Old Testament Proof
PSALM 119:33-40
Imagine if I got together with 10 people and began telling them a story. But instead of telling the whole group the story, I whispered it to 1 person. And this story was not long, only about 15 to 20 sentences. And that 1 person was to tell that story to the next person, and-so-on, till all 10 people heard the story. Then, if I asked each person to repeat the story they heard, you would most likely hear vastly different stories, at least different than the one I told to that first person. You see, things can easily get distorted as the story is passed on. Names, events can all change, and the story can become distorted and inaccurate in a very short period of time.
Now when we speak of the Bible, the Words of God, many people take that illustration and come to the conclusion that the Bible could not be accurate. You see, the Bible was composed over a 1,500 year time span, from around 1400 BC to 90 AD. Thus, in that period of time there must have been numerous mistakes made in the transmittal of this book. Many additions, subtractions to what we call the Bible had to be made with all the copying that was done during that period of time. Not true as we shall see!
In fact there were over 40 different authors that penned the 66 books we call the Bible and they came from a variety of walks of life. We see kings, peasants, fishermen, poets, statesman, scholars, and-so-on. And not only did over 40 authors pen the Bible, but it was written on 3 different continents: Asia (Ezekiel in Babylon), Africa (Moses in the deserts of Sinai), and Europe (Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians while in Rome). It was also written in 3 different languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
And yet as we read this book we see one unfolding story of God's love for man and His plan to redeem man back from his dead spiritual condition. It is as Geisler and Nix put it, "The 'Paradise Lost' of Genesis becomes the 'Paradise Regained' of Revelation. Whereas the gate to the tree of life is closed in Genesis, it is opened forevermore in Revelation."
With all that in mind, turn to Psalm 119 and lets begin reading in verse 33. And remember that the entirety of Psalm 119 extols the Word of God and the blessings to those who keep it. We see 176 verses that speak of the importance of the Word of God in our life, and if God took so much time to speak, we would be wise to listen to what He has to say.
PSALM 119:33-40
The Psalmist is declaring his love, his steadfast love of the Lord and His Word. He speaks of his refusal to waste his time, his energy on things that are worthless. The Psalmist desires that which will build him up, not tear him down, and thus, he clings to the Word of God. He had a hunger to know God and that hunger could only be quenched by the Word of God.
Many scholars have come against the accuracy of the Bible, stating that these stories were written long ago, long after the events even took place. In a Time magazine article titled "Are The Bible's Stories True?", from December 18, 1995, we read "Most Scholars suspect that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Judaism's traditional founders, never existed; many doubt the tales of slavery in Egypt and the Exodus; and relatively few modern historians believe in Joshua's conquest of Jericho and the rest of the promised land. In the most extreme view, all of the above are complete fabrications, invented centuries after the supposed fact."
The story continues on "At last month's annual meeting in Philadelphia of the Society Of Biblical Literature And The American Academy Of Religion, the preeminent conference on Bible scholarship in the world, they were out in force...Radical minimalist John Van Seters of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, summed up many of their commonly held positions. The oldest books of the Old Testament, he declared with Pope-like confidence, weren’t written until the Israelites were in exile in Babylon, after 587 BC. There was no Moses, no crossing of the Sea, and no revelation on Mount Sinai."
Interestingly enough, after saying all that, they tell us "The Bible version of Israelite history after the reign of King Solomon, for example, is generally believed to be based on historical fact because it is corroborated by independent accounts of kings and battles in Egyptian and Assyrian inscriptions of the time." Just because you have not found historical evidence yet of things that transpired some 3,000 to 4,000 years ago, doesn't mean it did not happen! They feel that the Biblical stories are true when they can be substantiated by historical records, but the Bible is in error when these things have not been found yet. Instead of feeling that way, believe what the Bible has to say until it has been proven wrong. Never has there been an archaeological find that has disproved the Bible, only substantiated it. And it is interesting to see that once the evidence is found, the skeptics are mysteriously silent or try to dismiss it, and it only makes them look foolish.
