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[Dove]

This question is for those of you who believe the Bible is “the Word of God” and refer to scripture as “God’s Word.”

Why do you believe that?

Where did you get that belief?

For context, I was raised with this belief, but it was something taught as a given, not reasoned. I’m curious if this is the case for others as well.

Alternatively: If you are a Christian who doesn’t believe the Bible is “God’s Word,” feel free to explain why here as well. I’d like to hear both Christian views.

[jimwalton]

Yes, the Bible is the Word of God. But no one can PROVE the Bible is the Word of God. It's a theological perspective, not a provable events.

But here's why I believe it is. Hundreds, if not thousands, of times, the writers say, "And the Lord said." The Bible is God's revelation of Himself, and therefore His word. The Bible is God's interaction with humanity and His involvement in history, and therefore His word. The Bible is God's instructions to us about how to fulfill our creation mandate which is how to be in relationship with Him, and therefore it is God's word.

In addition, we can assess the value of the words by examining their merit as (1) historical record, (2) accurately describing humanity, (3) evidencing wisdom, and (3) conforming to truth. Anyone can read the Scripture and tell it is not the distorted words of posers.

In addition, the absolute brilliance of the literature of the Bible, along with the unity and consistency the Bible displays in theme and teaching, combined with the prophecy and fulfillment shows that the Bible is above purely human capability.

Now let's get into it a bit. Third, but I believe there are plenty of evidences that lead me to plausibly accept the Bible as the Word of God.Any lawyer will tell you there are different kinds of evidence: material evidence, circumstantial evidence, testimonial evidence, anecdotal, statistical, reasoning, documentary, historic, scientific, etc. Different kinds of evidence are valid in different situations. For instance, a lawyer may use scientists, eye-witnesses, circumstantial evidence, and testimonial evidence to bring his case to a jury, who must weigh the various evidences to arrive at a verdict. If science were the only evidence, court cases would be decided by scientists, not juries. But a whole lot more is involved. Evaluating the Bible is more like a court case than a science experiment. We have to use the proper measures in appropriate places. Miracles can't be proven by science because they're not repeatable on demand, or even able to be studied by reproducibility in controlled environments (the only appropriate arena for scientific inquiry).

Here are some of the reasons I believe in the Bible:

1. Corroboration with history (history is always a matter of interpretation of records). The Bible has shown itself to be true in the relating of historical events.

2. Corroboration with archaeological finds (becoming more scientific all the time, but still subject to a vast amount of interpretation)

3. Corroboration with known cultural (in history) markers.

4. Corroboration with known geographical information.

5. Reliable anecdotal evidence from trustworthy sources.

6. Reason: The Bible gives a well-reasoned and consistent perspective and interpretation of life as we know it. The picture it presents makes sense.

7. Testimonial evidence (of people currently alive), consistent from person to person, of life change founded in a religious experience as described in the Bible. People's lives are still being radically changed by what they say is the truth of the Bible and the Holy Spirit inside of them.

8. Current realities (like the existence of the state of Israel and the existence of the Church) that don't make as much sense outside of the environments and interpretations described by the Bible.

9. The eyewitness accounts of the Bible ring true.

10. There is no hint of any kind of conspiracy, fraud, or collusion.

11. The writers of the Bible exude nobility, morality, and honor. To accuse them of deliberate deception is unreasonable. There is no hint that these men were insane. While they certainly lived in a non-literate culture, they didn't live in an illiterate one. These people were obviously not buffoons, barbarians, or blockheads, but were demonstrably fairly cogent and logical.

12. The consistency of theme, theology, and focus from over 40 authors from 3 continents over a span of 1600 years is unearthly.

13. Prophecy and fulfillment

14. The events they wrote about were public occurrences, not private experiences. Detecting fraud or error would have been easy.

15. Their writings have been pored over for millennia and have been accepted by great numbers of scholars.

16. The Bible has an unearthly kind of power to change lives for the people who submit to its teachings.

Well, that's 16 off the top of my head, at least enough to stimulate dialogue.

[Sergeant Obvious]

Interesting answer. I would like to take a few of these and present some counter evidence.

Number one is factually untrue. While there are instances where the facts conform to history? There are a great many that do not. The census of the Gospels? Fabricated. There was never a census that required you to return to the home of an ancestor from 1,000 years ago. And we have good data about the Roman census process. It required you, if you were away from your home, to return there. Not the home of a distant ancestor.

I would like to take this point by point to avoid a wall text if that is alright with you.

Regards.

[jimwalton]

> Number one is factually untrue.

Au contraire. Number one is factually true.

> There are a great many that do not.

Generalizations are worthless in a discussion like this. You'd have to bring up at least a few specific instances for conversation.

> The census of the Gospels? Fabricated.

Not necessarily so, and probably not, since Luke was such an accurate historian.

