March 2015 - Bible Authenticity

MYTH: THE BIBLE IS UNRELIABLE AND NOT TO BE TRUSTED

March 10, 2015 BibleAuthenticity Comments 0 Comment

Is the Bible a trustworthy document? Are the Scriptures I true as written? Or are they full of myths that may have I symbolic value but little if any basis in fact? People have mm been questioning the biblical record almost from its beginnings. Peter, for instance, encountered skepticism as he presented the gospel in the first century His claims about Jesus were nothing but cleverly devised fables, some said—a charge he vehemently denied (2 Pet. 1:16). Today the Bible’s credibility and authority are still attacked. Yet how many of its critics have carefully studied its teaching? How many have even looked at the story of how it came to be written? read more

Was the Babylonian Captivity a Literal Seventy Years?

March 9, 2015 BibleAuthenticity Comments 0 Comment

Is the Bible reliable? — Was the Babylonian captivity a literal seventy years?

“These nations will be enslaved to the king of Babylon for seventy years. But when the seventy years are over, I shall punish the king of Babylon and that nation, Yahweh declares”—Jeremiah 25:11,12 NJB

“For Yahweh says this: When the seventy years granted to Babylon are over, I shall intervene on your behalf and fulfill my promise to you and bring you back to this place”—Jeremiah 29:10 NJB

The prophetic expression describing the time of Judah’s captivity as “seventy years” (Jeremiah 25:11,12; 29:10) has prompted speculation throughout the history of Biblical interpretation. The “seventy years” that Jeremiah predicted involved Judah and other nations being “enslaved to the king of Babylon,” and Judah being ‘brought back to its homeland’ after the “seventy years” were complete. read more

Archaeological Evidence of Darius I, King of Persia

March 9, 2015 BibleAuthenticity Comments 0 Comment

Darius 1, king of Persia, is mentioned in the Bible books of Ezra and Haggai. There is also external historical and archaeological evidence of his activities, which supports the Bible record.

“Work on the Temple of God in Jerusalem then ceased, and was discontinued until the second year of the reign of Darius King of Persia”—Ezra 4:24 NJB. “The second year of Darius’s reign was 520 B. C.”—NLT footnote

“They came to do the work in the house of the LORD of hosts, their God, on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month in the second year of Darius the king”—Haggai 1:15 NAB. “This event occurred on September 21, 520 B. C.”—NLT footnote read more

When Was the Book of Daniel Written?

March 9, 2015 BibleAuthenticity Comments 32 comments

When was the book of Daniel written? The dating of when the book of Daniel was written is controversial. Popular, common arguments, even by Biblical “scholars” nowadays, claim that the writer of Daniel was pseudonymous, and therefore a fraud. So they date the book of Daniel as being written in the second century BCE, during the time of the rule of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-164 BCE).

CRITICAL SCHOLARS CLAIM THE WRITER OF DANIEL IS A FRAUD

“You may be privately wondering, ‘How are we to tell that a prophecy does not come from Yahweh?’ When a prophet speaks in the name of Yahweh and the thing does not happen and the word is not fulfilled, it has not been spoken by Yahweh. The prophet has spoken presumptuously. You have nothing to fear from him”—–Deuteronomy 18:20-22 NJB. This verse is a Biblical test of whether prophecy is genuine, or not. To portray something as prophecy, when it was actually written after the fact, is fraudulent, and violates the principle expressed above. Yet, this exactly what critics claim the book of Daniel is — a fraud! read more

Who Wrote 1 Peter and 2 Peter?

March 7, 2015 BibleAuthenticity Comments 0 Comment

Who wrote 1 and 2 Peter, two letters of the 27 books of the New Testament? Many critics say that they written by a pseudonymous writer, or writers, falsely claiming to be the apostle Peter, and especially is this said about 2 Peter, which is arguably the most disputed book in the New Testament.

Early Church’s View of Literary Works

“Words . . . by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 1:17 LSB; 2 Peter 3:2) were considered to be authoritative. However, early Christians were advised to be cautious. “MY beloved, do not believe every prophecy, but examine the prophecies to find out if they are of God: because many false prophets have appeared in the world” (1 John 4:1 Lamsa Bible).
Therefore, the early Church viewed literary works which claimed to be written by an apostle, or one of their close associates, or that claimed to be scripture, in several ways (Eusebius, History, 3-25), which are: read more

The Greek Septuagint Use in the New Testament

March 6, 2015 BibleAuthenticity Comments 3 comments

Christian readers are sometimes puzzled when they read a quotation from the Old Testament in the New Testament, and then, in looking up the quoted Old Testament text in their Bible, they discover that it is somewhat different from the cited quotation in the New Testament. Often, this difference is based on the fact that the Old Testament has been translated from Hebrew Scripture Master Texts which are primarily based the manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible from the Masoretic text of the 6th to 10th centuries C.E., whereas the New Testament is citing the same passage as it appears in the early Greek translation of the Old Testament, known as the Greek Septuagint Version (LXX). read more

What Is The Apocrypha, or Deuterocanonical Books?

March 5, 2015 BibleAuthenticity Comments 0 Comment

Which books should be in the Bible? Why are some of the books called canonical, and others are called Apocrypha, or Deuterocanonical?

“Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms”—Luke 24:44 NIV

Jesus referred to the Hebrew scripture Bible canon, by referring to the three sections that the Jews divided it into. These sections comprise the 39 book Old Testament, from Genesis through Malachi.

As the early church developed, Gentile believers needed to be taught “sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1). Although Jesus, Paul and the apostles exclusively used the Old Testament (referred to in Luke 24:44) as their canonical Bible, Gentiles also encountered many other Jewish religious texts among the Greek scrolls of the Scriptures. Over time some Gentile believers began to embrace these books as authoritative, and debate over their place in the churches has raged ever since. read more

The Documentary Hypothesis

March 4, 2015 BibleAuthenticity Comments 0 Comment

Until fairly recently a majority of scholars espoused the Documentary Hypothesis to explain the composition of the Pentateuch, the first five Old Testament books. This theory asserts that these writings were actually based on four books, none still extant, referred to (for ease of identification) as J (Yahwist or Jahwist), E (Elohist), D (Deuteronomist) and P (Priestly Code). The main arguments for this theory are the existence of repetition and apparent contradiction within these five books, as well as the use of different names for God. According to this hypothesis: read more