In the days we are living in, when Bible criticism is running at an all time high, and many are coming against the faith we hold dearly, we need to heed the words of Peter when he said "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear." I Peter 3:15.
Over the next two weeks we are going to be looking at the evidence that shows the accuracy of the Bible and thus, for our faith in God and His Word. In doing so, I pray, that we will be able to give to others the reasons why we believe what we believe. That we could defend our faith and show that it is not a mindless adherence to man-made rules and regulations. But it is a relationship with the true and living God that begins in our hearts and is manifested in our lives!
This week we will be looking at the reliability of the Old Testament. And next week we will conclude by looking at the reliability of the New Testament. And, again, I pray that as we go through this study that we would develop a hunger for God's Word, to desire to know Him more and to listen to the things He is trying to show us. And as we get to know Him more that we take what He has given to us, and share that faith with others.
Let's begin in the book of Genesis, and listen to what Professor Albright has to say regarding the table of nations found in Genesis chapter 10. He says "It stands absolutely alone in ancient literature without a remote parallel even among the Greeks...'The Table of Nations' remains an astonishingly accurate document... (It) shows such remarkably 'modern' understanding of the ethnic and linguistic situation in the modern world, in spite of all its complexity, that scholars never fail to be impressed with the author's knowledge of the subject."
Now why in the world would I start out with the book of Genesis? Because if the book of Genesis is not historically trustworthy, if it were not true, then simple logic would tell us that the rest of the Bible is not true also.
Higher critics tell us that Genesis could not have been written by Moses, for writing was not yet established yet. Thus, this information, especially the first 11 chapters of Genesis, were derived from myths and the ancient Babylonians. But, Ralph Linton, an evolutionary anthropologist admits "Writing appears almost simultaneously some 5000-6000 years ago in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley." So writing was around during the time of Moses and he could have easily written the book of Genesis, as well as the rest of the Pentateuch.
Now I like to go to an even higher source to substantiate that Moses wrote the first 5 books of the Bible. You see, Jesus tells us that Moses not only wrote Genesis, but the Law of Moses, the Torah in the Hebrew, which consisted of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, which we call the Pentateuch.
In Luke chapter 24, Jesus said "And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself...These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me."
Luke 24:27, 44.
Again, just because we have not found outside sources, other than the Bible, to substantiate these names, doesn't mean we won't, but even if we can't find the name "Moses" in any historical record, understand how old these records would have to be, and I think it would be easy to understand why we can't find any outside record. You see, time has a way of destroying the record, but that does not negate the words found in the Bible, not one bit.
I like the way that Nelson Gluek puts it, he is one of the leading Palestinian archaeologists of our times. He said "As a matter of fact, however, it may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has every controverted Biblical reference. Scores of archaeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or in exact detail historical statements in the Bible."
As for those who believe the oldest parts of the Bible were written during Israel's captivity in Babylon, I have some bad news for you. Back in 1979 Israeli archaeologist Gabriel Barkay found two tiny silver scrolls inside a tomb in Jerusalem. There were dated around 600 BC, shortly before the destruction of Solomon's Temple and the deportation of the Southern Kingdom of Judah to Babylon. As they carefully unrolled the scrolls at a museum in Israel, they found a benediction from the book of Numbers etched into their surface. Thus, parts of the Old Testament were written and copied long before their exile in Babylon.
In 1990 Frank Yurco, an Egyptologist at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, discovered these writings on a stele, which is an upright stone slab or pillar engraved with an inscription or design. On this stele there is a description of a military victory by the Pharaoh Merneptah. It reads "Israel is laid waste." This stele is dated 1207 BC and it tells us that the Israelites were a distinct population more than 3,000 years ago, and not just because the Bible tells us so!
In 1993 Avraham Biran of Hebrew College - Jewish Institute of Religion and Joseph Naveh of the Hebrew University, announced they had found an inscription bearing the phrases "House of David" and "King of Israel". Interestingly enough the writing was dated to the 9th century BC, only a century after David's reign. Thus, it is hard to defend the skeptics claim that king David never existed, for here is proof!