By AD 6 wide-scale censuses were taken every 14 years. If we trace backwards, 14 years earlier would have been in 8 BC, a very probable date for Jesus's brith. The Deeds of the Divine Augustus (paragraph 8, lines 2-4) reveals that Emperor Caesar Augustus himself ordered a census in 8 BC —a census that from the record sounds empire-wide in scope (with 4 million citizens in an empire in which most people were not citizens). In a world where travel was slower and there were only limited means of slow communication, it is plausible to assume that such a registration could take years to announce and execute. If the registration were proclaimed in 8 BC, we can visualize Joseph and Mary traveling the next year to fulfill the requirements, and Jesus being born soon after that.

> There was never a census that required you to return to the home of an ancestor

A.T. Robertson reports, "A number of papyri in Egypt have the heading enrollment by household (apographe kat’ oikian). Here again Luke is vindicated. Each man went to the town where his family register was kept."

Craig Keener adds, "Although Egyptian census records show that people had to return to their homes for a tax census, the home to which they returned was where they owned property (again, for taxation purposes), not simply where they were born. It’s possible, if this were the same kind of census, that Joseph still owned property in Bethlehem."

[Larynx]

Ah yes, the historically accurate, global flood, /s

[jimwalton]

The Bible doesn't demand a global flood. For instance, we know from the Bible that "all" doesn't always mean "all." This is where a little more probing beyond the simple words of the text is beneficial.

In Gn. 41.57 (same book, same author), we read that "all the countries came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph because the famine was severe in all the world." Was Brazil experiencing famine? Did the Australians come to Joseph? No. "All" means the countries of the immediate vicinity in the ancient Near East.

Also, Deut. 2.25 (same author): "I will put the...fear of you on all the nations under heaven." Did that include the Mayans? The people of Madagascar? I don't think anyone would argue that this refers to more than the nations of Canaan, and perhaps a few others.

Another example is from Exodus. In Ex. 9.6 we learn that the plague on livestock killed "all" of the Egyptian livestock. Or did it? In the very next plague, the animals get the boils too. But aren't they all dead? Nope.

There are plenty of other references like this throughout the Bible (Acts 17.6; 19.35; 24.5; Rom. 1.8). We have to give serious consideration that quite possibly "all" doesn't mean "global". We have to take "all" in context and figure out what the author meant by it. In this case, it's hyperbole to make a theological point.

The story of the Flood is much more about order, non-order, and disorder than it is about universality. In the ancient world, water was the most widely recognized element of non-order (chaos). God had ordered the world to function as His temple (Genesis 1). Humankind considered themselves to be better sources of order than God (Gn. 3), and we see what happened when they had control (Gen. 4-6: sheer disaster). Since humanity had insisted on being the center of order, and since they had undeniably created quick a bit of disorder, God used the element of non-order as their mode of judgment to bring balance back to the world and to once again bring order to the world to function in a certain way (Gn. 9.1-17: there are many similarities between Genesis 1 and Gen. 9.1-17).

On top of all this, it is well known from ancient sources that the rhetoric of universality was a common literary and theological device of the ancient world: “Sargon conquered the whole world”; “All the nations came to buy grain from Joseph in Egypt”; “And they killed every man, woman and child.” The rhetoric of universality was especially common in situations of cosmic catastrophe: “All the cattle died”; “the sun, moon, and stars fell from the sky.” The ancients used the language of universality and hyperbole to communicate important theological messages.

[Dove]

Can you clarify for me? Couldn’t “and the LORD said” being repeated throughout scripture indicate that only those portions are a record of the actual words of God?

[jimwalton]

Great question. Yes, "and the Lord said" are the parts where God actually spoke. They are not the only parts where God spoke (such as places like Matthew 3.17), but you're right that those are the voice of God. But the Bible is clear that the rest of it was given by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1.20-21) and breathed by God through its authors (2 Tim. 3.16), so that we can affirm the authority of the rest of it as well in that way.

[Dove]

Wouldn’t both 2 Peter & 2 Timothy be referring to the Hebrew Bible’s Law & Prophets (only) since those were the only “Scripture” that was canonized at the time of their writing?

[jimwalton]

Michael Knowles fills us in on this question:

"[2 Timothy 3.16] may refer to just the OT, but Paul and the apostles considered their writing and preaching as inspired by God and derived from God. 1 Thes. 2.13: His contrast between the Word of God and a human word is categorical. Cf. Gal. 1.11. Still more explicit is 2 Cor. 2.17 (cf. also 2 Cor. 4.2; Col. 1.25; Titus 1.3). Luke, too, frequently refers to the preaching both of Paul and of other apostles as constituting the 'Word of God' (Acts 4.31; 13.5; 17.13; 18.11, etc.)."

Lock adds that the "all" scripture stems from verse 15:

"everything that has been recognized as authoritative Scripture, which would include Paul's writings and the Gospels—as soon as they were written they were considered authoritative Scripture."

As far as 2 Peter is concerned, you'll notice that Peter is putting himself in the camp of the prophets when he says in v. 16, “we did not follow cleverly devised stories...but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” Then he makes reference to the Mount of Transfiguration experience. But when in 19 he says, “We also have the prophetic message,” he is taking the same stance of the author of Hebrews, who in Heb. 1.1-2 that the revelation of the Son is superior to the revelation through the prophets, and Peter, as the receptor of divine revelation, also qualifies as an inspired prophetic voice. What God’s spokesmen proclaim bears divine authority.