to break the chain with an axe or a bolt cutter. Not hiding the fact that the Bible was and still is under attack and that Satan (the devil, the father of lies, John 8:43-44) is trying to cause damage to the credibility of the Bible, the marks have been added to the chain to reflect this reality. Especially the chain link “Science & Reasoning” has lots of those marks on it. Why?

The theory of evolution has been used since the 19^th century as a vehicle to attack the very name of God as it is described in the Bible: “YHWH” which means “I am”. This section will point out several fields in “Science and Reasoning” which confirm explicit and implicit statements made by different authors of the Bible while not going in too deep into the subject itself: Lots of ministries and scientists have done so already.

(a) The Bible claims that God made the universe from nothing (Gen. 1:1)
The Cosmological Argument states that the universe had a beginning (confirmed by leading scientists of our time) and therefore has to have a cause which (or who) is spaceless, timeless, immaterial, uncaused and powerful (refuting evolution which denies a first cause).

• reasonable faith, the Kalam Cosmological Argument [video] ^04min.
• Frank Turek, I don‘t have enough faith to be an Atheist (2004) [book] [video] ^98min.
• William Lane Craig, 5 reasons why God exists [video] ^28min.
• Stephen Meyer, 4 Great Discoveries of Modern Science That Prove God Exists (2018, John Ankerberg Show) [video] ^29min.

(b) The Bible as a whole claims that the universe including the earth is only thousands of years old
Taking into account the information given in the Bible concerning ages and time periods, the age of the universe adds up to thousands of years, not billions. The evolution theory is dependent on billions of years. A multitude of dating methods point to a young universe.

• The Ark and the Darkness [movie] ^132min.
• Walter Brown, In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, 8^th ed. [book] ^{p. 1-50}
• Jason Lisle, Creation Astronomy (Origins, 2016) [video] ^27min.
• D. Russell Humphreys, Evidence for a Young World (ICR, 2005) [article]

(c) The Bible claims that God created life (animals and humans) in a supernatural act (Gen. 1-2)
Considering the improbability of life evolving from non-living material (evolution theory), discoveries in modern science confirm that a supernatural act in the beginning of life was necessary.

• Tomorrow‘s World Viewpoint, What is the Probability of Life? [video] ^05min.
• J. Warner Wallace, God’s Crime Scene (2015) [book] [video] ^15min.
• Origin: Unlocking the Mystery of Life (Illustra Media, 2002) [article] [video] ^09min.
• Answers in Genesis, Science Confirms the Bible (2017) [video] ^58min.

(d) The Bible claims that everything God created was good and finished (Gen. 1-2)
Looking at the world today, how beautiful and complex even a small bacteria is, it becomes obvious that some form of an intelligent designer must have been at work. This becomes especially obvious when we look at the fine-tuned universe which makes life possible on planet earth through a multitude of conditions which have to be just right.

• Frank Turek, I don‘t have enough faith to be an Atheist (2004) [book] [video] ^98min.
• Living Waters, the Atheist Delusion Movie (2016) [video] ^62min.
• Ray Comfort & Jeffrey Seto, Made in Heaven, (Master Books, 2012) [video] ^01min.

(e) The Bible claims that God used a global cataclysmic Flood to wipe out a wicked humanity and to start again with only one righteous family (Gen. 6)
Many features in the earths strata can be best explained by a global cataclysmic Flood

• The Ark and the Darkness [movie] ^132min.
• Genesis Apologetics, Noah’s Flood and Catastrophic Plate Tectonics (2018) [video] ^23min.
• Walter Brown, In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, 8^th ed. [book] ^{p. 1-50}

(f) The Bible claims that God dispersed humanity by changing one uniform language into many different languages as they were building the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11)
Discoveries in Genetics not only show that the highest diversity in the genome is found in Africa (close to where the Bible claims that the Tower of Babel was built before the dispersion of humanity). Genetics also points back to a single woman (mtDNA).

• Robert Carter, Real Evidence of Eve (Origins, 2016) [video] ^27min.
• Robert Carter, Noah’s Flood Genetics (Origins, 2017) [video] ^27min.
• Georgia Purdom, Adam & Eve Genetics (Origins, 2018) [video] ^27min.

(g) The Bible makes medical and scientific claims which mankind just happened to understand and appreciate thousands of years later
Scientific facts about the earth, the universe, and medicine we take serious today because people in the scientific community have discovered them in. The Bible however stated multiple of those facts thousands of years earlier.

• Living Waters, Ten of the Top Scientific Facts in the Bible, 2017 [video] ^30min.

(h) The Bible claims that “wise man” or “Magi” became aware of the birth of the Messiah through events in the sky (Mt. 2)
As science advances, more and more things are discovered which corroborate key details of the biblical accounts. In the 2007 documentary The Star of Bethlehem a lawyer uses astronomy software to take a look at the sky to search for the star which announced the arrival of the Messiah.

• Frederik A. Larson, The Star of Bethlehem (2007) [website] [video] ^65min.

(i) The Bible claims that Jesus rose from the dead after having been crucified by the Romans ( Mt. 28:5-6 / Mk. 16:5-6 / Lk. 24:5-6 / Jn. 21:13-14 / Acts 1:1-3 / 1. Cor. 15:3-6 )
Since the resurrection would have been a onetime event in the past, it is not possible to apply the Scientific Method to test and observe this claim. However taking into account the biblical manuscripts mentioned earlier as well as extra-biblical accounts leads to one reasonable conclusion: The best way to explain the facts at hand is that Jesus really rose from the dead.

• The Resurrection Argument That Changed a Generation of Scholars | Gary Habermas [video] ^80min.
• Did the Resurrection Really Happen? | William Lane Craig [video] ^81min.
• Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ (2016) [book] [video] ^71min.
• Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World, rev. ed. (2017) [book] [video] ^51min.

We have God‘s word

In Psalm 119 the Bible states that God preserves his word. The following citations show verses 89-91 from two different translations, the King James Version (1611 AD) and the New International Version (1978 AD):

Comparing those two translations of the Bible helps us to understand that languages develop over time (thus making new translations necessary or at least helpful) and that two different translations of the same original text (in Greek) can convey exactly the same message by using different words. This goes for the Bible as a whole as well: The Bible tells us

1. who God is,
2. who we are,
3. that we as sinners have a problem in front of a holy and righteous God,
4. that God has created a solution in sending his Son Jesus to die in our place before rising from the dead, and
5. what we have to do in order to receive his gift of mercy.

Those are the key themes which never changed – and which will never change – in the Bible regardless of translation. To sum up this part of the project tCitT:

“Yes, it is reasonable to believe that the Bible is reliable and truthfully preserved!“

Navigation

1. tCitT – Introduction
2. tCitT – Is the Bible reliable?
3. tCitT – Genesis 
4. tCitT – Exodus 
5. tCitT – Leviticus 
6. tCitT – Numbers
7. tCitT – Deuteronomy 
8. tCitT – Bottom line
9. tCitT – download