Now some may argue that even though some of the history of the Bible may be correct, but its transmission over the years has changed the truth that has occurred over the years. It has been embellished, things added and things taken away from the original text. Thus, to come to the conclusion of the higher critics, the stories we have in our Bible today are completely different than what actually took place. They understand that passing a story on from one person to another can easily change the story, let alone passing these stories over thousands of years.
First of all Peter tells us "And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." II Peter 1:19-21.
Prophecy is not just speaking of some future event, it is also speaking forth the words of God. And Peter is saying that God's Word is more sure than what he saw with his own eyes. If you read that chapter you will find that Peter is speaking of what he saw on the mount of Transfiguration, the Glory of the Lord. In other words, he trusted more in God's Word than what he truly saw with his own eyes. Why? Because God's Word was not written by man, but the Holy Spirit. You see, man was only the instrument in which God used to pen these words. Think of writing a letter, the pen did not write it, you did, but the pen was the instrument that was used to pen those words. God used holy men, as instruments, to pen His Words.
Secondly, we have to understand how meticulous the writers were in copying the various Old Testament Scriptures. Listen to what the First-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus recorded regarding the reverence they had for the Scriptures. He said "We have given practical proof of our reverence of our own Scriptures. For, although such long ages have now passed, no one has ventured either to add, or to remove, or to alter a syllable; and it is an instinct with every Jew, form the day of his birth, to regard them as the decrees of God, to abide by them, and if need be, cheerfully die for them. Time and time again ere now the sight has been witnessed of prisoners enduring tortures and death in every form in the theaters, rather than utter a single word against the laws and the allied documents."
Thus, throughout the centuries the Jewish scribes took great care in copying the Scriptures, for they believed they were copying God's Word. Because of that, William F. Albright, dean of American archaeologists, said "We may rest assured that the consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible...has been preserved with an accuracy perhaps unparalleled in any other New Eastern literature."
Now the oldest complete manuscript of the Old Testament we had came from 916 AD. That is some 1400 years after it was written, and many argued that it had to be unreliable since all that time has passed from the original writings to the manuscript of 916 AD. That was until 1947 when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.
The Dead Sea Scrolls is the term that is used of the manuscripts that were discovered in 1947 in caves some 500 yards from the Dead Sea, in the area known as Qumran, along the Northwestern shore of the Dead Sea.
The story goes that back in 1947 a shepherd boy was herding his goats when one of them got lost in this area. And this Arab shepherd boy named Mohammed was looking for this stray goat in the Judean wilderness when he tossed a rock into the air. When the rock landed it fell into a cave and broke some pottery that was in this cave. In hearing the breaking of the pottery, it rose his curiosity and he went into this cave, which is now called cave number 1, and to his surprise he found jars filled with ancient scrolls, which lead to the search for other caves that nearly lasted a decade, once word got out. And during that time they found 11 caves producing over 800 scrolls and scroll fragments written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, covering a time period of almost 1000 years.
The chief categories represented among the Dead Sea Scrolls are as follows:
1. BIBLICAL - All the books of the Bible, the Old Testament, are represented in these finds, except one. The only book that was not found was the book of Esther.
2. APOCRYPHAL OR PSEUDO EPIGRAPHICAL - These books are omitted from various canons of the Bible, for they are not inspired books but do contain some historical information.
3. SECTARIAN - These scrolls relate to various ordinances that this community adhered to. Also, we find Biblical commentaries, apocalyptic visions, and liturgical works.
As they analyzed these scrolls, by carbon dating, it showed that most of them were written between 100 BC and 68 AD. But who were these people who lived out in the desert, away from civilization, and kept such accurate records of the Words of God, writing commentaries on the various books of the Old Testament, and adhered to a strict code of living?
It is believed that the people that wrote these scrolls were the Essenes, who were a separatist Jewish sect of the second temple period. They, in a sense, were religious zealots who withdrew from the corruption of the Greco-Roman culture, and the worldliness that crept into the priesthood. Thus, they separated themselves in the wilderness of Judea, in the area of the Dead Sea, known as Qumran, keeping themselves pure and awaiting the coming of the Messiah. Some believe that John the Baptist lived out in this area. Now they lived in this area known as Qumran from around 150 BC to 68 AD, 2 years before the Romans burned down the temple and destroyed the city of Israel, causing many to flee for their lives.
One of the most important finds was discovered in cave number 1, where two scrolls of Isaiah were found, one damaged, but the other one was complete, along with other scrolls. This 24 foot leather scroll of Isaiah could tell us the accuracy of the text transmission over a 1000 year period. You see, this scroll of Isaiah dates back to 100 years before Christ and the next closest text we have dates all the way back to 916 AD!
The fascinating thing about this is you can go to Israel today, and visit the museum called the Shrine of the Book, which holds this priceless Biblical manuscript, and if you were able to read Hebrew, you would discover your New King James Bible's reading of Isaiah is almost identical to this text that is over 2000 years old! There is no major difference between the two. Imagine that, the book of Isaiah has 66 chapters, 1292 verses, 37,044 words, and the integrity of the text has held up all these years for over 1000 years.
According to Norman Geisler and William Nix, in their book A General Introduction To The Bible, they said "Of the 166 words in Isaiah 53, there are only seventeen letters in question. Ten of those letters are simply a matter of spelling, which does not affect the sense. Four more letters are minor stylistic changes, such as conjunctions. The remaining three letters comprise the word 'light' which is added in verse 11, and does not affect the meaning greatly...Thus, in one chapter of 166 words, there is only one word (three letters) in question after a thousand years of transmission - and this word does not significantly change the meaning of the passage."
After comparing the entire Isaiah manuscript from the Dead Sea Scrolls with the present Hebrew text of Isaiah, Old Testament scholar Gleason L. Archer concluded that the Dead Sea Scrolls "Prove to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The 5 percent variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling." Not bad when you consider they did not have computers, spell-checking, and-so-on, as we have today.
If you had any doubt of the accuracy of the Old Testament, then the Dead Sea Scrolls should help clear that matter up right away. Yes, we don't have any of the original manuscripts of the Old or the New Testament, but looking at the various texts it shows how accurately they were copied and passed on. As the renowned archaeologist William F. Albright has said, "There can be no doubt that Archaeology has confirmed the substantial historicity of the Old Testament tradition."
Thus, we should be in awe of the Word of God. We should cling to it, believe it, apply it to our lives, just as the Psalmist did. He cried out to God to teach him the truth's of His Word, to open his eyes and his heart to the things of God, and not just to cling to worthless things. To see the rich and deep treasures that God has in His Word for him and for us!
How much time do we spend in front of the television set? How much time do we spend playing sports or reading books or magazines? Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with any of these things unless we let them steal our time away from God. You see, when compared with these activities, how much time do you spend in the Word of God? Ask God to revive your hunger for His Word, to help you to believe and apply His truth to your life.
The archaeologist, John Elder, offers a fitting conclusion to the issue of the Old Testament's reliability. He said "It is not too much to say that it was the rise of the science of archeology that broke the deadlock between historians and the orthodox Christian. Little by little, one city after another, one civilization after another, one culture after another, whose memories were enshrined only in the Bible, were restored to their proper places in ancient history by the studies of archaeologists...The over-all result is indisputable. Forgotten cities have been found, the handiwork of vanished peoples has reappeared, contemporary records of Biblical events have been unearthed and the uniqueness of Biblical revelation has been emphasized by contrast and comparison to the newly understood religions of ancient peoples. Nowhere has archaeological discovery refuted the Bible as history."
Thus, not only are the places, persons, and events listed during the different periods of the Old Testament history matched up to the facts and evidence from history and archaeology, but the transmission has been accurate, and Jesus put His stamp of approval by quoting from the Old Testament. As the Psalmist said "Forever, O LORD, Your word is settled in heaven. Your faithfulness endures to all generations; You established the earth, and it abides. They continue this day according to Your ordinances, For all are Your servants. Unless Your law had been my delight, I would then have perished in my affliction. I will never forget Your precepts, For by them You have given me life." Psalm 119:89-93.